Summary: Even if you're producing expository prose, the key to strong writing is story. All you need is an entity and an action. Listen to the episode here: OR <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/word-shots-the-podcast/id611651233">SUBSCRIBE to Word Shots in iTunes</a> or your favorite podcatcher. Full Transcript: The following may or may not describe your experience with Word Shots. But I’d guess it’s true to at least someone’s experience: You want to know how to write strongly. I’ve assured you that good theory can help you get there. But now you’re seven episodes into his podcast and you haven’t seen your prose improve in any remarkable way. Last week I <a title="Word Shots episode 7: Communicate to Manage Change" href="http://maximumstrengthwriting.com/podcast/communicate-to-manage-change/" target="_blank">talked about ritualization</a>, but I didn’t really explain what it is, and you’re finding it hard to do anything with the concept. Before that I talked about why you write. But you were already pretty good at working out why you write each thing you write, and you always <a title="Word Shots episode 6: Write to Recruit and Empower" href="http://maximumstrengthwriting.com/podcast/word-shots-6-write-to-recruit-and-empower/" target="_blank">aimed at recruiting and empowering</a> your audience. You’d like to hear something that will really improve your writing. Very well. It’s time to descend from the heights of abstraction and get down to where pen meets paper. Page 1: Our First Look at Structure: The Story Kernel There’s a skill that too many writers lack. This skill is far easier to learn than grammar, far more quickly cultivated than a rich vocabulary. But too few writers have studied with teachers who teach it. The skill I’m talking about is structure. If you really want to empower your audience to take in and benefit from what you write, you need to understand that each member of your audience possesses a human brain, and that the human brain is wired to respond to certain kinds of things. Understanding what the mind likes to respond to will help you structure your writing so as to make a maximum impact. I hope the next thing I say won’t be too obvious. I’m afraid the reason for much of the bad writing we see is that people consider this fact so, obvious that it’s not worth anyone’s attention. But in fact, because it’s so important, and so neglected, I’m going to say it three times: People respond to stories. People respond to stories. People respond to stories. Of course, not everybody neglects this; if you’re one of those who gets it, please stick around. Maybe together we can work out the most potent way of converting those around us to the gospel of story, because many writers and speakers do neglect it. I think different people have different reasons for this neglect. Perhaps many <a title="To Be or Not to Be? On fiction writing." href="http://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/to-be-or-not-to-be/" target="_blank">fiction writers think it’s all just too obvious</a>. They’re writing fiction; why do they need me to tell them to be sure to write a story? It’s like telling somebody you see running to be sure to get some exercise today. And non-fiction writers may think: “I’m not here to write a story. I’m writing expository, not narrative prose. If I wanted to write stories I’d become a fiction writer or a journalist.” Promising I won’t neglect the fiction writers forever, for this episode I’m just going to address the others. What expository writers need to understand is that story is the kernel of good writing. I choose the word kernel for two reasons: 1: It’s at the heart of good writing. 2: The smallest version of story is a very tiny thing indeed. It consists of nothing but an entity and an action. At its smallest, story structure is even smaller than sentence structure. For example, listen to this: “Gusts, hot, dusty gusts off the Sonoran Desert…”
