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Storytelling Principles for Business (with Amber Royer) · The Daily Writer

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: One of the most important things we do as business leaders is to communicate with our customers, clients, and readers.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we struggle with knowing how to do this effectively.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're in for a treat today because my guest is going to show us how to use the power of storytelling to communicate your message in a way that people already love.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hello my friend.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is Kent Sanders from Inkwell Ghostwriting.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this episode of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is the show that helps you grow your business, amplify your authority, and increase your impact through the power of writing.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I really appreciate you taking time to join me today.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's lots of podcasts you can be listening to, lots of audiobooks, lots of great music out there, but you're here with me, and I really do appreciate that.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you're like me, you've probably spent a lot of time during this quarantine watching movies and TV shows.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it that we can easily spend hours getting lost in those stories, yet we don't usually look forward to communication from businesses?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We love watching Netflix, but we don't necessarily love getting all those emails.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's getting lost in that communication and translation?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my guest today has the answer.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Amber Royer, and she's a novelist and writing teacher.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Amber is the creator of the Chocolate science fiction series, and in fact, the third book in the series, Fake Chocolate, comes out this month.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: In this conversation, Amber's going to teach us a few basic storytelling principles and how to use those for business.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: You'll also learn why it's important to read fiction as a business leader and how to get started writing fiction.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually Amber's second appearance on the podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'd love to hear more about storytelling, check out her first appearance on episode 92.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get to the conversation with Amber Royer.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for being on the show again.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I always really enjoy talking with you because I love story structure and storytelling and fiction.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you are the perfect person to come and help us to get a better handle on this.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be fun.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the first question I have about storytelling is why are we drawn to stories as people?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about stories that draws you personally and as you work with students and writers and all kinds of people around stories and books?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about stories that sucks us in?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are literally wired to respond to story.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a craft book by Lisa Crohn, C-R-O-N, and it's called Wired for Story.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she talks about how it's a safe way for us to learn things.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we take in someone else's experience and we apply what happened to them, and we learn how to behave, how not to behave.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: In her analysis, it kind of goes back to the whole idea of survival, and the brain wants to know how other people survived.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you get this whole, well, in my experience, this happened, and therefore that was the outcome, um, so that we can apply that in our own lives without having to step in front of the danger that those other people stepped in front of.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of is it hits us on a level that's very, very basic.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: See, I think that's a great insight because many times people who are all business they tend to look at things like movies and and novels and stories as something that doesn't have substance.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's it's just purely entertainment.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: But really, that's not the case because we learn the best from stories.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: We don't learn best from somebody just lecturing to us, you know, 28 points on how to do this or that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like if it flips that wisdom on its head, doesn't it, in a way?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, there's an article, and you can find this one online.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you Google this is your brain on fiction, there's a subtitle to it and everything, and it's an analysis of a number of studies that were done on what parts of the brain line up when you're reading fiction.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what they figured out is basically you're running like a computer runs a simulation.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain has this whole hypothesis of how the story is gonna turn out, and that's why we're constantly second-guessing everything that's going on.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're running this hypothesis to see if these characters get the ending we think that they will.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can reread a book, and even though you know what's gonna happen, or you can watch a movie that you've already seen, you know what's gonna happen.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can still cry when your favorite character dies.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can still hope for a different outcome, you can still look at that character in um a suspense film and be like, no, don't go down in the basement this time.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um don't do it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're like shouting at the movie screen.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so even if the story doesn't appeal to you as a concept, so you know, if if you're not into fiction, think of the people that you're communicating with and how you're gonna connect to them and how you're gonna hit their brain on such a visceral level if you tell them stories.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It also lets them know you as a person because not all stories are fiction.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if someone's listening to this, let's say they they run a small business, maybe they're an entrepreneur of some kind, they have some kind of a business where they want to use writing to help reach people and grow their business.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: But they listen to an interview like this and they think, I'm not a novelist, I'm not a storyteller, I have no idea where to even start with that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a good safe place for someone who doesn't consider themselves a storyteller or uh someone who would write fiction or novels?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where would a person like that start to become a more effective storyteller?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, say you want it for business purposes only.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say go on Instagram and make your business an Instagram account because Instagram is about images and story.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you make it personal.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we want those examples, those things like testimonials, where other people have experienced whatever it is.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, when when people find out if if you've lost weight or whatever, they want to know how you did it, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're doing a business, um say how you do stuff.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um say, you know, experiences the customers have had.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I was looking at this topic and I put together a little hypothetical coffee business because I have chocolate and I know coffee, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say that this coffee business is trying to figure out how to tell its story and it's got maybe four or five employees.