Derek Thompson • Hit Makers

“You consider yourself your most fascinating subject.” She’d always thought everyone felt like a lead character onstage, surrounded by sidekicks and villains and love interests.

No. I wanted to be a reader. I thought everything that needed to be written had already been written or would be. I only wrote the first book because I thought it wasn’t there, and I wanted to read it when I got through. I am a pretty good reader. I love it. It is what I do, really. So, if I can re

There is one topic that people care more about than any other: themselves. Pick story topics that your listeners will relate to. If

When students talk about the books that light up their imaginations, it crystallizes why they love them—and gives others the chance to catch that enthusiasm.

Many of us form profound attachments when we read. Sometimes we attach ourselves to characters, imagining them as our friends or lovers or most profound enemies; sometimes a book’s author draws us, perhaps because of a persona he or she projects, perhaps—especially if we are writers or would-be writers ourselves—because we admire and envy.

books. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading; a man will turn over half a library to make one book,” Samuel Johnson said.

“I wonder why I seem to be more curious about you than you are about yourself?”

The reader is always looking for two things in the novel: themselves and transcendence.