---
title: "Designing from the Content/Story Out"
date: 2010-06-28
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $("
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2010/06/28/designing-from-the-contentstory-out/
---
# Designing from the Content/Story Out
You hear the result of this strategy most commonly in church talks. Someone is assigned a topic, or has a topic he or she wants to explore. To make the talk/presentation/essay appealing, he or she looks for stories to fit the theme. The result is that each story is moralistic, simplified, and often distorted to fit the speaker's purpose.

A better approach is to start from the story and see what theme it moves towards. In other words, follow the story to whatever theme/meaning it naturally leads you to, rather than trying to fit it into a pre-selected theme. Even if you want to take one path (in the photo below, for example, Mandan Cottages), if the story naturally pushes you toward another path (for example, Return to Sundance), go with the natural path of the story.

[![Sometimes you want to go one direction with a story, but it pulls you in another direction.](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/storypaths.jpg)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2010/06/storypaths.jpg)