Story Systems

<p>We get writer's block when we've failed to sufficiently research story ideas. But in recent years, I've discovered that up-front and ongoing research is only part of the story...</p><p>The flip side of the coin is...

<p>Editing is the final human step in the story production process. Editing itself is a trap because a story can easily enter editing and never emerge on the other side!</p><p>I originally covered editing back in 2021...

<p>You've had a story idea. You've planned the story and selected a 'One Idea'. You've created a Spoken First Draft and got hold of the transcript.</p><p>Now it's time to make sensible use of technology to grease the...

<p>You've got a story you want to tell. You've planned it on a timeline (see EP24). You've established a clear 'one idea' to finish your story on and bridge into your message (see EP25). Now comes the hard part: writing...

<p>Stories are how you show, rather than tell. You're telling your story to illuminate and showcase your message. But in practical terms, how do you bridge between story and content, without making the story feel forced...

<p>A small degree of planning goes a long way when you're telling a story. The main story planning technique I use with my clients is the 'timeline' technique, where you plan the sequence of events on a page, napkin...

<p>The final stage of the 'Hero's Journey' story structure is 'The Resolution,' in which the story is resolved. Of course, in real life, you're bang in the middle of your story. You don't know what the ending looks...

<p>What would you say is the biggest U-Turn in understanding you've had about your market or audience? What's the biggest insight you've picked up that your ideal client needs to hear? And how did you discover that...

<p>Every archetypal story is characterised by a turning point in the middle called the "central crisis". As story is simply a metaphor for life, your life likely contains a central crisis, too!</p><p>This central crisis...

<p>The second of our 'Core Story' prompts is the 'False Start'. For anyone pursuing meaningful work, finding your path is rarely straightforward. The 'False Start' prompt is designed to explore and share some of the...

<p>Our first Core Story prompt mirrors 'the call' in the Hero's Journey story formula and asks: what really drives you? What questions do you try to solve in your work? And more importantly, WHY?</p><p>The 'Wounding...

<p>One of the best books on storytelling craft is Story, by Robert McKee. McKee describes how every great story has a clear, well-defined theme, or 'controlling idea'.</p><p>In reading Story, I realised that every...

<p>The art of storytelling is to show someone the problem you can solve for them, at the deepest possible level, without telling them in an overly salesy way that would likely scare them away. High-value prospects like...

<p>This episode continues the discussion about story selection. I introduce the concept of the 'storytelling boomerang', which illustrates how to transition from problem-focused messaging to personal storytelling as the...

<p>Full disclosure: this episode was originally meant to be about story selection. The point I wanted to make was that story selection doesn't matter as much as people think it does, and often you should tell the first...