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that you do, you set up your Instagram account, you take pictures of all of your staff, and instead of just giving a dry statistical bio that says where they went to school and all this kind of stuff, tell what their favorite coffee is and why.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have them all talk about why they decided to become baristas because we connect to people as people, and when the employees start to tell their personal stories, then we start to engage with them and we don't see the face of a business, we see our five friends who run this coffee place, and we want to come in and hang out.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be the first one.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's genius.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever thought about doing consulting for small businesses like in this kind of marketing and storytelling?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I would have never thought about that at all.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I've never done that, but in in these days and times, I'm open to pretty much anything people need help with story-wise.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I do story coaching.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: See, like that's a really legit thing, is businesses using this to help tell their story.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when I think about coffee, I mean, I'm sure being a coffee person, somebody like me is it's probably you look at somebody like me and go, okay, he really needs to get his act together.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know anything about coffee.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know basically it all tastes the same to me.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a reason that I go to a specific coffee shop near my house because I like the environment, I like the people.
• 8:11
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I like I like the story that they're telling through all the different things.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: The coffee itself is almost irrelevant to me.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that it just occurs to me that's something that that could be really a great potential thing for you to do.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know this this podcast isn't about necessarily, you know, that kind of stuff, but you know, I think that's uh a really legit thing that obviously you're really good at.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the other things that I have down here, maybe you know this about the coffee shop you go to.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the history of the business fascinates people.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh there's a little chocolate place that I know of in Hico, Texas.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked him why the business name isn't his name.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: His last name is Winsel.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The the chocolate place is Wiseman House.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that when he bought the building, it was like, oh, well, that's the old Wiseman house, because the Wiseman family owned it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that immediately connected him to the community.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the kind of story that you want to share for your business.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's a historic building that's been restored, if it's been handed down in your family, people love like mother-daughter teams who are running a business or with coffee.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a lot of people who they go globetrotting to make connections with specific farmers, and people just they want to feel connected, they want to feel like they have more than just a cup of coffee going on.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is so true.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then the story behind the coffee itself.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even even large companies like Starbucks and then your commercial grocery store coffee brands, they've started showing pictures of the farmers.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, go a step further than that, interview the farmer and say, This is where we get our coffee from Kenya, you know, whatever it is.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And here's this guy in Kenya and his family and what they're doing to grow the coffee.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, all of a sudden you you seem to care about the world rather than just about your own business.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point because people do want to know where their food comes from today.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's much more awareness of that.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Man, those are great ideas.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and stories that the customers have, um, you know, experiences when they have positive things going on.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe even right now, uh I know a lot of businesses are moving, both bookstores and coffee shops.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is basically my world, what I know.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're moving towards having to do curbside things um because people can't come into the shops.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So tell stories about how the community is coming together.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Tell stories about the great customers who are sticking with the business.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Make it about other people and not about you, but make it specific.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: To me, coffee is is not necessarily just about coffee, but it's also about relationships.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like one Absolutely.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know that people who are coffee kind of sewers, for them, it is about the coffee many times.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because they act they love the product itself.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: They really, really love the product.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: But for most people, it seems like coffee is about other things.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: It just coffee happens to be the thing at the center of those interactions.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I meet with my mastermind group at a coffee shop.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: We think of coffee as something that's communal, so those are some great ideas for how a business could use stories to then promote those things and connect with people.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's genius.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that can apply to any kind of business.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, whatever you do, you want to connect with the people who like what you do.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So do you use Instagram uh a lot for storytelling?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you think that because it's visual, is that is that something that you recommend where somebody would start with storytelling for their business?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because there's a lot of people who are looking at Instagram as a place to share images and story.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I find it's a lot more personal than Facebook and a lot more open as far as time than Twitter.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then TikTok, of course, is just video.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell story through video on TikTok, but you don't get that whole chance to like write out pull quotes and think about how you're gonna format it all before you just gotta do it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And Instagram honestly is a very positive place.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So people are a lot more likely to interact and say, yay, and like your story and all that on Instagram than on some of the other platforms.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Are you very active on LinkedIn?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like I should already know this since I should have done more prep to see where you're active on social media.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: But uh like are you active on there?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I tried posting things on there for a while and nobody ever really interacts with it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a profile.