I’m calling my new, 2026 writing tool the “Heart Sync.”
I’ve spoken a lot about the “heart” of stories on this site. My definition has changed over time, I’m sure, but, these days, I have a really firm grasp on it:
“The personal angle that makes your story art.”
In other words, your impetus, unwitting or intentional, for writing a particular story. The experience you’ve had that informed it.
To be clear, that’s different from the theme, which is the unifying standard that helps you convey that heart. The experience of getting mugged IRL might be the heart of your vigilante story, but, “Poverty makes communities rip themselves apart,” might be its theme.
The thing is (unless you’re using AI), you always have a heart for your story–you just might not realize it if you engage in the purely vibes-based discovery writing that I sometimes do.
And that’s a problem because not being aware what inspired your story might lead to a weak or muddied theme.
For example, one of the protagonists of a novel I wrote was struggling with survivor’s guilt. But I, Louis Santiago, have never experienced survivor’s guilt. The result was a theme that didn’t feel strong or focused, because what I actually wanted to write about was friendships falling apart.
Why didn’t I just write about then? Because I had no idea I wanted to. I had the emotion of, “It’s sad when friends go away,” and I mashed it with the extremely-Hollywood, evergreen idea of “lone survivor of a group of rebels, haunted by not being able to save them.”
If I had this tool, however, I could’ve sorted out that story’s themes before finishing it. Likewise, I probably could’ve written all of Aixa the Hexcaster ten years ago, instead of struggling to figure out what I wanted to explore with it.
If you don’t struggle with your motivations for stories at all, more power to you–this tool probably won’t help you.
But if you could do with a bit of introspection that might help all of your stories hit harder and sync more completely with you as a person, allowing you to write-what-you-know more consistently, then let’s get started.
What a Heart Sync Looks Like
Honestly, it’s just a question–one that you can ask yourself for any story you’ve ever written:
“What personal experience is the progenitor of this story?”
Super simple, super quick. Alternatively, “What feeling or personal event led me to the collection of characters I’ve created for this story?” “What real-life experience has already inspired the setting / plot / etc.?”
The key part here is that ‘already,’ because your story has probably been heavily influenced by that progenitor experience since the beginning, whether you wanted it to be or not. All art comes from us and, even if we don’t mean for it to be, what we think and feel is reflected in what we write.
Seriously, even if you tried to write a story with the goal of, “None of my personal experiences will influence this story,” the fact that you want to write a story without putting yourself into it, at all, still says something about you. You can absolutely write around it, to a specific audience or in step with a writing exercise, but some complex intention of yours will always be present regardless. It’s inescapable.
But we’re not here to drill that point home. We’re here to say, use the Heart Sync to course correct.
To do so, sit with the question first, find your answer/heart/progenitor experience, and then…
Use It to Guide Story Elements
- Let it Reshape Characters:
Lean into the experience by making characters more like people you shared the experience with. Or take it further by exploring characters that handle said experience in a way that’s different/better/more extreme.
Example for a Main Character: Riffing off my ‘survivor’s guilt➞ friendships falling apart’ example from earlier, if you had a huge falling out with a group of friends and you’ve already written a protagonist who’s an outcast, consider:
(A) Did I write this character because I feel like an outcast after losing contact? Would this character benefit from having an unspoken desire for connection, and should their arc satisfy that desire?
(B) Should I make it a dysfunctional thing for them instead? Should they, for example, have a problem maintaining complicated, interpersonal relationships because they refuse to trust anyone now?
(C) Should I make it just a quiet influence on their character, with them being playful and presenting as fine, but letting those complicated memories influence their actions in key plot moments?
(D) Should I make their backstory darker than my own, perhaps making the fallout more violent and/or bitter than it was IRL?
Of course, this isn’t limited to just main characters; you could also use that heart to tweak the entire cast, making them, for example, more confrontational in the eyes of a sensitive protagonist. Or you could make all of them weighed down by similar complications within their own backstories. - Retool the Theme (if you need to):
If you’ve been writing a story about a badass space outlaw going on a journey through interstellar badlands and the theme is, “Freedom is an open road, even when it’s rough,” that’s fine if that’s exactly what you want to write. But if that theme feels off because the impetus to write the story was your frustration with your local government making it so impossible to live that you wish you could take off and never look back, you should use that emotion to rework the theme.
