Synthesis vs. Distillation

I find that truly excellent stories tend to come in one of two forms: synthesis or distillation.

Synthesis is the melding of several ideast into a single story. My favorite example is a friend of mine who wrote a novella that incorporated characters and concepts from Don Quixote and Batman, and applied them to an original story that took place in the modern day.

Distillation is the separation of the core of a story from all of the fluff found within it. Many children's stories, especially those by Dr. Seuss, tell you a story, but they get to the point, and that point is a principle that affects a large amount of the world around us. Any time that you reference a folk tale in order to explain an idea, you are mentioning a great work of distillation.

I tend to be better at distilling than synthesizing. Although I marvel at a well synthesized story, I either don't have the training or the mindset to purposefully mash up ideas and make them also work out and stand on their own.

Whichever you lean toward, try them out. And don't forget to try out the other one, too. Stories don't have to be synthesis or distillation to be great, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.