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I post video there, I post um links to some of my longer pieces.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I have pretty much a bibliography, but I found that posting story type stuff, it just kind of flew past because I'm not sure that that's what people go to LinkedIn for, but they go to LinkedIn network.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It is fascinating how the different social media platforms are useful for different things.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I find I have a lot more fun when I'm active on Instagram and Facebook than I do on LinkedIn.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: LinkedIn is I feel kind of bad saying this because I do use it a lot for reaching out to potential clients and that kind of thing, but yeah, LinkedIn is not really that much fun.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: But Instagram seems just like a lot more fun.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think LinkedIn is supposed to be fun.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know, but I want to have fun on social media.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there a way to make LinkedIn more fun and a little bit less dodgy?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know what the answer to that is, but everyone would have to agree.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know, I know.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It the thing with social media, and especially if you're thinking of it from a business standpoint or a marketing standpoint, uh as an author, you do marketing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you want to be the kind of person that that social media site attracts.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you look at my bio on LinkedIn and my bio on Instagram and my bio on Twitter, they're all very, very different.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: My bio on LinkedIn feels like a resume.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: My bio on Instagram makes me personal but professional.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: My bio on Twitter is like, hey, I write stuff.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my bio on on TikTok, which I just started getting into, is like, hey, I do funny sci-fi.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are we funny or what?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so you want to be the person that that is going to attract the customers on that platform.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And some platforms just might not be for you because you're just not the target for that audience.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: That that makes a lot of sense.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't given enough thought to this and about using different social media platforms more strategically.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm glad you're bringing this up.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is really helpful.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it all ties to story because what story are you telling when you are presenting yourself or your business as the protagonist?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, depends on what platform that you're on and what audience you're trying to reach.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good point.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: So talk about for a bit how stories can connect us to readers in a way that stats cannot.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've hit on this some somewhat already, but if we can dive into this a little bit deeper, so again, we're talking to people who are are using writing to grow their businesses.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: How can we use stories and maybe some other ways, uh, in addition to what you've mentioned, that can really connect us to our potential clients or readers in a way that stats then hard data cannot do?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, stories put a face on a situation.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um I I talked to my novel writing students about the difference between what they're doing and what somebody who is writing an essay is doing.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody who's writing an essay about a hard topic, say human trafficking, um, they can talk about how horrible it is.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can talk about how many people have been involved.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute that you, in a nonfiction situation, open up a new paragraph and tell one survivor story, all of a sudden your work takes on meaning, all of a sudden your work takes on power because it's not, oh, this happened to all of these people, it happened to one person.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We can sympathize with a large group of people, but we empathize with individuals.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're designing a story that's going to hit somebody in the emotion level, and when you're doing marketing, I hate to say it, you manipulate people by hitting their emotions.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Car companies do it, fast food companies do it.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just saw a Whataburger commercial that was like, we stand with you in these difficult times.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're hitting your emotions for a reason.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can't hit the emotions without the specifics.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You get specifics to get to something that is universal.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just there's a guy who has a problem.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is this specific person who has this specific relatable problem that we can understand and feel emotionally for this guy as he tries to solve it, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you don't have it, if it's very vague, we connect to summary on the level of language, we connect to specifics on the level of simulated experience.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one reason why story becomes so powerful is it feels like we actually are experiencing something along with someone.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you watch commercials, um a lot of times they'll they'll present a character who has a problem that whatever business the commercial is for, especially a lot of them lately on Hulu, have been about um insurance and things like that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um or car safety.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and one of the ones on car safety that that I've seen a lot with several different manufacturers recently is um we prevented this accident from happening.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they get you attached to this one person who is a really awesome person, and they're going about their day, and then they step out in front of a car, and the car is able to stop in time, and so therefore bad things did not happen, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's already hit your emotions because you've seen that this person is a good guy, you've connected to him, and you don't want things to happen to his and his family.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you were very excited that the car is safe.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if someone had they have a business of some kind, could they then choose some of their customers or clients whose stories would really resonate?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, have a good story, and then they could begin maybe featuring those people in some of their marketing or advertising or those kinds of things.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Testimonials work, and then um if you have those those social media accounts, you know, put a photo of that person with whatever the product is, and then have them talking about their own story with it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can even have them write it if they want to.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm making notes, that's why there's a little pause here.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: However, in grade school I got a D and handwriting, so we'll see if it's legible later.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give it a 50-50 shot.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is great advice, and it's something that seems so simple yet.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So many of us, myself included, sometimes forget to do that simple thing of just gathering testimonials, putting pictures of someone with that, so we make this very human connection.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we just want to be part of something, really.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when we have choices, a lot of times we're gonna go right now.