Rob Tourtelot
We need a story to help us navigate our lives. But it's possible to also see beyond the story to the mystery. It's not either/or . it's both/and.
from How Long Is Now? by Tim Freke
Every story must have an Elephant. The Elephant is the thing that everyone in the room can see. It is large and obvious. It is a clear statement of the need, the want, the problem, the peril, or the mystery. It signifies where the story is headed, and it makes it clear to your audience that this is in fact a story and not a simple musing on a subje
... See morefrom Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
The audience wants characters (or storytellers) to succeed, but they don’t really want characters to succeed. It’s struggle and strife that make stories great. They want to see their characters ultimately triumph, but they want suffering first. They don’t want anything to be easy.
from Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
- if I tell exactly the story I’ve set out to tell, I’ve failed. The truer story exists somewhere outside the margins of consciousness. Writing constraints help us discover the truth rather than recite it.
from The One (and Only) Technique That Finally Helped Me Write About Trauma
- Much as working with a piano teacher is not, fundamentally, about learning songs, but about using songs to push yourself; I now think of our projects, not as ends in themselves, but as means to help us improve the underlying process and ourselves. This helps put me in the right frame of mind. I want this essay to turn out well, of course. But the g... See more
from On limitations that hide in your blindspot
- Writing is mystagogy. It is leading oneself, or others, into a great mystery. Their own lives are a mystery. It is a good place to start.
The normal and the everyday is a mystery, too. Yet few people have the eyes to see it that wayfrom Why I Write by Luke Burgis
Oftentimes I will load a portion of a story with superfluous information simply to hide the one important bit of information that I need the audience to know but not yet recognize as important. I clutter the landscape so that the audience can’t tell what is important and what is not.
from Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks
- I don't know if there's a specific thing, but you know it immediately. The minute I start it I know that it's the book I want to fall in love with. And that's the one I keep reading. I will read a hundred pages of something else, but I won't fall in love with it. You have this immediate sense of texture and place, and you're just inside it from the... See more
from Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Four Young Editors