Understanding the Pyramid of Abstraction (The Final Level)
Forget everything else I told you about the pyramid. Level 4 is all that truly matters.
LEVEL FOUR
If you wind up only reading The Basics, I've failed in my mission.
Part of the problem with only knowing the information in the previous posts is it can be tricky to understand exactly where to apply the Pyramid of Abstraction to achieve the greatest effect. Have you done too much? Too little?
You can find yourself obsessively combing over every sentence of a novel, looking to min-max it like you're a mad scientist adjusting hundreds of dials in an overwhelming lab.
There's a fine line between immersive detail and overkill. The danger is that in trying to wring every last drop of meaning out of your story, you can end up with a lifeless, overwrought thing that feels less like art and more like a lab experiment.
Don't get me wrong: The first three levels are great concepts to keep in mind when you're drafting and editing, absolutely.
But when creating any story, simply put, the themes and conflicts are themselves abstract concepts that must be propped up by a believable world and believable characters...
...which is best achieved by utilizing interactions with the concrete world through the concrete characters themselves. Believable character interactions must happen between other characters and the setting itself in order to sell your themes and conflicts.
And how to best sell these interactions?
The characters must touch the world. The characters must feel it, blink as the searing light pierces their eyes. They must taste the salt water as it splashes against their faces, recoil at the smell of feces in the foulest parts of your cities.
So what you're mostly doing when utilizing the pyramid to its greatest effect is looking for specific moments where a character can interact physically with other characters and the world itself.
The specific sensory details you choose to highlight are a powerful way to convey character, theme, and tone. For example, if a character can taste the saltiness in the air, it paints him as sharp, observant, sensual, perhaps jaded.
If a character interacts more often with the foul unpleasantries of your world, it communicates an unsentimental personality and atmosphere and a gritty, dark, cynical tone.
Sensory detail always subtly communicates mood and personality, so they shouldn't be used as an ends in themselves. Every choice should feel purposeful and evocative, to resonate with (and communicate subtext to) the reader.
The mad scientist approach has its place in the drafting stage, but the best stories are the ones where the hard work in the margins allow the core of the story to shine through.
Please don't mistake this for the same old, tired lesson on using the five senses. Oh no. This goes beyond that.
It's the difference between...
The rich, earthy aroma of freshly turned soil mingled with the delicate fragrance of spring blossoms, creating a heady, intoxicating perfume that seemed to embody the promise of new beginnings.
and...
Liam ran his calloused fingers over the rough, weathered surface of the ancient stone, tracing the grooves and ridges left by centuries of wind and rain. He could feel the grit of dirt and grime that had accumulated over time, tiny pebbles and bits of debris embedded in each crevice.
As he probed deeper, his nails scraped against something hard and unyielding. Something cool to the touch. He brushed away more of the soil, revealing the glint of a small metal object half-buried in the stone.
His heart raced as he pried it loose, turning its heft over in his hands. It was a key of some kind, its intricate design hinting at a long-forgotten secret.
Did you catch the difference? It's one thing to merely smell the dirt and navel-gaze about it. It's another entirely to dig your hands into the earth, feeling the dirt particles slip between your fingers as you do.
In the second example, do you think simply describing the appearance of the stone and mechanically explaining what the character is doing, or detailing each tool he uses on the job, would have even close to the same effect?
It's the way Liam touches and interacts with the details of the environment that brings the scene to life in a way that simply describing it, even concretely, cannot achieve.
In those moments, something magical happens. Normally less is more. That is the common convention in writing: "Brevity is the soul of wit." And yet, even though this second paragraph has a much higher wordcount, it breezes by. It's easier to digest. There's an air of wonder to it. The world goes into bullet-time for a moment, allowing the reader to feel the minutia of Liam's exploration right alongside him. It's focused on the now. It's immediate.
And the reader somehow understands this moment means more than perhaps everything that came before. This moment was memorable. Finding that key was crucial.
The fourth level of the pyramid elevates any manuscript. It sells your characters and world like nothing else.
This is the "key" to building the Fictive Dream, a concept I will talk about in a future post.
And so, having a character interact meaningfully with the environment is the most effective use of the pyramid, by far. If you do this right even once, it can easily carry your whole manuscript, selling your world's themes and conflicts to the reader.
Here's an example where this deeper understanding of the Pyramid of Abstraction elevated a moment in One Last Dream:
She took it tenderly, guiding his palm to rest upon the smooth surface of the banister. He looked down, awestruck by the sacredness of the stairs before him.
With a deep breath, he leaned on the banister and pulled himself to the first riser, his bare feet meeting the warmth of the luminous steps. Cora walked steadily beside him, clasping his other hand as if he might lose balance and fall.