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's this big movement for um in Dallas, there's Take Out Tuesdays, and there's a whole list of small restaurants that um have registered themselves on the group that's going to be doing takeout in order to keep their business afloat when they can't have people in the dining room.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're all doing their best to show themselves.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not coming in, you're not coming in for the dining experience.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is you're helping the community and you're keeping these specific, very nice people who have a story and a reason to be there in business.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's hard to do if it's impersonal and faceless.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at what like even um even the chain restaurants are doing, they're still trying to give you that sense of community that you're gonna be a part of something by choosing to help them rather than taking your business elsewhere.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is really fascinating and so timely.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, yesterday, my wife wanted some coffee, and uh and honestly, I did too.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, she wanted an iced chai.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what that is, but she likes it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a tea thing, I guess.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I told you I don't know anything about this stuff, so everybody who's listening is going, You literally don't know anything about this.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I went and searched for some coffee.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Our local Starbucks just down the street, they're completely closed right now.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a tiny, tiny coffee shop that is one of those really small buildings that's in the middle of a parking lot kind of a deal.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: They were open and it was so interesting because I wasn't personally that interested in the coffee but I thought it was cool that they were still open and they were so friendly and they really had a desire to serve the community and to make a connection and and stay open.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not blaming Starbucks for saying that was a bad decision or anything.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just interesting the emotional connection that you develop with one particular business versus another one sometimes in times like this.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of fascinating.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the product itself is almost beside the point in many ways.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's more about the people behind the product, particularly with a small business or a restaurant or a coffee shop, I guess.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because when when you're talking about telling your company's story, um there's only so many different things you can do with a product in your industry, but you can show your different take on it, your um your personal experiences with it, and that's gonna make it very different.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: A while back I had an Etsy store and I would buy jewelry, specifically pins, so um P-I-N-S pins, and I would sell them online after doing the research on the history.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I would buy it for 50 cents to like two or three dollars at thrift shops and garage sales and stuff, and I would post it with the provenance, so the story behind it, and I would sell the pieces for like 10 times what I had paid for it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would be able to say this was a piece from 1964 from Sarah Coventry, it was popular when all of this stuff was going on, and I would put it um in photographs that told the story.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I would have the setting for it, wasn't something that was then just picked out of a bin at a thrift store.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that was very beautifully displayed on fabrics that were the color you would wear it with, or if it was um a flower, I would take it outside and take a picture in the garden.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden it's special because we know the story.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: So so in some ways, objects could almost become like a totem in some ways, like it's maybe totem isn't the right word.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like that that object is a gateway to stories.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's those physical objects can be a gateway to other stories.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like my husband and I have a cookbook, and we don't sell a whole lot of them online, sadly, considering the times we are in right now.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: But every time we go to an event um and we do a cooking demo, or we would do some things with the Herb Society and we would um we would do a crafting demo.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: When people can taste the food, when when they get to see you speak as a person, when they understand your story, um the book, even if they do not cook, people will buy the book because they like the photographs and they want the memory of having been to your presentation.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like yes, books can be useful products, yes, you can cold sell them um all day long.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: My science fiction cold sells very well on the internet.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we want that something to take with us.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned this when I was doing some lectures for Royal Caribbean, I was on their cruise ships, and I noticed everybody who came on board had a product.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even the way retired um Olympic gymnast who was talking about um motivation and keeping yourself fit and a lifetime thing had a workout video.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the the people who were doing the the sleight of hand and all of that, they had something to sell afterwards.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you put all this time in doing a presentation entertaining, and I think that goes back to this whole idea that fiction isn't business, um kind of tilts it on its head.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's we want our audience to be entertained, we want our audience to be drawn in, we want them to like us, and then therefore they want to support us, and then whatever you offer, if it's your music CD or your workout video or your book or whatever it is that you offer after you've drawn them in, they're gonna be a lot more likely to buy it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I just sounded like a 90s surfer there.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just said totally, dude.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even from California.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you write you write fiction and you're an expert with storytelling.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: For the people listening who feel overwhelmed with their business, which probably all of us feel overwhelmed at times, they're they're consumed with responsibilities.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they have kids or side hustles or whatever it is, and they don't feel like they have time to read fiction.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of case could you make for busy people still reading stories and reading fiction?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: What would that give them that they cannot get anywhere else?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first off, there is fiction now for busy folks.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's called Flash Fiction, and there are websites devoted to it, and it's little chunks.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's meant to be read in one sitting, maybe while you're standing in line somewhere or when you're on the train.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: 500 to a thousand words tells an entire story.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're looking at learning as a business professional, something you can emulate when you tell a story in a business context, short is usually better.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Learn to write fast fiction.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard of it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another thing that I think um people overlook is that fiction helps you understand psychology because it's all about creating a convincing character that we believe is real enough that that we can cry for them, that we can hurt with them, that we can hope with them, and we want them to be real off the page.