Hello there,

I wish you a happy July! I hope you’ve been well since the last letter. I am currently recuperating from an annoying (but not life threatening) medical emergency so I’ve had a lot of time laying down or sitting to think. And I’ve mainly been thinking about core memories.

Campfire just quietly turned 10 years old on June 18th. I’ve been thinking about what it means to have created 10 years of memories through this organization.

But in my mind I don’t call them core memories, I think of them as tentpoles. If you’ve ever heard the term “tentpole” you probably think of those massive posts that hold the tent up at a circus. In a storytelling context, they are also key structural elements that hold up the entire story. For example, most would say the inciting incident, climax, and resolution are the tentpoles of a narrative arc. Whats most interesting to me is that tentpoles don’t just support a story. They reveal it.

If you can find a tentpole, it unlocks the others. Here is what I mean: if you know the climax of your story (the peak moment), then you can trace it back to the inciting incident (when did this all start) or go forward and find the resolution (why was this important to me and what did I take away from it?).

So when you are done reading this letter, think to yourself about a story you tell often. Can you identify the tentpoles of that story? You can ask yourself, “where did this start?” or “how did it end?” or “what did this mean to me?” If you can answer even one of those, then you’ve got it.

And if you have any questions you need answered to help you get started, just send over an email

Until next time,
Steven