We all know these three words
But did you know there’s an entire story hidden within them?
The antagonist
because “just” only means something when there’s a pile of reasons stacked behind it. The tiredness. The weather. The temptation to put it off until tomorrow.
In the year “Just Do It” launched, Nike’s revenue rose
42%.
So why has nobody taught you this?
Because, for some stupid reason, everyone decided a long time ago that storytelling is an exclusive art.
“You can’t capture the muse and teach it in a workshop. It’s mysticism. It’s magic. It’s not for mere mortals like you and me…”
Of course, anyone who’s actually studied storytelling knows that this is complete nonsense.
Storytelling is a skill anyone can learn.
Every great story is built using different combinations of the same ten parts.
Three of them are what I call the bones, and you just saw them in Nike’s famous slogan.
Two are what I call the soul, used to create emotional character arcs that make us laugh, cry, or anything in between.
And five are what I call the body, the actual events that give stories their familiar shape we see in movies and books.
Learn how to use these ten parts, and you can build any kind of story you want.
Build a story like you build Lego
In marketing, you rarely have room for a whole story.
Learn the different ways you can combine the ten parts, and you can make a story that’s as small as three words, or as long as a novel.
I call the 4 main combinations the story “monsters”, named after the parts they need.
Follow along
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