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you understand psychology, that's going to help with your interactions with clients.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's going to help with your marketing efforts.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's gonna help you be a more empathetic person in general.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: They do find that fiction readers are more empathetic human beings, which I think is a benefit just of itself.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, completely.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree more.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and if that's not enough, fiction readers build vocabulary and they tend to be better communicators.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: So tons of benefits for reading fiction in a business context.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: That would actually be an interesting uh article or a book or something.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like why why business people should read fiction?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me a good idea.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had talks with several people who are like, I only read nonfiction, and I'm like, well, you're you're kind of missing out on a chance to connect with people who read fiction because a lot of your customers are gonna be fiction readers, and you know, it gives you a little bit of context for where they're coming from.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And really, do you want to be the kind of person who's not pausing to enjoy stories?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean this is true.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, you can you can read nonfiction all the time and you can accomplish a lot and be very successful, but at the at the end of the day, if you're just working all the time, I don't know.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: That just doesn't sound like a really pleasurable life to me, you know.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we're both creative people and art artists at heart, so you know, maybe that's just wired into the artistic temperament as well.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I think everybody needs a creative outlet of some sort, whether it's you know, in the kitchen or if you like to draw.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um there there's always something.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for those who are are listening who they not only want to read fiction and maybe tell stories with their tell stories to help their business and connect with clients and customers and so forth, but they also want to begin writing their own fiction.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are some suggestions that you would have for the complete novice who wants to get into writing either short stories or novels?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where would where does somebody start?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's an overwhelming thing to many people.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the first thing I would say is just start, because there's never going to be a perfect time, and there's never going to be a point in your life where you're going to be able to write a first ever first draft and have it be a thing of beauty.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um you have to learn as you go.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And just starting to put some kind of words on the page is going to give you confidence to keep learning and give you something to edit.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I do a lot of critique of student work, and honestly, I can help you fix it if it's on the page, but if it's in your head, I can't.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: So get that draft out, just write something down.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, um, if you're gonna take on a serious project, you want to put some planning into what you're doing.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it may help you before you even start writing to do some exercises.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, who are your characters?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down and get to know them for a bit.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what is the point of your story?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Can you write out maybe why you want to tell this story?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, uh, I want to tell the story of this child who was like one I taught in one of my classes, and I've always worried about her later on.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or I want to tell this story because I believe that love conquers all, and I'm a romantic at heart, and I want to tell a love story.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know where you're going and have even a few points of um, I want this story to end with the the two lovers getting together happily ever after.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want this story to end with um a big space battle and a big implosion of a black hole.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you know where you're headed, then you're gonna be able to get there a lot more easily.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then one other thing I would say is set a schedule, treat it like it's a second job.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have, you know, you're writing a sci-fi and you need 130,000 words, that's a heck of a lot of words, right?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of words.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if you break it down and say, okay, I'm gonna write this manuscript, it's gonna take me X months, um, I need X number of words a week, and that breaks down to I gotta write 700 words today.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Which is very difficult.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: As long as you keep up with it, and it's like exercise.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get results if you stick with it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you if you have this schedule that you're gonna write 700 words three days a week and then you just don't for two months, you're gonna be behind.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, it's just it's math.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something a lot of beginning writers don't think about.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't think about how they're gonna write the book.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And people get completely shocked when they show up at a writing class, and I do look at a lot of things from a business point of view.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they show up at a writing class thinking it's gonna be very poetic and we're gonna feed the muses and all this kind of stuff.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing I hand them is a schedule, and I'm like, how do you plan to do this?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is how many hours there are at a month, this is how many words you need, how many months is it gonna take you?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're like their mind is blown because nobody's ever put it to them in that in those kind of terms.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that makes a lot of sense.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one of my favorite writing quotes is from Fitzgerald, and he says, I write only when I'm inspired.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 a.m.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: every morning.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love that one.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great one.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I recently read a book by Dean Wesley Smith called Writing in the Dark, or Writing Into the Dark, I'm sorry.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Where he Are you familiar with him?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or his his okay.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: He I guess writes a lot of fiction and also has some craft books for writers.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, this book is about how to write your novel without an outline.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that I have wrestled with is you know, should as I think about writing my first novel, should I structure it ahead of time or should I follow more what someone like him is talking about?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's it's like you you write a certain amount and you go back and edit it, and then you don't really know where the story is going to end up, and you instead kind of let the story take you there as opposed to having a structured outline.