The front door lurks in a recess. Its ancient black paintwork is spattered with road splash, and the shallow pane of glass above its jamb betrays no light within. An empty milk bottle has stood in its shadow so long, city lichen has bonded it…
(Or, how marketers and nonfiction authors can use the curiosity gap to hook readers and draw them into your world.) I recently critiqued the first twenty-ish pages of a new writer’s thriller. The character intrigued me. The setup was solid. The premise was compelling. But…
My husband and I were wandering around New York City for ThrillerFest—and we were starving. We’d been meandering through the streets for hours, as we tend to do in cities, and we hadn’t brought any snacks. We were in luck, though—because if you throw a…
A guide for nonfiction authors, coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs—featuring Narrator Todd Eflin. Audiobooks are becoming wildly popular, particularly for readers of non-fiction. And while fiction audiobook listeners tend to prefer the dulcet tones of trained narrators, non-fiction readers love to hear the book spoken in…
A few months ago at the gym, my weight lifting trainer asked me what I was up to that weekend. I told her I was teaching at a writing conference, and that I was worried about a presentation I’m supposed to give on how to…
Writing customer stories was my bread and butter for many years as a freelance copywriter. They’re super popular in B2B (business-to-business) marketing because B2B buyers are looking for a product’s tangible value—they want to see exactly how you solved similar problems for someone else, and…
My client Erin Weed is a master of collecting stories that drive her point home. She’s got this great one in her TEDx Talk, “Dare to be authentic,” about being dressed as Wonder Woman to cheer up a friend going through chemo, and being unexpectedly…
Or, how to always have a story idea at your fingertips so you never have to face the blank page alone again. This post was originally published as a series about finding stories on Substack. You sit down to write a newsletter or social media…
Or, how to build fanatical customer loyalty when you listen to your customers When I was blinded, something fundamental shifted inside of me. I couldn’t put a finger on it then, but I knew almost immediately that there was no going back to the Jessie…
The basics of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey framework, and how to use it for your own Signature Story. I was a certified mythology nerd in middle school and high school, so when I came across a battered copy of Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth…
After almost every storytelling workshop I teach, someone asks a version of the same question: “That’s all great, but… how much of my story am I supposed to share?” There are usually a few reasons that people ask this question. Any of those reasons are…
Hunger lured me out of the safety of the bus. We were on hour two of a twenty-two hour bus ride, and I even though the driver hadn’t said a word when he pulled over on the side of the road and walked out the…
(These examples of how to tell your signature story in one line come from my presentation at the Scalable SheEO Summit earlier this week. If you didn’t get a chance to see my talk live, I believe the replay is still available for free—and you…
“Bad Blood” is one of my favorite X-Files episodes. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a bit of a departure from the usual deep-conspiracy “I want to believe” storyline—and even from the creepy and often disturbing “monster of the week” episodes. The tone is a…
“I can’t tell you which direction to turn, or where you’ll find success. But I can tell you that your path will require pivots and quick thinking, and a lot of grace and adaptability. It will be messy and incomprehensible and incredibly rewarding. Some days…
My friend Curtis C. Chen had a short sci-fi story published in Playboy Magazine a few years ago. This came up recently when he and a few other writer friends were over, and I ran upstairs to grab my prized signed copy. The next morning,…
When I was in college, I was driving back to my parents’ house in central Washington State. I was only a few miles from home when I saw a couple standing beside their car on the side of the road. The hood was up. They…
Whenever I’m ghostwriting a nonfiction book for a client, I always push for them to add more stories. Some of my authors are natural storytellers, and they have tons of examples in mind. Some would rather just talk about the meat of the content, and…
I’ve been spending a ton of time doing research on social media lately, and I’ve noticed something. Everyone says storytelling sells, but nobody’s explaining how to actually write a good story. To be fair, it’s not easy to teach the art of telling a good…
Recently, I was trying to help a friend define the origin story of her business. She’s a coach, and she described how she guides women through periods of change. Career change, leaving a relationship, loss—basically any time in a woman’s life where she’s stepping through…