If it brings you to something like, “Corrupt authority will find You anywhere; fight it everywhere,” cool. That sounds kinda like First Blood, and First Blood was fucking awesome.
If it brings you to something like, “We should fight/leave/avoid institutions that make us feel helpless,” that’ss going to be a far more interesting and unique north star that will feel infinitely more you than Hollywood. - Use It to Guide the Plot:
If you’re writing an extremely cozy Fantasy story with a protagonist who cares for fantastical creatures in the wild… Well, first, what’s the title? Lol When does that come out? I wanna read it. Big Becky Chambers fan here, if you couldn’t tell.
Seriously though, if you’re writing that story and it comes from your own love of real life animals, is there a route for the plot that accentuates that love? For example, if it currently focuses on one big animal, might it be better to make it into a road trip where the protagonist tours the wild, giving attention to a range of Fantasy creatures inspired by all of your favorite real-life animals?
Or does it perhaps center around a household pet? A really sweet, loving plot that starts out as a world-trekking journey with your cat, Cocoa Bread. But then, in the end, CB gets sick helping you somehow. You drop everything and narrowly manage to find a magical cure for them (of course by using all of the research you’ve gathered throughout the plot to find a final, reclusive mythical creature), and it reaffirms that your pet was the best, most fantastical creature of them all. - Let It Influence the Little Things:
As long as it works with the theme, the heart of a story can and should help guide smaller decisions.
For example, “What should I make this monster like? Well, the experience that led to this story was getting attacked by a wild muskrat, and that led to a theme of, ‘Wild animals can kill you, even if you think they can’t,’ so maybe I should make my monster small and furry but terrifyingly fast with razor sharp teeth.”
You don’t need to do it that way–you can purely rely on theme, of course–but I find that the heart is a good metric for making smaller elements a little less on-the-nose and a little more raw. Particularly when they influence, say, the clothing a side character wears, or the way an abandoned apartment looks.
Sure, these smaller details might be lost on the audience, but I don’t think you have to worry about that. Remember that, as long as they’re not obstructing the flow and bogging the story down, these little details can help you stay in the moment and really feel a scene. Does it matter that the audience understands that your villain’s red shirt is a reference to your abuser’s favorite red shirt? No, but it will keep you in the right headspace to write a horrible, abusive villain.
If the end result feels a little too personal, I understand you might not want to go with it and that’s fine. I definitely don’t think every story needs to have a heart, particularly if you’re writing for a specific audience; rule of cool, genre standards, and market trends might come first for specific projects, and I think that’s okay. No shade on my writing brethren who focus on popular markets.
However, I will say that, at this point, with the flat nothingness of AI writing constantly vying for purchase in our space, remember that your personal experiences are what make your writing art. They make it human, they make it powerful, they make it intriguing.
So if you’re working on something that you want to put all of yourself into and you haven’t already done something like a Heart Sync for it, give it a shot. I hope it helps.
And, if it does–or if you have any thoughts about it–let me know here.
Thanks for reading. And next time, I’ll talk about the revolution in productivity that’s sent my process into overdrive.
I’ve been Louis Santiago and, as always, please feel free to use any of my tools on the Resources Page for your own writing. They’re all free and they always will be (I will be adding this one soon for easy reference). If you want to talk about any of my tools on your own platform, cool, but please provide props and links back to this site; I’m still not asking for money on here, but I am trying to build my platform as best I can while helping other writers.
If you’d like to learn about any of my published work, check out my Publication Timeline.
You can also check me out on Bluesky, where I mostly post fun stuff, including the less-occasional-than-they-should-be links to my writing playlist.
Also check me out on Reddit, where I mostly share writing advice. I actually shared this very tool the other day, just as an example. And then I got 100 updoots on my sarcastic comment on a shitpost. So, ya know, Reddit stuff.
That’s all for now. As always, thanks for reading.
And, until next time, eat your fiber.
Inktrap 
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