Writing from the Whole: What Integral Theory Can Teach Us About Novels

Write Better Now

Photo by Josh Blanton on Unsplash

Okay, you’re probably staring at the decidedly unsexy title and thinking. “What the heck is Integral Theory, and what does it have to do with writing a book?”

But also . . . “This is going to be boring, isn’t it?”

And . . . “Should I even read this?”

Totally fair questions.

Integral Theory is this big-picture framework created by philosopher Ken Wilber that’s basically trying to get all the pieces of human experience into one model.

It says: If you want to understand something deeply—yourself, a culture, even a story—you can’t just look from one angle. You have to look from four angles: inner and outer, individual and collective.

Stay with me. It’s cooler than I’m making it sound.

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The Four Quadrants (aka, Four Ways to See)

Here’s the breakdown of those angles:

1. Interior Individual – What’s going on inside someone. Thoughts, feelings, beliefs.

2. Exterior Individual – What are they doing on the outside. Body language, habits, actions.

3. Interior Collective – What do people believe together. Shared culture, stories, taboos.

4. Exterior Collective – The systems and structures. Laws, tech, schools, governments, economy.

Wilber usually puts all of that in a grid, but for us novelists, we can think of it as a way to round out our characters, our world, and even ourself.

Let’s break this down with some writing examples after the paywall, okay?

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