Posts Filed Under What's Your Story?
by Brian Clark
The massive pool of blood in my head was pressing precariously against my brain. The doctors marveled that I was alive, much less walking and talking.
They looked and shook their heads in wonder at the MRI results. I politely reminded them I was indeed alive, awake, and actually in the room.
It was three years ago today that they wheeled me in for emergency surgery, and I said goodbye to my wife, not quite three-year-old daughter, and newborn son. I knew that sometimes people don’t wake up from brain surgery, and this might be the last time I saw them.
Wait, let’s back up a bit.
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by Brian Clark
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.
~Hannah Arendt
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
~Robert McKee
It’s all storytelling, you know. That’s what journalism is all about.
~Tom Brokaw
If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story.
~Barbara Greene
Don’t say the old lady screamed—bring her on and let her scream.
~Mark Twain
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by Brian Clark
That’s you, remember?
Since the Holiday Season is upon us, and we all have better things to do than read blogs, I thought I would go ahead and shut things down for the year. And what better way to go out than with a recap of what you found notable in 2006?
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by Brian Clark
What makes a blog influential?
Influence is often attributed to traffic and readership levels. But in reality, those are actually benefits that are symptomatic of something that precedes them.
How do we get people to pay attention to what we say in the first place?
Ultimately, a blog catches on just like any other idea spreads—it must somehow speak to people in a way that they want to hear. Your posts must fill a human need, and that will most often be at an emotional level, no matter how practical we think our subject matter is.
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by Brian Clark
What’s the secret to finding the remarkable reader benefit that leads to sales, publicity, links or attention?
It’s keying in on the right element of the story.
Recently, blog network b5 Media accepted venture capital in the amount of $2 million to further grow their business.
Certainly, a collection of blogs as a real business is interesting, especially to those outside of the blogosphere.
And a business built around a collection of blogs landing $2 million bucks is certainly interesting as well.
But what’s the angle that’s hooking the mainstream media? Let’s take a listen to b5 Media partner Darren Rowse on that:
I had interviews this week with two journalists about b5media and it was interesting to see that in both cases the story that they latched onto was that we’d built a company without having met each other.
Being interesting is just the baseline requirement.
The real hook is the part that’s fascinating.
Here’s ace copywriter John Carlton’s take on fishing for hooks.
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by Brian Clark
Stories sell, there’s no doubt about it.
But they don’t sell because they tell people what to do.
It’s what a story allows people to tell themselves that makes it a powerful selling tool.
Sometimes people do believe what you tell them.
But people rarely ever doubt what they conclude.
Take the novel and film Fight Club for instance.
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