Five essential lessons on storytelling I taught my mom this weekend

NOTE: I got my posting schedule in check. Expect these free posts every Monday.

My mom is the best

She was the first person to encourage my writing as a child. She was my first subscriber to my first blog and my first paid member to this publication.

She also admitted that I’ve inspired her to write more, but she’s intimidated by the process. She wrote her first post but didn’t know if it was good enough to share.

I read it, and she was right. It’s not good enough…yet.

The piece needed editing and a new perspective on what makes a good story. She asked me for advice. This is what I told her.

1. Start by keeping your timelines linear

Unless your name is Christopher Nolan, it’s difficult to keep a reader’s attention if the timeline of your story jumps around a lot. Yes, you can start stories in the present and then jump to the past for context, but jumping back and forth risks confusing the reader.

Go back in time, but then move steadily forward from there. As you grow as a writer, you may find stylistic skill in making experimental time leaps, but it’s better to stay linear in the beginning to avoid scrambling the brains of your reader.

2. Don’t make assumptions about what the reader knows

In her first sentence, Mom wrote, “You probably don’t remember Grandma Moses…,” which makes a big assumption and is borderline condescending.

Unless you’re making an esoteric reference to something so obscure, most won’t know about it, and the one’s who do will understand why you’re referencing it, avoid telling people what they do or don’t know.

Instead, make the reference as you understand it and let the reader discern the information in their own way. Everyone has access to Google and Wikipedia and they can look it up if they don’t understand.

3. Ask yourself, “Why should they care?”

Not all subscribers are fulling invested. They might be casual observers who read your work occasionally and if you can’t make them feel like they should read your story, they won’t.

When writing personal stories about ourselves or our craft, it’s not always easy to find the reason why someone else would care beyond our own self interest, but there are ways.

• Hook them with a good headline that makes them want to click and read. Headline writing is an art and all writers benefit from studying that art.

• Follow the traditional story arc of setup—conflict—resolution. Someone did a thing in a place. Then something else disrupted that person place or thing. The battle (internal or external) ensued until the conflict was resolved.

4. Create transformation in the reader

Award-winning author and storyteller, Matthew Dicks often talks about the 5-second moment of transformation he wants his readers to experience in any story he tells.

It doesn’t have to be a monumental change, but rather a small shift in thinking that makes people look/feel/do something different after they’ve read your story.

Think of any good story you’ve read or heard recently and ask yourself how you felt before and after that story. If you enjoyed the story, you probably feel differently about something, even if it seems insignificant at first.

5. Do the reps

Lastly, the most important part is to keep writing. There’s no magic bullet for writing well and growth comes from consistently putting our words on the proverbial page. We don’t have to publish all of what we write, but the more often we do it, the better it gets.

It also doesn’t hurt to study up on the process. I recommend Matthew Dick’s Stories Sell (affiliate link). It’s one of the best books I’ve read on the topic and I believe every writer can benefit from his lessons.

But did I miss anything? What are some other ways for new writers to improve their work that I skipped over? Share in the comments.