Story Hypothesis
Story Hypothesis is my craft guide on theme. It uses Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef's nine fundamental human needs to map the distance between what a character wants on the surface and what they actually need underneath, and it turns that into one sentence you can build your story and its scenes on. Signed paperbacks ship direct from me.
What is inside
- A clear way to define theme
- Plain definitions of each of Max-Neef's nine needs, and why I find them more useful for storytelling than Maslow's hierarchy
- Step by step, how to write your own Story Hypothesis
- How to apply it to different kinds of scenes, with examples from well-known fiction
- Case studies that break down popular novels so you can see it at work
Who it is for
Writers of all levels who want to explore the emotional core of their story.
Workbooks
The Dialogue Dash workbooks bring together techniques from Dialogue Doctor and Story Hypothesis to help you plan, write, and edit a novel in eighty days.
Talks and workshops
Story Hypothesis: Theme as Human Need. A workshop on the Story Hypothesis method: using Manfred Max-Neef's fundamental human needs to map the gap between what a character wants and what they actually need, with how to apply it to a draft and where it changes the story.
I spoke on Story Hypothesis 2.0 at the Fiction Makers Conference in Baltimore in August 2026.
To book a workshop for your library, convention, or writing group, see Book Clubs & Events or email JP@9thBooks.com.