Commonplace Pages

The key to engage them is to use lots of “language of the senses,” or LOTS. When telling a story, share with us what you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. When you trigger a sense in someone, you bring them into the story with you.

Lots of LOTS. I like it.

They call it the “story spine”: reality is introduced, conflict arrives, there is a struggle, the conflict is resolved, a new reality exists. These two tools caused a profound shift in our abilities to tell effective stories.

Basic, but always a good reminder.

Why must you tell THIS story?  What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of?  That’s the heart of it.

To me this is #1 and truly IS the heart of it.

… these coding initiatives haven’t been great at communicating: that “learning to code” and “becoming a programmer” are not the same thing, and that doing the former in a time when software encapsulates nearly everything we do is personally empowering.

There is indeed a distinction.

Flying-circus companies don’t just value speed and efficiency. We’re built to change direction fast.

Agile.

It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer. Similarly, if you can read but have to move your lips to get through the longer words, you’ll still be a pretty bad writer.

Great list. Nothing ground breaking but love the off-beat humor and approach.

storymidwife:

A list of great advice for writers by Colin Nissan.

“Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts.”

Purists will argue that not having enough A-roll is tantamount to laziness, but the realities of the job will force you to use your voice frequently as a narrative bridge. As an example, take a look at this video on immigration enforcement in Arizona.

I wholeheartedly agree.