I crossed the bridge on foot. Half and hour each way. When you’re standing at the halfway point it’s not much different than being on top of a skyscraper. The Golden Gate Bridge could be a horizontal Empire State Building, every bit as massive and memorable. It feels that tall too. The difference is that even farther over head stand two gigantic steel pylons that puncture the cloud ceiling. Their exterior is tricked out in ornate art deco detail, reflecting a time before form followed function, when public works had prestige.

The design is one-of-a-kind, the scale is dizzying. Look up, look closely, but before you do, brace yourself.

A long time ago, I had a classmate who moved to town from San Francisco. The first time he invited me over to his house for dinner, they served sourdough bread. My native Texan taste for cornbread was seriously undermined that day, and I’ve had a sweet spot for sourdough ever since.

Walking along San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf also kind of put me in the mood for some clam chowder. Somehow I always imagine an old, weathered, bearded fisherman hunkering over a warm bowl of clam chowder. We don’t get much clam chowder in Texas – the official state food is chili. But I was willing to try anything that was served in a bowl made of sourdough bread. I was not disappointed.

Was it the chowder, the sourdough or the setting? Probably a little bit of everything. Oh, and I did stop by In-N-Out, too.

On a recent return trip to China, I decided to take a detour through San Francisco. I realize that the City on the Bay is historically the place where people arrive from China and not the other way around. But it doesn’t matter which direction you’re headed when you’re going to San Francisco anymore. This city long ago became more than merely a gateway to another country – San Francisco is a destination unto itself.

Having visited many cities across America, I thought I knew what to expect: local flavor, regional variety, a few really unique spots, but beneath it all the same underlying foundation. San Francisco surprised me though. This city is unlike any other American city I have ever visited, built on an entirely different philosophy. The skyscrapers are few. The cityscape is a shuffleboard of short, white structures that rise and fall with the couture of the hills and valleys below. Looking across San Francisco reminded me more of pictures I’ve seen from the ancient winding cities of Europe and the Middle East than of the concrete sprawl that is Dallas. These are cities that were built before we could conveniently blast away a mountain or redirect a river, a time when geography made a city what it was and not the other way around.

It’s precisely that geography that makes San Francisco unique. Perched on the edge of the Pacific, its place in history is not unlike that of Plymouth Rock or Ellis Island. For the ancestors of many American families of Asian descent, San Francisco was the point of entry. And the city has retained that international character, assimilating diverse cultures just as it adapted to the topography.

In coming posts, I’ll write about the local flavor, the regional variety, the few really unique spots – travel book fodder. But what you have to know about San Francisco is that its distinctiveness as a city is more than the sum total of all these sights; rather, the city’s uniqueness is part of its very character.

There’s a fundamental difference between writing articles, ad copy and news releases and creating stories, and it has to do with time. The former exist only in the present, relaying information irregardless of the fourth dimension; the latter is built around a temporal spine that gives it shape.

Non-fiction has an introduction, body and conclusion; fiction has a beginning, middle and end.

Being a writer is like being a singer while being a storyteller is like being a songwriter. The skill sets are not mutually interchangeable. A good writer can wield the language to synthesize something that sounds good. It can even be interesting and informative. But only a storyteller can create something that is as multifaceted, in-depth and personal as a human life, on paper. An orchestra of words.

That depth comes from time, a lifetime to be precise. The storyteller lets you experience life in someone else’s shoes instead of stating his or her beliefs in bullet points. Rather than just writing a person’s biography, the storyteller takes the the time to show you how a person went from being a villain to becoming hero (or the other way around).

What you want to try to be is the literary equivalent a singer-songwriter, possessing both a penchant for language and a sense of structure, of completeness — and a feel for how time changes people.

I know that becoming a better storyteller will benefit me as a writer. But based on what I’m learning about stories, I have a hunch that it might also change the way I go through life as well.

The book’s content was not particularly related to my personal problems. But the story did offer a structure for the assorted pieces of the character’s life. Somehow, as I progressed through the book, through a mysterious process of the human mind, the elements of story started to order my outlook, giving form to my thoughts and a newfound sense of cohesion to my existence.

Then I lost the book.

I probably left it sitting on a bench or something. But when I lost the book, the glass menagerie in my mind came crashing down. Eventually I did climb out of the rut, and some time later I even stumbled across another copy at the half-price bookstore. It’s still on my bookshelf to this day.

I’ve had time to reflect on that mysterious process of the human mind that appropriated the character’s well-ordered narrative to, temporarily, clean up my mess. Fiction, I’ve come to see, is an act of empathy. It puts us in someone else’s shoes. The messes and roadblocks and losses in their life we see in the context of an epic arc that inevitably leads to a cathartic conclusion. If the characters are compelling enough, we can share their emotions. And, through the lens of literature, the epic arc in our own lives begin to pop out from the pages.

It’s a little bit like 3D glasses. When you’re watching the movie without them, everything is fuzzy. When you put them on, however, everything comes into focus. It is an illusion, the clarity is all in your mind, and when the glasses come off, everything is a blur once again.

That’s why I’m so intent on figuring out how to write this story I’ve been working on. I guess I think that if I can figure out the elements of story for my characters that maybe I will be able to perceive the elements of story in my own life – like being able to see a 3D movie – except without the glasses.