In the Chillest Land (Storyteller Series Book 2)
These were the questions I asked myself when I started first started my CAD drafting job in architecture. Fresh out of graduate school, far too many dollars in debt, and stuck behind the drafting table, I listened as clients and ideas moved in and out of the office. I started to notice the same patterns happening over and over again.
Saw brilliant designers and creative urban planners come up with strategies for re-designing cities. Saw tools to change the ways buildings breathed and moved, how people interacted. I saw those ideas crushed, time and time again, under a lack of understanding. The same things kept happening.
Some people would get caught up in tiny details; others would miss the big picture. Sometimes a great idea got buried under the weight of myopic details. In addition, your audience has different styles of decision-making.
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Some leaders make decisions immediately, swept up in ideas and willing to go along. Other leaders need to ruminate and process. Knowing how to explain your idea in a way that is compelling, clear, and persuades others to adopt it and give you money for it! Tired designers kept arriving at brilliant solutions. They also faced the challenge of explaining themselves. Communication is the art of getting your ideas heard, shared, understood, and adopted.
Designing and communicating are separate, but highly related fields. But if I make you feel something? Now I have your attention. If you want to up your game and grow your business, elevate your platform, or become a better storyteller — read these books. The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert Cialdini. The Elements of Persuasion: Stories might seem simple, but understanding how to do them effectively is a skill to master. Maxwell and Dickman show examples of storytelling across every industry, outlining five basic components — passion, a hero, an antagonist, a moment of awareness, and transformation — that form the critical elements of a persuasive story, pitch, or speech.
With essays on persuasion, influence, and understanding conversational style, I learned more about understanding gender dynamics and understanding leadership styles in 40 pages than I have browsing hundreds of internet click-bait links. Destined to be a classic. How do people become online influencers? They do more than provide content: As a writer, my favorite books on writing lean towards the introspective, the habit-building, and the people who devote time to this craft.
Here are my favorites:. Want to tap into your inner voice? Julia Cameron leads a week program that takes you through all the feelings you have while becoming a maker, a creative, an artist. Cameron is here to guide you — and to remind you to play, because play is the outlet and source of creativity. The War of Art: What holds us back? This pithy and succinct book details the enemy that we all deal with — inner resistance. Resistance shows up in every form, from convincing to conniving to flattering to maddening.
How do you overcome Resistance? Great on a shelf for a little reminder every few days. Am I really an artist? Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury. Here are three quotes from this book by legendary Ray Bradbury: The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. A book on writing and life, and all the zany-crazy-personality quirks in between. Fluttering between self-deprecation and frank honesty, Lamott tells the story of the difficulty of writing and getting out of our own way.
Still Writing, by Dani Shapiro. On Writing, by Stephen King. Writers writing about writing is so wonderful — you see their tools, ideas, and childhood and work, all mixed together in a story well told. Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon. Complications and Higher Stakes. Achieving the goal becomes more difficult.
Bigger obstacles start appearing and the hero now will have everything to lose if he fails. He will also suffer what is known as the Major Setback, where it will appear to the audience that everything is lost for the hero. Beaten and battered, the hero now gives his all in achieving the goal. Every single strength, every courage, everything he has, he will put it all in to accomplish it. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.
Although it is a fictional structure, it can still be applied to tell a story. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. Turn —The apparent revelation. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. You want to be fooled. In a popular Medium post , Andy Raskin, a consultant that teaches leaders and companies how to tell strategic stories talks about the greatest sales deck he has ever seen.
It was a deck belonging to Zuora, a Silicon Valley company that sells a SaaS platform for subscription billing. Andy broke down the sales deck into 5 elements, showing why it was so effective. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World. Name the undeniable shift in the world that creates both big stakes and huge urgency for your prospect. Demonstrate how the change you just mentioned will create big winners and big losers. Tease The Promised Land. This happily-ever-after conclusion, as Andy Raskin expertly points out, should be desirable yet difficult to achieve without outside help.
Introduce your product and service and position your features as some sort of a magical solution to reach the Promised Land.
