By Chris Owen, UK Director After working on the book for over 34 years (we have people in this office who haven’t been alive this long), Christopher Booker published Seven Basic Plots in 2004. It’s a seminal piece of work; taking a psychological and analytical approach to literature, it identified seven core themes to which …more
As a storyteller, I often combine sad stories with one another. Mostly with a positive outcome, but often I use stories without a happy ending. Stories where listeners really have to think about what they just learned. Stories where there is no gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s amazing when such stories evoke …more
This is a story within a story. A journalist named Paige Williams had the story. She just needed a publication to publish the story, a not-so-minor detail. After multiple rejections and finally selling the piece to The New York Times, only to have the opportunity go south, she took matters into her own hands. Specifically, …more
The headline comes from a Canal+ video (brought to my attention by one of our vice presidents, John Radewagen). Our protagonist in this story cheats death four times by his recollection in the space of 74 seconds: Bullets Cut-down tree Waterfall Lumber mill blades Of course, the real twist comes at the end when he …more
No, I’m not talking about Matt Kenseth winning the Daytona 500. Instead, consider what brings the vast majority of folks to the racetrack. It’s the possibility to witness a high-speed wreck. I’ve come to call the type of story that offers up the possibility of a wreck – defining “wreck” as an element of the story …more
