Lecture 1: Starting as a Puzzle
Lecture 2: Tools for engagement
Give tools to develop perspective of the person who is talking (author or the character).
When you have given a tool, the reader wants to use it.
For instance, if you give two categories: Type 1 and Type 2. People can start to categorize.
Or if you introduce an idea, for instance monogamy. Then, as soon as the concept is talked about…they start to use that tool.
Create connection to data
People need a reason to look at the numbers. The reason should be really interesting.
Get them interested by explaining the significance first. Then tell them how to look at it.
Break the data up. Give it in easier representation. If you have 100 rows, give some at a time.
Given a candy to the readers
Understand the difference between meals and treats.
People don’t talk about things in the same way they think. The things they can talk about are equivalent to treat (candy), and the things they want to think about is meal. Give them some treat.
You only talk about the things you can talk about. This can, can be dependent on a lot of things:
The comfort level
The amount of time.
Remember that you, as an author, have to give some candies. When someone talks about the candy, the other person also wants to read about it.
People are excited about what they like. Given them a reason (treat) to talk about and let them spread what you fed them.
Examples:
By the way: so and so person is same as so and so etc.
Lecture 3: Holding readers: controlling information
Cultivate surprise
If we tell people something new, we have the reward of seeing other people being surprised.
So, if someone takes the risk to tell you a new thing, try to show that you were surprised at least partly. Its not about faking surprise, but showing surprise because no two people can have the same perspective. Try to accept the part which someone adds to your knowledge.
Create an environment in which the stories can be told.
Invite readers to guess
Write it in the form of a puzzle. Tell them that it is a puzzle for the reader.
It is especially interesting if the result of the puzzle is unexpected.
Invite readers to identify themselves
The way we interpret the emotions of the people we know is very different from the people we don’t know.
When you have a character which people can relate to. In fact, the people can always relate each character with someone they know. The work of the author is to invite the people to look at the character from that perspective.
Withhold information with a purpose
We want people to keep reading.
Withhold the prize until the end. Withhold pieces of prize. Think about what you are not going to say.
Don’t withhold the story because you don’t understand that you are holding the information. Withhold it with the purpose of revealing at the end.
Play surprise and surpense
Suspense is how a writer plays with time. That the reader expects at a given moment to be told something, but you withhold the information.
A narrative is first about setting off the questions, and then resolving each question.
There is a distinction between surprise and suspense. In surprise, you tell something new without the reader suspecting it. But a suspense is something which is being expected.
Lecture 4: Research
Do not use internet
To tell a story, I want to be led to something new. Since google ranks things based on popularity. This is against the thesis of writing.
Go to the librabry
The librarians like to be useful.
You may look for books around the books you went to read.
Follow the footnotes
Tells you what the author thought at the time of writing.
Things which are not current can also be useful.
Follow your curiosity
That story may not have been used at that point… but maybe it will come back later.
Find stories which speak for themselves
Lecture 5: selecting a story
The endings that transports you somewhere compared to where you were at the beginning.
Look where you looked before:
The interesting people also belong to interesting groups and interesting friend. So, if you found a story somewhere, continue meeting their friends.
Expand on critical details
When you read someone’s response, look at each word critically.
Avoid the first person problem
The readers’ expectations are high, when you use first person (I, me etc.). This is because the readers are historically trained to read autobiographies of great people.
It is also turning your gaze inwards. You are dealing with your personal self. The readers start to feel “who is this person who thinks that I should read about what he says”.
Lesson 6: Developing the story
Test the idea itself
Figuring out how to communicate an idea to someone.
Tell it over and over again to different people. Do they find it interesting? How they react? How they are asking questions about it, and when?
Listen to the responses with an open heart. Make it easy for them.
Grow the idea
People will give you the ideas they have in their minds.
When you tell someone a story, they always come up with something analogous. Building a conversation. Look at the stories closely.
Everyone is necessarily the hero of their own imagination.
We have the tendency to retell the past in a way that we become the hero.
Experience the story
Try to live the story yourself.
Lesson 7: Developing the story: analogous words
Hunt for patterns
Appears in different words simultaneously. Connect different fields but the connections are subtle.
Keep getting exposed to different topics.
Case studies
Lesson 8: Intervieweing
Show the subject why they are interesting
Push people in the right direction.
Let them know which part of their world is interstong, since for them their lives are as they are.
Make your subject slow down
You are representing your audience while interviewing. Would your audience have question? Then you should ask.
Ask the person to slow down.
Use humility as a tactic
Humility is both trait and tactic.
If you use tone of humility, people are more cooperative.
It’s the person interviewed who is more interesting. Even if you are in general more interesting, for this interview the person interviewed is .
Make interviews short and unscripted:
You cant be tired during interviewing.
If you already have script, its not a conversation. You cant lead from one question to the next
Get help with your weaknesses
If you have a limitation, ask someone else to help.
Lesson 9: Characters description
Summon a character’s spirit
Use other people to describe a character
Establish characters quickly
Lesson 10: Characters: world building
Describe the character’s world
The physical space they inhabit is tantamount to the person himself.
Spend time practicing.
Write through someone else’s eyes. Show it to the person through whom you described it.
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