Every workshop I give starts with a story. You’d expect as much. But every workshop I give starts with a personal story, one that often includes my family members and that tells people both who I am and what story can do. For me, there’s no other way to go. When I give a workshop […]
I’m anti-pitching. Apples have become my metaphor for pitching. When you develop a pitch, it’s like buying a basket of apples. You pick out the best apples of the season. You polish them individually. You even ask a couple of friends to taste your apples and tell you if they like how they taste. Then […]
Everyone’s on social media and some people seem to mix the personal and the professional fairly willy-nilly. It’s not just Hollywood stars showing us their kitchens but also entrepreneurs posting gifs of themselves dancing with their babies. The personal and the professional are more intertwined than ever these days. If you’re posting on social media […]
This spring at the SIETAR Europa Congress in Leuven, I met Bastian Küntzel. We got to chatting about “what do you do” and “what do I do” and when I told him about my cool new idea to develop a method for using story structure to teach, he said, “I just wrote a book about that.” […]
This week, I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity. My grand plan is to watch all the talks on the top 25 list in order to practice sketch noting and story analysis and Robinson’s was the first on the list. Robinson’s message is still an important one. Creativity matters. Children are […]
Let’s look at how to create a great climax for your story. You’ve been working on your story for a while now and have figured out who the hero is and what their goal is. Your hero’s been through the beginning, a turning point, and the middle of the story. Now that you’ve gotten this far, […]
The middle of a story seems like it could be intuitive. It’s the “and then, and then, and then” part of the story where you tell your audience about the series of events that leads you hero from the beginning, through the turning point, and on to the climax of the story. Now, if you spend […]
Kick your story into gear In every story there comes a moment when the audience has gotten to know your hero and the world they live in. They understand the norms that hero lives with and have an idea of how the hero fits into that world. They know this because you crafted a strong […]
My friends, this post is part of a series about story structure. You can catch the overview of story structure and separate posts about the hero and goal in your story by clicking those links. They’ll help you out if you haven’t read them already. We’re going to talk about the beginning of your story. […]
A benefit of working on a story starting at structure is that you know what you have to do next. After you’ve sketched a basic story structure and figured out who your hero is and how to describe them, it’s time to figure out the hero’s goal will be. The approach to goal setting in […]