What’s Wrong with my Story?

Sometimes when writers find their stories (or even novels) have been rejected, or damned with faint praise they’ll ask “What’s wrong with my story?”
I have had the privilege of critiquing stories quite often and it seems to me that the basic problems fall into one (or more) of three categories. These are just my own [...]

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The Focus of your Story

When our kids were younger we would sometimes decide to take a week of the summer holidays and drive to Calgary. We had lived there a for a few years when we were first married and we both had friends there. So we would tell everyone we were going to Calgary for the week and [...]

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Starting off with a story

One of the best ways to start a story is to ease into it gradually and personally. The old “Once upon a time…” will work occasionally: Let’s say you’re speaking to a a group of tax accountants about payroll issues. If you start off with a once-upon-a-time story you will have their attention because it’s [...]

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And the moral of the story is…

Don’t you dare, don’t even consider for a minute using that phrase at the end of your story.
If you haven’t woven your intended lesson all the way through your story, then it’s too late to start when you are one minute from leaving the stage. Using “and the moral of the story is…” is like [...]

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Mooreeffoc

Huh?
I didn’t just make the word up. That is what you would see if “Coffee room” had been painted on a glass door and you came up on the wrong side of it. Something quite ordinary made strange.
And what has this got to do with story writing? Think about a story that runs just the [...]

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Three men went into a bar…

Three men went into a bar and…. You know it’s going to be a joke. You listen for the set up and the punchline then (with luck) you laugh. You don’t expect any great depth from this story, no deep insights or motivation. There’s nothing wrong with jokes – we all need a [...]

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Personal Stories

Whether you’re reading an article or listening to a speaker you’ll find that many of the most polished communicators use personal stories to illustrate the points they want to make. There are reasons for this:
- It brings you, the writer or speaker, closer to your reader or listener because you have now shared an experience
- [...]

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