How To Be a Story

I tell stories about human things. Love and fear, gain and loss. I describe scenes and images from my life that are at once personal and universal, recognized by all, understood by all. Because at a certain level, we are all the same. “Put yourself into your work,” said copywriter David Abbott. “Use your life to animate your copy. If something move

perhaps you’re completely stumped for ideas, so we ask questions like: What are moments from your life, big or small, that stick with you? What are the stories you can’t wait to tell a new friend, or the stories your oldest friend or partner always asks you to repeat? What are The Greatest Hits of You?

sometimes the answer to the question reveals something much deeper — a hidden truth that often makes for a great story. Bruce Springsteen once said in an interview: “Most people’s stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography and they’re trying to create something that solves a series of very complex problems

We're struggling here in the trenches. That beauty, that wisdom, those thrills and chills, even that mindless escape on a rainy October afternoon — I want it. Put me down for it. The hero wanders. The hero suffers. The hero returns. You are that hero.

We experience our day-to-day lives in story mode. The brain creates a world for us to live in and populates it with allies and villains. It turns the chaos and bleakness of reality into a simple, hopeful tale, and at the centre it places its star – wonderful, precious me – who it sets on a series of goals that become the plots of our lives. Story i