I love Henry Rollins. I love his music, his books, his tattoos. But mostly, I love his stories. I've seen his spoken word shows live several times and I'm always in awe of his ability to spin a yarn. The ability to tell a compelling story is the second aspect of being a fiction creator that I want to talk about. To me, this is the part that relies most on innate talent and less on skill. Some people are just great storytellers. Unlike authorship or good writing technique, it's hard to teach storytelling. Sure, there are formulae, tropes and structures which help move a story along. And there's always the tried and true method of just bringing in a man with a gun*.