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do you write your novels and and what would you recommend for a first-time novelist?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so I am somewhere in between those two extremes.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think the whole idea of plotting versus discovery writing, it's a bit of a misnomer because every project is gonna take a different balance between those two.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I do find that the more I outline a project, the less rewrites I have to do.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I already know where I'm going with it.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I used to be a complete discovery writer, and I would get distracted by the shiny.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, well, this character's subplot, let's go over here.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there would be chapters of stuff that I had written that were entirely unusable because it didn't fit the arc of the book.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the end of the draft and you go, oh, okay, well, this is really what I was trying to say with this piece.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Having an outline lets you test all of those kind of things ahead of time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a big believer, if you if you know at least some of the points, then you won't be as easily sidetracked or you won't spend 20,000 words going down a rabbit hole only to find that there's a brick wall down there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you'll have an idea structurally of where you're headed.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: On my website, I have what I call an eight-point beat sheet.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, beat sheets are you you write down every emotional beat in the story, and some of them are quite extensive.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like um, Larry Brooks' story engineering has one for novelists where it's like every beat in your entire novel, he wants you to outline it.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: That can be overwhelming, but can you tell me what is the big hook at the beginning of your story?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me what's the first real problem your character is gonna face?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me what's gonna be the big switch up in the middle that's gonna just pull the rug out of from under everything?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me how your character is gonna win at the end?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you know those points, then you're a lot more likely to be able to fill everything else in and have a cleaner arc instead of having to go, oh, well, these three chapters went a completely different direction that doesn't fit where I'm trying to go with this whole thing.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's super helpful.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's really helpful.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: That gives me hope as well as probably gives a lot of other people hope who are listening to this that we can actually do this.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's very doable and not to be afraid of the process because it is intimidating if you haven't done it before.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you don't know where you're going with something, and that's okay.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so in in my Chaco Verse series, in the second book, I tried to kill off a character.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: My agent was like, oh, but no, you cannot kill this character.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: That would destroy several other characters and where they're going, right?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um character lives, and all of a sudden, one of my major secondary characters who was supposed to grieve over this guy, and then she was gonna move on and have this other love interest that I had already kind of like co-currently introduced in the book.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he didn't die.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now she's in the middle of a love triangle, and I wrote the entire third book, not sure who she was gonna choose, because that wasn't in my plan, and my brain just wouldn't figure out who she was really meant to be with if both of these guys are there, because one represents um home and tradition, and that was the one that was supposed to die, and then the other guy represents um excitement and intellectual challenge, and now she's got to pick between those two, and I gotta have to figure out more about who this character is before I can figure out how she's gonna make this choice because she's a secondary character, she's not a pro tag.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that was one of those things where I didn't know who she was gonna choose till I wrote the scene.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you're doing that and you're making choices about characters when you're writing scenes, do you as a writer and as a creator, do you frame it as something that you are creating as you write, or do you frame it more as you're listening to where the story is going, where you're you're discovering something that in a way already exists and you're just recording it, or do you look at it as I am creating this as I go?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm even making sense with that question, but I'm hoping that I am.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm gonna say neither of those exactly.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, okay.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go back to what I was saying earlier about this is your brain on fiction and running a simulation.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: What I feel like is I've made a hypothesis about the specific characters that I've created, and I'm gonna put them in a situation, and what do I think they will do in this situation?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my outline is my hypothesis.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I think they're going to do.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then when my brain is running in the background as I'm writing it, sometimes my my brain goes, Wait, that's not what this character, this psychological profile that you've put together that needs to be consistent would do in this situation.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the characters just balk at what your outline says because that's not who they are as people.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to figure out what would my character honestly do in this situation and be true to that and to them.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm doing is I'm creating people and I'm creating situations, and everything after that has to flow logically.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is so fascinating.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I've heard Stephen King talk about, well, I've not heard him, but I in his book on writing, I know he talks about stories as discovering something that's already there as opposed to creating something from scratch.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know it it's all the same thing in the end, but it's a different way of framing it.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that's fascinating that you're you're you've created these characters and you put them in a situation that you have concocted, but but then in a sense letting them speak to you as you go through this process.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever watched a television series and it's obvious that they've changed writers?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, oh, House of Cards comes to mind immediately.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, oh my goodness, that character would never do that, right?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you as a viewer feel like you know this person well enough to know what they would and would not do.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as writers, we really have to respect what the characters would and would not do and try to not retcon them to be somebody that they aren't just because the plot that you had in mind demands something.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's that's not an organic story.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And to what King is saying there, it's like, yeah, the story in some way has has certain elements that have to play out.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you just want to change it up, just to change it up, because you feel like a certain structure has been used too often or whatever, it's not going to ring true to the characters.