Master the secret to engaging any audience—from classrooms, to colleagues, to conference rooms Everyone loves a good story. More than entertainment, well-told stories captivate listeners and motivate action. In this guidebook, Robert J. Garmston shows you how to leverage the power of storytelling to engage and persuade students, colleagues, and all other audiences. Written in Garmston’s warm and conversational style and featuring current cognitive neuroscience research, the book includes: Detailed breakdowns of the essential elements all great stories share, and templates for creating yours Tips for supercharging your stories by drawing from personal experience as well as familiar movies, TV shows, and popular media A guide to effective story delivery, including optimized vocal inflection and body language Becoming a better storyteller will make you a more effective communicator and educator. Get started today with The Astonishing Power of Storytelling.

The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.

A guide to crafting unforgettable, attention-grabbing business communications-from speeches and letters to business plans-using stories from the world's top business leaders. The world's foremost business leaders are also great storytellers. For example, industry titan Jack Welch has told how his mother instilled enough tough love and confidence in him to overcome the fact that he was the shortest kid in his class and had a severe stutter. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, often tells a story of setting up the company's first office in a converted garage. The Power of Storytelling collects the best of these stories, which readers can use to strengthen their own communication. It's an easy-to-use reference for anyone who needs to lead, inspire, and motivate an audience in a business setting, whether they're writing speeches, pep talks, interview talking points, employee letters, or Op- Eds. With anecdotes from Bill Gates, Sam Walton, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs, and many more, this is an inspiring and immensely useful tool.

"The Storytelling Non-Profit is a portable consultant for fundraisers, communicators and executive directors who want to tell great stories. In this book, professionals will learn a process for telling a story that inspires and resonates with a target audience."--Back cover.

A provocative scholar delivers the first book on the new science of storytelling: the latest thinking on why we tell stories and what stories reveal about human nature.