Email Story Bank

Once you hone the skill, having a story will be a snap. They'll flow off your finger tips effortlessly. But that might take some time. Start with this.

Start thinking of your whole life as a story. As you walk, pay attention. Imagine this were happening in a movie. And you are watching it from a third person perspective.

You can tie things that happen to you into the lessons in the copy.

Another trick is to collect interesting stories. When you find a weird one, or something you liked, clip it out and keep it in a folder. Then go through those when you are writing.

Get a real feel for "lateral thinking". Thinking about something that has nothing to do with the problem, in order to solve the problem. Doing so forces your mind to get outside the box and come up with new ideas. It is these new ideas that will make for powerful stories.

By going through that swipe of stories when writing, just start firing off ideas. Look at the story. Speed-write, write-write-write (don't think!) let the ideas come out. Then look at the next story, same thing. After a few, you'll generally get ideas pouring out like water from a broken fire hydrant.

Then go back and pick out any winners. (but in that first stage, just write. let thinking come later. You can't drive a car with your foot smashed on the break and you can't write and edit at the same time)

You might also consider learning the nuts and bolts of a story. By doing so, your mind will know what to look for... and they'll start jumping out at you nonstop (it actually gets frustrating once you're really "good" at it. You have so many ideas, you have to start ignoring them so you can have other things in life. An interesting "problem".)

To do that, check out the book "20 Master Plots & How to Build Them" by Ronald Tobias. He lays out the framework of the stories. You just "fill in the blanks" so to speak.

Another way to train your story-sniffing ability is to read some good fiction. And not just read (and enjoy) it. But pay attention to the way they write. How they say it. Once you understand the flow of it, the setup, the delivery, the tweaks, twists and turns, you'll have a feel for what makes a good story. And will start seeing them in your daily life... in the newspaper... Everywhere!

Get some books by Le Carre I'd say (incredible writer).

In time, you'll get a knack for piecing together seemingly distant pieces of information into a rock-solid way to get your point across -- and do so almost effortlessly.