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna feel like you've taken the character uh taken the reader on a sound psychological journey with the characters to get to a point.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Stories have to have a point.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's what all art and creative work is about on some level.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's an element to it where we're listening to something else that is beyond us.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the muse is is a term that sometimes we put on that, but I find this whole thing fascinating, especially when it comes to fiction and storytelling.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: That you kind of create the the the skeleton of it, you create the situation or the characters, and then you just see what happens.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that's the creative process, no matter what kind of creative work that you're doing, painting or music or whatever it is.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: As a musician, I know I feel that way.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever musicians get together to jam, you don't know what's gonna happen.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: You just you you start something, whether it's a bead or a riff or a lick or or a st or a genre or a style, and then things just happen.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have to, even if you have an outline, you have to flush it out.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and things do have to just happen off the cuff.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one thing that I like when when doing writing sprints and things like National Novel Writing Month is you have a certain amount of time, and say you're doing a writing sprint.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we did that with WordFest.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: We did a virtual WordFest this past weekend, which we put together in 10 days.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to be an in-person event, and then it became not.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we did writing sprints all weekend long, and it was 15 minutes, and then everybody counts up their words and says what they accomplished.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And some people were getting 700, 800 words.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was getting two or three hundred because I was working on a brand new short story.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you come up with detail and you come up with new characters on the fly, and it it's sometimes things that you never would have thought of if you had sat down and overthought the process.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, that's a great point.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I find that when you when you know what you're getting into, you can write a lot faster.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I was talking to one person um over the weekend who in 15 minutes um cranked out I think 800 words or so.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she was saying that she was able to do that because she's writing a memoir piece about her father and wanted to tell some of the stories that were family stories that involved him.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, So, of course I could just write it out because I know the story.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's already within her, and it's just she just needs an outlet for it.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Amber, this has been fun.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of fun.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've taken a lot of notes.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I talk to you, I feel like I'm in class because I'm learning so much about storytelling and fiction and reading and writing and all this good stuff.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they're working on making some of my classes virtual.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: So well, that's cool.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you'll you'll let me know whenever they do that.
• 45:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I can help get the word out about those.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as we wrap up here, how can our listeners get in touch with you and find out more about all the cool things you're doing, including all your novels?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the hub is just my website, amberroyer.com.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very active, obviously, on Instagram, Amber Royer Author.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I teach for UTA, so they're moving my classes to webinars.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're working on that.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's University of Texas at Arlington.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: I also teach for writing workshops Dallas, and um, I'm doing some things with writing day workshops.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: So right now their Seattle, um, their Seattle conference has become a webinar.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're needing critique work, I'm doing critiques through them.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I'm I'm everywhere.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just come find me.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I also have to give a shout out to our mutual friend Blake Atwood, who uh who I think of as the Kevin Bacon of the writing world, because you know he he has a connection to seemingly everyone, which is cool.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate him introducing us.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can I talk for a second about my upcoming book?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, I'd love that.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the Choco Verse trilogy ends um with fake chocolate.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: My character finally gets to come home to Earth.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a plant disease that's threatening to destroy chocolate on earth, and if chocolate is destroyed on earth, then the aliens are gonna invade and there's all kinds of chaos.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's romance, um, found family, bad boy heroes, um telepathic alien dragons, invented language, all kinds of fun.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's some Spanglish.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and my character is a culinary art student, turn diplomat.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna come out on April 14th, which is in the middle of all of the cancellations.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: So my launch party is gonna be a Facebook event, but you can pre-order that one now, and books one and two are available through Amazon.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's really exciting.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know that is, and that's that's the capper of the trilogy, correct?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: And do you have another trilogy planned after this?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is probably way too soon to ask.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't do you have another trilogy in that same universe happening after this one, potentially?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh potentially at some point.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've got ideas for such, but right now I want to explore a few other projects before I get back into the Choco Verse.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been working on um some mystery stuff dealing with a a um more real-world style chocolate maker and trying to figure out if I can get that off the ground and such right now.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm excited to see the the launch of your next book and all the cool things that will be coming out in the coming years as well.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks so much again for doing the show.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: This has been really, really fun.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: You've given us a lot of great tips and ideas, so I really appreciate that.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you much for having me.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a really fun conversation with Amber.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: I learned a ton, and I hope you took away a lot of value from this as well.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: This was a really tough episode to boil down to my usual three takeaways, but I gave it my best shot.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: So here are my three biggest takeaways from our conversation.