In the "Story Notes" section of "Stories of Your Life and Others", Chiang writes that inspiration for "Story of Your Life" came from his fascination in the variational principle in physics. When he saw American actor Paul Linke's performance in his play "Time Flies When You’re Alive", about his wife's struggle with breast cancer, Chiang realized he could use this principle to show how someone deals with the inevitable. Regarding the theme of the story, Chiang said that Kurt Vonnegut summed it up in his introduction in the 25th anniversary edition of his novel "Slaughterhouse-Five":