Photo Credit: Jeremy Cowart Photography
After a late night, a delayed flight, and a panel discussion at a conference, Donald Miller was exhausted when I sat down with him a few months ago. Even with fatigue setting in, Donald Miller was excited to discuss three of his latest projects—Blue Like Jazz (the movie), A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (his new book), and The Open Table (a small group curriculum he developed with a friend). As it happens, each of the projects is tied together by story; the very theme that Miller posits can tie a life together.
Once upon a time, there was a guy who wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. Then, a million people came along and each bought a copy.
Early on in A Million Miles, Miller offers a brief recap of his career: “I wrote a memoir a few years ago that sold a lot of copies. I got a big head about it for a while and thought I was an amazing writer or something but I’ve written books since that haven’t sold, so I’m insecure again and things are back to normal.”
Miller goes on to admit that movies became a form of escapism for him, providing a brief distraction from his seemingly meaningless existence as a writer of “self-help-style books.” That all changed when he met Steve and Ben, two filmmakers who approached him about turning Blue Like Jazz into a movie. It was during the book’s adaptation process that Miller discovered how the structure of a good story might also make for a good life.
The fundamental definition of story, as Miller repeats time and again in A Million Miles, is “a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.” Though the individual character’s ambitions, conflicts, and resolutions vary from narrative to narrative, this structure undergirds the films and novels we know and love. As Steve and Ben applied that structure to Blue Like Jazz, Miller told me he realized the filmmakers had to change a lot to make his memoir “entertaining and meaningful.” In A Million Miles, he recalls an exchange in which he asks Steve and Ben what was wrong with the Don in the book. Essentially, he asked the pair what was wrong with the life he’d actually lived. Steve’s answer pierces Don. “A movie is going somewhere,” but Ben phrases it more bluntly: “What Steve is trying to say … is that your real life is boring.”
Confronted by the realization that his personal story lacks a noble ambition, and therefore, meaning, our hero embarks on a journey to reevaluate his life.
“The character’s ambition defines what the movie’s about,” Miller told me, “so if the character wants a Volvo the movie’s going to be about a guy who gets a Volvo or struggles to get a Volvo.” From that basic understanding of narrative structure, Miller gets personal. “And then if I watched a movie about a guy who got a Volvo I probably wouldn’t be very moved at the end of it. And so why should I expect if I’m going to spend the next five years saving up for a Volvo and get the Volvo that I would have any greater experience in my actual life?”
For Miller, the “your real life is boring” conversation could be considered an inciting incident—the moment in which a story really begins. An inciting incident starts the main character on his or her journey—toward their ambition and into the jaws of conflict—and there’s no turning back. As Don wrestles with the implications of story for his life, he takes note of the stories unfolding around him. At funerals and weddings, over coffee and other beverages, on hiking trips and kayaking trips, the author learns how to tell a good story with his life. A Million Miles is an engaging retelling of these experiences and revelations, along with concise lessons about the craft of storytelling as it pertains to literature and film. The book makes a case that is both technical and anecdotal for what amounts to a new framework for living. After all, the book’s original title was Let Story Guide You, and although that title was scrapped, that’s exactly what Miller is suggesting to his audience. Let the principles of story guide your life. Evaluate who you are as a main character. Revisit your life’s ambition. Prepare yourself for the conflict you’ll inevitably face. Press on toward resolution.
Upon committing to live a better story, the protagonist is beset by conflict.
As much as we prefer comfort to conflict in our personal lives, conflict is essential. Conflict makes a story interesting. It’s the source of drama. In order for a movie about a boxer to be interesting and inspiring, the contender has to step into the ring against a formidable opponent and the outcome of the fight has to be in doubt. If the hero or heroine gets everything he or she wants exactly when he or she wants it, the audience leaves unfulfilled. But beyond keeping the audience’s attention, conflict also serves the character.
“Without the conflict the character can’t change,” Miller explained to me. He continued, “Most of the conflict that we experience, I think, is God-ordained. Some of it is stuff that we’re [enduring] because we messed up or we’ve got to figure some of that stuff out, but I don’t think that’s the majority of the conflict that we experience. So I cherish it, and the Bible tells us to cherish it—‘Consider it joy when you encounter various trials.’”
When reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, some may find themselves surprised by the degree to which Miller pulls back the curtain on some of his internal and external conflicts. For starters, there’s the angst, loneliness, and insecurity derived from being a single, out-of-shape writer. Then, there are other episodes—surviving the Inca Trail, biking across the country, breaking up with a serious girlfriend, trying to locate the father he never really knew—that define personal adversity. They’re the kind of dragons that must and can be slain but that leave scars on the protagonist. Miller’s trials and triumphs are infused with a vulnerability that makes A Million Miles as personal and accessible as any of his previous books, breaking and mending the reader’s heart a few times along the way.
Miller’s audience may marvel at his openness, but there’s no question why he bares as much as he does. In writing and life, he explains, the conflict drives the story because it drives transformation. As individuals and professional storytellers, we’d do well to learn from Miller’s example. After all, serious conflict leads to meaningful resolution.
Each story, whether it encompasses one day or a thousand years, must eventually arrive at resolution.
In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller doesn’t spend a lot of words talking about resolution, the final element of story. Yes, his stories about biking across America, finding his father, and breaking up with the girl each reach their conclusions, as do the captivating stories of Miller’s friends found throughout the book. But you won’t find chapter after chapter about how great it will feel when your story ends and you get what you want. Miller doesn’t provide a promise of never-ending satisfaction or the license to rest on one’s laurels after overcoming conflict. Maybe this is because life and storytelling are more about the process, the journey, than the eventual conclusion. Or maybe it’s because regardless of how successfully or tragically our current arcs resolve, we all have more stories to tell and more life to live.
As Miller points out when talking about story at conferences, our ultimate resolution still lies ahead of us. The Book of Revelation grants a picture of the resolution of the story of us and God, in which wrongs are righted and tears are wiped away. In between the Bible’s first and final scenes, there are characters enduring conflict in pursuit of their ambitions—there are stories. Donald Miller wants us to recognize that structure in the Bible, in art, and in our lives because he believes doing so will help us tell better stories on paper, on screens, and in the flesh. That’s a calling worth chasing no matter what dragons stand in our way.
The end.
Scott McClellan in the Editor of COLLIDE.