A lot of rubbish is talked about story, and Stefan Sagmeister calls it.

Communication and change of state or status. This piece of footage shows a rich sequence of these elements in a 5 minute zero to hero sequence that got a million hits. It tells us a lot about the relation between story and change.

Prints on the Gun exercise. Group investigation into the motor of writing. We take a piece of writing from a typical detective situation and ask how persuasion is operating in terms of beats. These are fundamental story units that are found everywhere.

The once upon a time exercise to see what happens in the kingdom. This exercise is about feeling our way to the critical ingredients of a super simple story.

The hotel letter you wrote. What does it tell us about what works when we’re the other side of our own writing? What works, and what doesn’t?It may be the first time you’ve read your work as a competitor to others on exactly the same brief.

Reading out pure drivel is interesting. We read this text out aloud while standing up. We sit down when we’ve had enough then we ask the question: when and why do we give up reading? This exercise shows how a logic or flow glitch sheds readers like a leaky pipe. You can use this tool to fix any script.

Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech here in an abridged form shows some of the key beats of a great piece of writing. From fact to inspiring principle; it also shows how to manage conflicting interests by finding the largest common denominator.

Two presidents, two inaugural speeches, in the early mid section where the pain problem or situation gets developed. Can you guess who did which on? Spoiler alert: don’t watch the Video if you’ve not done the problem. What does this tell us about quality as opposed to what we think is quality?

Working with really simple types helps gets things clear. We do a lot of this on the course. Reducing complex multi-stakeholder interests to one dimension makes things much simpler and doable.

How do you sell one of these cars to one of the Mr Men? This exercise clears out all of the clutter in our thinking. It also helps us get to grips with the difference between features and benefits, because benefits connect to the psychology of an individual where features do not.

Brands can be thought of as based on Jungian archetypes. Here are the classic twelve. They’re useful for understanding story and brand types. They’re also really important when we’re thinking about tone of voice.

What makes big ideas? Time for a quick look at creativity as a thing in itself. Finally if you’re working on a project, we can arrange an Skype call two weeks later, and see how you’re getting on with putting everything into practice.

Finally if you’re working on a project, we can arrange an Skype call two weeks later, and see how you’re getting on with putting everything into practice.