Keep Your Readers Reading

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Over and Over Again

People like to read stories: stories about a person (including you) who experiences something, has an emotion about that experience, and the experience has consequences.

Then they like to know what you learned from that experience. Is this something they could apply to their life?

That’s it! That’s all you need to know to write great stories that folks want to read.

Just Four Steps with Endless Possibilities:

Optional bonus step 5: Tell readers how they might apply what your person learned to their own life.

Here’s an example:
Person: I was a graduate student, writing a master’s thesis.
Experience: I burned up my thesis before submitting it.
(You can read about burning up my thesis here.)
Feeling: I got angry at my thesis advisor
Lesson: I learned never to act impulsively.
Lesson for readers: I wrote at the end about ADHD and Adoption, giving readers insight into why people in either situation might act impulsively.

I used the five steps and ended up with a 10-minute read. I also used it here and wrote a 2-minute…

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