Be a Storyteller, Not Just a Speaker Stories develop themes. The themes chosen to illustrate the possibility of stories are: Relationships, Choice, Creativity, Making a Difference, Celebration. Speakers are ordinarily people, from teachers to grandparents, from mountain climbers to cancer survivors. The platform provides them with a privilege and awesome responsibility to share their stories in...

Be a Story Weaver – NOT a Story Mechanic Too many writers fall into the trap of making Structure their Story God. There’s no denying that structure is important, but paying too much attention to structure can destroy your story. We have all seen movies and read novels that feel like “paint by numbers” creations. Sure, they hit all the marks and cover all the expected relationships, but they seem...

Be Yourself: Tips For Finding Your Own Writing Style As a writer, you have to have some sort of individuality in order to stand out from the crowd. If you look at all of the successful authors, you’ll notice they all have their own distinctive writing style. Here are a few tips to help you find your own writing style. Keep a journal and an ideas book.Keeping a journal will allow you to write eve...

Book Proposals 101.: What Publishers Want Lots of writers like to talk about writing books. You hear very few talking about writing book proposals. Maybe that’s why it’s easy to forget that a strong book proposal is the first step to getting a great deal for your non-fiction book. It’s where you make the big pitch and tell the editor everything that’s going to make him or her want to buy. A book...

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do You finally broke into a market you’d been dying to break into.  Some Big Magazine has hired you to write an 800-word article for their front-of-the-book, and you’re ecstatic!  You work hard as can be, proofread like crazy, and send it in, sitting by your inbox and waiting for the note back telling you how fabulous your article is, and by the way, where have you been all...

Bringing Us Back to Life: Storytelling and the Modern Organization WHEN I TELL PEOPLE THAT I USE STORYTELLING IN MY JOB, I USUALLY receive confused Looks in return. ‘It sounds novel and interesting,’ they wonder aloud, ‘but what does storytelling have to do with business?’ Well, a great deal more than you might imagine. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful devices for building com...

Burying Your Novel’s Message Part III of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series In the first two articles, we’ve explored how essential it is to have a theme to give your novel direction, and how to find those themes that will resonate with you. You’d think that once you have a theme, you could just sit down and write your book about that, and you’d bring powerful emotions and passionate st...

Busted: 5 Writing Myths One common element whenever human beings gather is the need to talk and share experiences. Often that need turns into something a little more fun, a little more dangerous — gossip. Gossip is often fun but it can also be dangerous because it spreads quickly (because it is fun) and often distorts or even completely avoids the truth. Gossip creates myths in many fields and pr...

Business Visibility for High Profits – Seven Ways Is your present marketing working? Working well enough to take a yearly vacation, buy that needed car, or create tuition enough to send your child to college? Do you wonder how you can write powerful copy for email marketing, stay in touch with your potential clients, and keep your web site selling? Now you can attract all the clients and produc...