Book - Nobody wants to read your shit - Steven Pressfield

Nobody wants to read your shit

In school we get accustomed to having professors carefully read our writing. We get the wrong idea that the World is waiting to read what we write.

Truth is nobody wants to read your shit - not because they’re mean. They’re just busy.

Writing/reading are transactions:

• The reader donates the writer his precious time
• The writer, in exchange, must provide something valuable

What to do about it?

1. Streamline your message (simple & clear)
2. Make it really compelling (fun, sexy, interesting, scary or informative)
3. Apply that to all your writing

Elements of Stories (and non-stories)

1. CONCEPT (a unique spin on a conventional situation)
2. THEME (what is the story about?)
3. THREE ACT STRUCTURE
   1. Hook (Inciting incident creates tension)
   2. Build (build tension and complications)
   3. Payoff (release tension)
4. A HERO AND A VILLAIN
5. HIGH STAKES

Non-Fiction

To make your non-fiction writing more engaging and to hold your audience’s attention, you can incorporate all the above into any piece of non-fiction

Other Tips

START AT THE END

• First figure out where you want to finish
• Then figure out the beginning
• The ending dictates the beginning

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Related: Writing tips The hero’s journey Author: Steven Pressfield Tags:book