So You Want to Write a Book?

Everyone has a story. Over the last twenty years of ghostwriting, I've heard it all. One guy claimed to be born in a swamp and raised by mosquitoes. Another called me to share how he became a billionaire, but got off quickly when prison guards in the background shouted unintelligible profanities. Everyone has a story, but few can give the definition of story. Story is about connecting, and the glue connecting one human to another is called emotions. Not tears, laughs and smiles, but the most powerful emotion of all—understanding.

I have found most people confuse events with stories. Being born poor in Guatemala in 1973 on a farm with one sick cow is an event, not a story. This is critical to understand. Critical to narrative construction. Once you learn to identify, and separate story from events the magical fairies of storytelling will tap you on your shoulder. So then, what is story? Story is organizing and sharing the emotional consequences of life's events. Please read this again. The consequences must be emotive or you don't have a story. Here is a more pedestrian version—story is what happened because of what happened.

So you were born in Guatemala in 1973 on a farm with one sick cow. This is what happened, but what happened because of this? Where did this event take you in life? What did you learn on the farm you could not have learned anywhere else? Now you are flirting with story. And once you share your lessons, I begin to think of my own life. I start to realize the mundane, the ignored and the forgotten has much more influence on my life than I give credit. And once I start to make my connection, through witnessing yours, I become emotional because now, I understand.