Three Models of Creativity, Writing to Persuade and How to Be a Better Reader

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

"Water Pond" depicts a colourful room with abstract features, including a window, seating and some sculptures, which surround a small pond atop a table, with grass poking through the water. "Grass Store" depicts a shop selling turf – a patch of grass hangs from a line, there's more atop a stair-like display shelf – in the background is a window with mountain views.

Two drawings (left: "Water Pond", right: "Grass Store") by Meicheng Chi – Work with Meicheng

Hi All,
If you've not already bought your ticket for Russell Davies' Interesting Conference, get a move on. It's such a wonderful and inspiring event. For the uninitiated, Interesting features 16 short talks about interesting things. And for the initiated, you know this will be the best event you go to this year. It's happening on Saturday 3rd September at Conway Hall in London. If anyone knows what makes a good presentation it's Russell. He literally wrote the book on it.

I wanted to point you in the direction of a couple of podcasts we've been making for clients. The first is How We Got Here, which we make for UK Parliament Education. Each episode tells the story of the people that turn big ideas into laws that shape society. The second is Teachers' Voices, which we make with the Jacobs Foundation. Each episode is full of inspiring conversations with international experts on learning and child development. Give them a listen and subscribe if you like them.

Finally, a reminder that we're currently researching how people find, use, and share stories in this hybrid working landscape, and we'd love to hear about your media habits. Please fill out our survey. It will take between ten to fifteen minutes at most.

Enjoy today's stories and have a wonderful weekend.
Hugh

The Short Story

Mona Chalabi – Am I Normal?
(3 min watch)

Lessons For Creatives From Fred and Ginger
(7 min read)

The End of Social Media
(10 min read)

Steven Johnson: Three Models of Creativity
(7 min read)

How to Find Out Who You Are
(5 min read)

Opportunities Live Where Your Audience Least Expect It
(5 min read)

NYT Op-ed Editor Gives Tips on Writing to Persuade
(5 min read)

You Want Your Fiction to Feel Like Non-Fiction and Your Non-Fiction to Feel Like Fiction
(Thread)

Farnam Street's Guide to Becoming a Better Reader
(8 min watch)

Five Design Lessons From the Guitar Pedal
(5 min read)

On the right is a dark-haired woman wearing a black top with orange and green patterns. In. her right hand she is holding a ventriloquist dummy that represents her mother. The dummy has a green headscarf, red lipstick and a flowery dress. The background is a sandy brown colour.

How can we help you?

Storythings is a strategy and content company based in Brighton and London. We'd love to help you with some creative and bold ideas.

Here's 3 reasons to get in touch.

1. You want to talk to us about content production: podcasts, videos, animations, illustrations, editorial.

2. You want to talk to us about content strategy or format development.

3. You want to create a brand or an identity that makes it easier to communicate your message.

We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch.

The Full Story

Mona Chalabi – Am I Normal?
I've just discovered Mona Chalabi's series of short videos she made for TED. Using her unique style of hand-made data visualisations, Mona investigates the research behind a bunch of tricky questions. In this video, she looks at what you miss when looking at the averages in data and how the really interesting stories can be found by looking at the outliers. Mona is one of our best data storytellers and this series is packed full of lessons for anyone looking for interesting ways of telling data stories.
(3 min watch)

Lessons For Creatives From Fred and Ginger
Astaire and Rogers revolutionised dance on film. They set new standards for performance and artistry whilst making it all look easy. They did it all through hard work, having constructive arguments and providing glamour in an era of drabness. I'm sure many of you'll be familiar with the Rogers "backwards and in high heels" quote. This excellent piece from Jim Caroll is full of similar gems that will inspire all creatives.
(7 min read)

The End of Social Media
There are a few articles circulating at the moment that announce the death of social media. I'm not a huge fan of articles announcing the death of anything that is still being used by billions of people worldwide. But despite the headline, this fascinating piece looks at how algorithmic feeds (like the one that drives TikTok’s “For You” page) are going to largely replace traditional friend graphs across all social networks.
(10 min read)

Steven Johnson: Three Models of Creativity
As someone who is obsessed with innovative formats, I enjoyed hearing about the approach Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan uses for developing interesting structures for her writing. Jennifer has previously written chapters structured as Powerpoint slides and as 14o character tweets. In her interview with Steven, she talks about the benefit of having a solid wishlist of things she wants to try, especially when her process involves a lot of unconscious thinking. This is one of the many benefits I have from writing Formats Unpacked which has become my very own wishlist of innovative formats.
(7 min read)

How to Find Out Who You Are
Following on from Ian Leslie's excellent How to Be Influenced piece in last week's newsletter, David Brooks in the New York Times looks are how your influences help shape who you are and how you see the world. As Miles Davies put it: “Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”
(5 min read)

Opportunities Live Where Your Audience Least Expect It
Have you ever switched on the subtitles for Stranger Things? Me neither. We're missing out. Last week in Ann Hadley's newsletter I was introduced to the joy of the Stranger Things subtitle and how the show uses them, not just to describe sounds but to add another layer of entertainment.
(5 min read)

NYT Op-ed Editor Gives Tips on Writing to Persuade
As the person in charge of the Op-ed page for the New York Times, Patricia Hall spent years immersed in argument, passion, and trendsetting ideas—but also in tangled sentences, migraine-inducing jargon, and dull-as-dishwater writing. Here she gives tips to science writers on how to make their storytelling reach a wider audience.
(5 min read)

You Want Your Fiction to Feel Like Non-Fiction and Your Non-Fiction to Feel Like Fiction
This came from an excellent Reddit thread on writing advice.
(Thread)

Farnam Street's Guide to Becoming a Better Reader
Many of us read because we want to master the best of what other people have already figured out. This is only true if you can remember and apply the lessons and insights from what you read. The people at Farnam Street have turned their popular article on becoming a better reader into this short video.
(8 min watch)

Five Design Lessons From the Guitar Pedal
I don't play guitar and have never had use for a guitar pedal in my life. But I read each and every one of these points with a knowing nod of approval. Particularly this about physical buttons vanishing into screens: "When I’m driving, I do not want to have to glance at a screen to figure out how to turn down the damn air conditioning. No, I want to reach out and — relying only on muscle memory, and without taking my eyes off the road — rotate a knob devoted solely and only to control the temperature."
(5 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings

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ten to fifteen minutes UK Parliament Education hybrid working landscape The Short Story

Three Models of Creativity, Writing to Persuade and How to Be a Better Reader

10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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