17. Ideas are sluts
You are unfaithful.
They disappear from your mind faster than you would like.
That’s why I always write them down.
When you come across an interesting story?
Write down.
Write down.
When you have a compelling conflict in mind?
Write down.
I use Google Docs for this.
It doesn’t matter which program you use. What matters is that you are always ready to write down your ideas.
Include yourself in your storytelling
The great authors did it again and again:
They incorporated buy bulk sms service personal and biographical elements into their storytelling.
Goethe incorporated personal elements into “The Sorrows of Young Werther.”
Hemingway incorporated his hunting and fishing experiences into his stories.
And the writer of the best series of all time (“The Sopranos”) – David Chase – brought his experiences with his annoying mother into the series by incorporating a very annoying female character into the series.
But:
This should be done consciously.
If you do this unconsciously, it will read like an unresolved trauma or like an offended person who wants to “process something”.
19. Forget the first thought – and the 2nd and the 3rd and the 4th.
I have to puke.
If I have to read “Practice makes perfect” again.
Or when an author begins his text with the following passage:
“As we all know, healthy eating is very important.”
Age.
Tell me something new.
You see, if you write down the first thing that comes to mind, it is often rubbish.
It is:
1. A 15 online store trends for 2015 truism (“Practice makes perfect”)
2. A cliché (“Everything’s fine”)
3. An empty agent email list phrase (“As we already know…”)
4. Political speak (“The sustainable development of a value-oriented evaluation system through the coordination of decentralized influencing factors.”)
With it:
Take your time.
Especially for the first sentence.
The rule is: the less work you put into your storytelling, the more work it is for your reader to read the tough text.