Long Story Short

No one likes being told how to feel. We feel things organically, or we don’t.

With the last prompt, challenge yourself to tell a story in one sentence. Hands down, the best answer I ever got to this prompt was from the shyest student in the world. She stood up and quietly said in front of the entire class, “Anal sex is how I learned I hated anal sex.” And then the entire class erupted into laughter—a loud belly laugh that went on for minutes. She told the whole story in ten words.

Pete has many adventures while learning to be chill and not get upset over the little problems in life,

Your point, or moral, or deeper message, should be known to you, to drive the writing and telling of your tale, but in my opinion, you should keep it to yourself.

Trick your audience into hearing your bigger message by layering it into your story. Don’t beat us over the head with it.

it’s not crucial that your audience gets your point, just that they get a point.

You can’t control whether or not someone will get your point or find something funny.

Let go of the desire to control the audience.

the darker a situation, the better story it will eventually make.

Let time pass between the event and talking about the event.

There should be some closure to the situation.

I am a light sleeper, who can only sleep in a bed, never even on an airplane, despite the over-twenty-four-hour flight I took to Australia once. Oh,

I am a light sleeper, who can only sleep in a bed, never even on an airplane, despite the over-twenty-four-hour flight I took to Australia once.

Studies show that many of us tend to stereotype the people we encounter, even if we try not to.

The more specific you are, the more relatable you are.

If you are just a generic person from a nonspecific place in time, who dresses nondescriptly, has generic taste in music, fantasizes about no one in particular, and simply eats “food,” how can we connect?

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left. —SARAH VOWELL,

We root for underdogs, plain and simple. Be an underdog in your story.

What makes you an underdog? What have you struggled with in the past or even on a daily basis?

What makes you an underdog? What have you struggled with in the past or even on a daily basis? What are