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, any business can use storytelling as a way to engage customers or clients.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Amber gave a fantastic example of a coffee shop that can use storytelling to connect with customers and the community.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you might want to go back and listen to that section again in this episode because it was really great.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'd recommend listening to this whole episode again.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not because you should listen to me and my questions and commentary, but listen to Amber and all the cool stuff that she's sharing.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really that good.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just because you're not a Hollywood screenwriter doesn't mean you need to feel intimidated by storytelling.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: Storytelling is for everyone and we all can learn to do it on a better level.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Takeaway number two, business leaders should read fiction.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I know this is a bit of a controversial point because a lot of business leaders feel like fiction is a waste of time.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're always in content consumption mode.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've got to take this next course, I gotta go to this next webinar or seminar, I've got to read, you know, these 10 business books and all that stuff.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and hey, I do all that stuff as well.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've got to be consuming content.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: But personally, I think it's a great thing to consume fiction and stories because stories are how we learn.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, if a nonfiction book is good, it's going to contain a lot of stories.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're consuming content that's quote unquote nonfiction, it's always going to contain narrative.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's always going to contain stories if it's any good.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: So reading fiction is really just kind of the next step in that progression.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: But here's something else that's really important about fiction as well.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Fiction helps you to understand psychology, story structure, and how people think.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Fiction also gives you a different perspective on the world.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I can tell you with 100% sincerity that the novel The Godfather changed my perspective on a couple of things in a way that no business book could ever do.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And no, don't worry, I'm I'm not involved in the mob scene or the drug trade or I don't have any illegal businesses going or anything like that.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it's fascinating how, specifically that book, The Godfather, it's fascinating how the movie and both the book help you to become sympathetic with the mob.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: They help you to feel empathy for people who are actually doing a lot of bad things.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting how that psychology works.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying we should go out and be doing bad things or get involved in the mob and that kind of stuff on any level.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: However, it is interesting how fiction can can sort of bypass the logic of our thinking sometimes, and it can help us to empathize with other people and see things from their point of view.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the value of fiction, is it helps us to gain a broader perspective and to be more well-rounded and just helps us to have a broader appreciation for people who are different than us.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: And man, if there's ever a time that the world needed more people who are empathetic and can be better listeners, right now is absolutely that time.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think fiction can help us with all of those things.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a business leader, I implore you to read fiction alongside your business books and other nonfiction material.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, takeaway number three is this here's the best tip for writing fiction.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just get started.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: Amber gave us some great advice here, and that would also apply to any kind of writing, I think.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just get started.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just get some words down.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot edit what you have not written.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this also echoes advice that I heard from Stephen Pressfield, who wrote the fantastic book called The War of Art.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Stephen Pressfield said to write your first draft as fast as you possibly can.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is great advice, which I actually followed with with a draft of my last book.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not my last published book, with the book I'm working on now that's going to be coming out uh probably this fall.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: I followed that advice for that book.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I wrote a draft of it within one week.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 25,000 words.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's a short little book on creativity.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote wrote a very messy, sloppy draft within just a week's time by walking around the block a few times every night, uh taking about an hour over a week's period every day, and just dictating the book.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's very sloppy, it's very, very messy, but I have a draft of it done.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure if you could call it a draft.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's pr that's probably an insult to the word draft, but it's there.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's in a somewhat complete form.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I would encourage you to do the same thing.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: And this this advice is very common in the writing world.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: One of the best books that you will ever read about writing is uh by Anne Lamotte, and she has a great book called Bird by Bird, and she says, write a crappy first draft.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Except she doesn't use the word crappy, she uses another expletive for that, but you understand what I mean.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Write a first draft that's messy, ugly, and crappy, it doesn't matter.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna change a bunch of it anyway, but just get that first draft down.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're writing fiction, and I would add nonfiction, just get started, just get some words down.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this was a really fun episode.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I love having Amber as a guest.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's so much fun.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: She has so much great information.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you really love storytelling, I would encourage you to listen to this episode again and go back and listen to episode, uh which one was it?
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Episode 92.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: Had to go back and look at my notes, uh, for some great tips on storytelling and writing.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, I want to give a huge thank you to my special guest, Amber Royer.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: Please make sure and check out her website at AmberRoyer.com.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's A-M-B-E-R.com.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: And once again, thank you so much for listening.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate your support of the show and checking out these episodes.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: As always, remember that you can find lots more resources for writers at KentSanders.net.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you in the next episode.