I’ve come across this Japanese author before, Haruki Murakami before, thought he sounded awesome, but haven’t read anything by him yet. This is a great little thing about him though:

“Murakami also admires the Jungian mythographer Joseph Campbell and Jung himself. He examines the structure of his own fantasies in forensic detail. ‘I’ve been married for 30 years. Sometimes I wonder what would it be like if I had been single….If and if and if. I could go along that passage and find new strange rooms.’
It is through just such a divagation, he tells me, that his fictions begin. ‘That’s the beginning of the story. We have rooms in ourselves. Most of them we have not visited yet….From time to time we can find the passage. We find strange things…old phonographs, pictures, books…they belong to us, but it is the first time we have found them.’”

And even better:

As he puts it: “I’m looking for my own story in myself….That’s why I like Joseph Campbell. People are looking for their tales inside themselves. Without tales people can’t live their lives.”

That’s probably the best summation I have ever heard anyone give to what I am after, is figuring out how to help people find their own stories to live their lives with.
Also cool, and relevant to this article that I’m about to put into words this afternoon:

“My protagonist is acting like he’s playing a video game. He’s detached. He has to respond to what’s happening.” This has provoked criticism—“Some people criticize my books as frivolous.” But, he adds, these days “it is a video-type world” that we live in.