25 Essential Books on Storytelling, Copywriting, and Marketing to Read
Your prospects will be skeptical that you can deliver the Promised Land. Show them it is true, and you can do it by showing the best evidence you can offer. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product. Elon Musk is a force-of-nature. Most CEOs struggle with 1 company, let alone 2, while Elon Musk juggles 4 and other commitments not mentioned. Is it any wonder that Elon Musk would also have a pitch formula that works on convincing people that his ideas will work? Why is now the time to change for this particular problem?
Convince your audience why of all problems, yours is the most important and pressing one to solve. Describe to your audience what it looks like in the future. How is it like when everything is solved? Win Them Over With Evidence. Show them evidence how it is already being done. Colin Theriot , the leader of a massively popular 20,member Facebook Group named the Cult of Copy shares his formula for writing a persuasive message usable for any medium. He named it the Viking Velociraptor Formula, a name that came out because of a joke and also because he wanted an alliteration.
Validate their emotional gut reaction to this stimulus. Let them know that their internal reaction is correct and valid. Use the above information to insert the information you wanted to talk about into the conversation. What is that third step? That ten [twist] that really surprises people.
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Also known as the plot without conflict, It differs from Western storytelling formulas because it is not based on conflict and resolution. No major changes occur here, as it is merely an expansion of the first act introduction.
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Even if you possess all of the formulas in the world, one of the best things you can do is to break the formula. And that is incidentally the technique employed by both Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction and Christopher Nolan in most of his movies. In a nonlinear narrative, the events are portrayed out of chronological order or in any other manner where the narrative does not follow the direct causality pattern.
A full list of storytelling formulas you can use to tell a story about your product that motivates your prospects to buy…. Apply these storytelling formulas to every marketing communication you do. Blog posts, advertisements, about pages, YouTube videos etc.
How do you get other people to tell your story? He is also the co-founder of BreakDance Decoded , an online breakdance training company. He loves standup comedy, and has a dream to visit at least countries in his lifetime. Our friends at VoilaNorbert have another way of looking at it: Black Friday and Cyber Monday used to But is it enough? The hardest part of the job is to get visitors to the website, and then ReferralCandy is a product of Anafore Pte. Best Practices and Guides.
CandyBar — Digital Loyalty Cards. Recently, these men returned to their college for their 10th reunion. The key to success?
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And the best part? You can use them too. They buy product benefits. Benefits Why someone should care about the advantages provided. Examples Blendtec Extra Gum 5.
Story Teller (magazine) - Wikipedia
Meeting With the Mentor The hero will meet a special mentor that will aid him in his quest. Crossing The Threshold Your hero finally moves on from his life and embarks on the quest. Tests, Allies and Enemies The different people who the hero will meet that will either help or prevent him from completing the quest. Approach To the Innermost Cave The hero will be on the verge of fighting his enemy. The Ordeal The fight between the hero and the enemy.
Reward The hero receives a reward for defeating the enemy. The Road Back The hero travels home and fights possibly with lesser enemies. The Resurrection The hero proves worthy of the reward he has received. Return With The Elixir The hero finally reaches home and receives his accolades.
Climax The turning point that changes the fate of the main character. Formula Circle 1 Innermost: To start off, you can begin by answering this question: What specific incident inspired the purpose surrounding of your topic? Action In order to ensure that the reader or listen takes action, you must clearly lay out the action needed. And give them one clear, specific action to take. Why should they do it? What do they stand to benefit? Bring the story to its lowest point People want to hear about failures and how the character turn the failures into a learning lesson or a success.
Turn the story around and finish with a happy ending Then, after the story has reached its trough, describe how things improved and then end the story on a happy ending. This is his formula for writing a good story. Formula The Setup Reveal the everyday life the hero has been living, while drawing the audience into the initial setting of the story.
The New Situation The hero is now reacting to the new situation that arose from the opportunity. Complications and Higher Stakes Achieving the goal becomes more difficult. The Final Push Beaten and battered, the hero now gives his all in achieving the goal. Formula Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World Name the undeniable shift in the world that creates both big stakes and huge urgency for your prospect.
Show There Will Be Winners and Losers Demonstrate how the change you just mentioned will create big winners and big losers. Examples Zuora Uberflip The Promised Land Describe to your audience what it looks like in the future. Explain Away Obstacles Lay out the obstacles and show how your product or service can overcome it. Formula Verify Call out something the reader has seen, heard, observed or thought.