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Whether your story involves fiction or non-fiction it’s going to flop if the audience is falling asleep within the first few minutes. But how do you engage people right from the get go and compel them to care about what you have to say?
The most straightforward answers to that question I’ve ever seen is in a video by Bill Johnson. In it he talks about his idea that a story is a promise and how that promise can be used to guide the writer through the rest of the story.
He was inspired to that idea while reviewing manuscripts and realizing that many people were taking upwards of forty pages to get to the actual start of their stories.
The people were using the beginning of the story to just pile up facts about their main character or setting when they really should have been setting the story in motion.
He is talking about writing fiction books in the video but I think this idea can be applied to any media that involves storytelling. Whatever creative work you want to do: write books, blog, video editing, photography, painting, raising money for your favorite charity, interpretive dance, or even just telling stories to coworkers…if it has a story to it then this will help you do better.
Anyway, check the video out it’s really interesting:
Some key points:
For more on this check out his book ‘A Story Is A Promise‘.
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