We have characters physically interacting with one another and with the dreamworld itself in a very important moment I wanted to elevate and let linger in readers' minds.
William's hand touching this banister, lifting the heft of his own body, his bare feet meeting the warmth of the steps, can make even a dream feel real and interactable. Tangible and immediate.
Think about your own dreams. The most realistic, memorable ones are vivid, the ones you could've sworn were real because you could taste or touch or feel them. The ones where you felt your whole body immersed in the water, or felt the wind blowing through your hair.
Furthermore, we have Cora touching his hand in this scene, guiding his palm to the smooth surface. Cora leads William through this moment in a tender, motherly way, subtly informing us of her character while making their relationship feel more believable, more tangible. It whispers of the storied past between them and how much she has cared about his wellbeing over the years. It does the heavy lifting of communicating all the themes and tones I wanted to convey.
That's a lot of subtext in so few words.
This moment simply wouldn't exist in the way it does if I hadn't proofread my story, carefully looking for moments to utilize the fourth level of the Pyramid of Abstraction.
Here's a simpler moment from Chio Pino:
Chio grew nostalgic, brushing her fingers across grapevines and weathered posters as she trailed the children on the familiar path.
In this scene, Chio was on her way to school for the first time since her mother's death. Her tragic loss, combined with the length of the hiatus, has her feeling sentimental, reflective.
I intentionally establish a melancholy tone here, painting the portrait of a child who's not quite through her battle with depression, not quite ready to meet the dawn.
All of that is loaded in a single sentence, but there's more. By simply having her reach out and touch something with her fingertips, we make the town of Collodi become more than just a series of rustic snapshot descriptions. It lifts her surroundings right off the page. It brings the character and the environment to life.
Your mission is to look for moments in your writing where tactile engagement between characters and the world they inhabit can make your readers feel like they're in the character's skin, experiencing the sights, sounds, and sensations right alongside them.
Look for the moments you want to magnify and let stick in the readers' minds. Look for ways to subtly communicate tone and character. Look for times where you want mere sympathy for a character to elevate to empathy.
Brandon Sanderson described it as combing through your manuscript for those moments you can "pinch up" and "elevate". I like having that exact mindset while revising.
I wish I could share with you the exact quote which stood out for me most in Brandon's lecture, the one that lit a fire under me and had me tearing through my entire back catalog to employ the pyramid everywhere I could, but the video appears to be scrubbed from the internet.
None-the-less, going from memory, his example went something like this:
Unable to resist the pull any longer, John reached out with a trembling hand to grasp the gauntlet. The cool metal felt smooth and heavy against his sweaty palm as he liberated the relic from its ancient resting place, dust stirring in its wake. With a deep breath, he brought it closer to his body and slid his hand inside.
The gauntlet adjusted to fit like a second skin, molding to the contours of his fingers and palm. As it encased his hand, John felt a surge of energy course through him.
He flexed his fingers experimentally and gasped as tendrils of light danced between his digits. The gauntlet responded to his will, bending and shifting even as he tightened his fist, feeling as if the energy of the ancient world now flowed through his very veins.
My example’s probably nowhere near as good as Brandon's, but this is how you do it, folks. This is how you make your world seem vivid and concrete and real and grounded, even if it contains magic or takes place in an entirely different world.
CONCLUSION
Level 1 was all about pushing your descriptions down on the pyramid to make them more concrete, learning how to add verisimilitude without overdoing it.
Level 2 was about how building this solid groundwork grants you license to be more abstract and emotional without trying the reader's patience.
Level 3 was about nuance, about how going down on the pyramid isn't always better.
(And believe me, I've known writers who think down is always better and often wind up with works that feel unrelatable and distant as a result, but either don't understand why or are too blind to see it.)
But Level 4?
Level 4 is how you weaponize the pyramid. It's how you can go beyond mere description into actual physical interaction, which is the best way to make your world and characters feel alive and relatable. It's the best way to sell your abstract concepts and carry your themes home.
The texture of soil or warmth of a step can bring a scene to life in ways that even the most astute concrete descriptions could never do. Even dreams can feel vivid and real when they engage multiple senses through your characters, creating unparalleled immersion.
The way you handle physical interactions subtly conveys character, and even carries worldbuilding aspects such as culture and societal roles. Actions like a motherly sylph guiding a child's hand or a character brushing against familiar objects can speak volumes about relationships, values, emotions, and mood. It's perhaps the best way to "show, not tell."
Utilizing this in key moments you wish to magnify makes the reader feel present in the scene. It creates a magic that will linger in the reader's mind long after they've set the book down.
Thinking this way takes the principles of the Pyramid of Abstraction to the next level. The sheer power and practicality of this approach will make your stories feel far more tangible and immediate, especially if you use this technique judiciously, utilizing it where it will have the most impact.