Like let’s say I met a celebrity randomly on the street one day, how could I make that sound interesting and say it in a way that makes the story last longer than 10 seconds?
I don’t want to just say “I met ___ completely randomly while walking along a sidewalk” what kind of details can I add that don’t seem completely pointless to add to the story?
I just see people that are able to make a story that could be told in 10 seconds last 5 minutes and I have no idea how they do it. Does it take a lot more work than it appears? Are they writing down the story and then practice telling them? I just don’t get it.
4 comments
Brevity is the soul of wit.
You want your story to be as compact and informative as possible. Padding it bores the reader with needless information unless you’re describing the surroundings and setting the scene.
In general a story needs two parts: the content and an explanation of why the content is cool
you gotta lead to the climax. if meeting this person is the climax…. how did we get here? EI what were you doing when you ran into this person? now expand on that… Why were you doing that ? expand on that what would you hope would be the result of doing that thing?
example> so the other day I headed over to the store, I had to pick up some things for the party I was hosting. you know how I over prepare, so i needed chips and mixers so i figured it would be super fast to just stop in and grab them and go, right? so I’m grabbing some chips boom guess who i see? That GUY! I was like “YO its you my guy!” and he was like “hey, nice to met you” and walked away. is that crazy or what? I wasn’t even going to go down there, and bam there he is.
this way you can share a bit about your self, and keep your self as the main character of your stories. meeting this person is just one of the cool things you do on a daily basis, so include part of your daily life in the story.
Adjectives? “I said hi to Tom Cruise” is boring but “I was leaving Starbucks and saw a brand new all-black Hummer, and the driver was opening the door for, of all people, Tom Cruise. He was just standing there looking bored so I cracked a joke about needing the bathroom at Starbucks. He didn’t laugh but kinda gave me a nod. He’s more muscular than you would imagine but looks hella short compared to his driver/guard who had to be 300lb.”
Paint a picture with your words.