3 ways to become a dopamine thief

Some people are born storytellers.

You know the types.

The ones you chat to down the pub that, no matter what story they’re telling, they just find a way to make it interesting.

It doesn’t matter what the story’s about.

A wild night out.

Their boss stealing their sandwich at work.

For fuck’s sake, it could be a story about the 2-day shift they just pulled over the weekend to build the latest Lego Death Star model their mum got them for Christmas.  

Then, on the flip side, you’ve got the “dear god, end this now” storyteller.

The one that can turn their story about a retreat to Ayahuasca where they spent 7 whole days entering a new realm of human consciousness into such a snooze fest that it has you scrambling for the caffeine hit of a Lucozade orange faster than a dad comes up with excuses for why he can’t attend the school parent’s evening this year.

It’s funny, isn’t it.

Some people have a way to make boring shit seem interesting.

And other people have a way to make interesting shit seem boring.

It’s almost like WHAT your story’s about doesn’t matter nearly as much as HOW you tell it.

And ever since entering the online space, I’ve noticed this phenomenon isn’t just limited to the stories you tell in real life.

It’s the same for the stories you write about too.

The other day, for example, I read a story about a marketer trying to sell glasses in India.

Now, Spielberg’s hardly about to go and turn that into a Hollywood hit any time soon is he now.

And yet I was hooked on every word. 

So that’s what the topic of today’s email is gonna be about.

I want to give you 3 storytelling tips I’ve picked up in the past few months that have helped me put a (hopefully) more interesting spin on what otherwise might be considered some pretty fucking dull stories. 

Ready?

Let’s go.

1) Become the mad scientist

If storytelling is a game then the quest we’ve been assigned is simple:

To steal our readers’ last remnants of dopamine.

To light up their pleasure sensors.

To constantly expose them to a sense of novelty they’ve never experienced before.

And one of the best ways I’ve found to do this (and something the people who read my stories have actually commented on before) is to go absolutely ham on metaphors.

But not just any old metaphors.

Hyper-specific metaphors.

Metaphors that make people laugh.

Metaphors that connect disparate ideas.

Metaphors that extend the analogy almost to the point of ridiculousness.

Because telling you to ram metaphors down your readers’ throats would be kinda interesting.

But telling you to ram metaphors down your readers’ throats like a duck getting reared for foie gras gets force fed corn?

That’s gold.

And I have a pretty simple approach for doing this myself:

Start out with a simple metaphor (“dull as dishwater”).

 And then think to yourself:

“How can I extend this?”

“How can I add depth?”

“How can I weave in specificity to turn this metaphor from something the reader has heard 100 times before to something that has them spitting out their morning coffee?”

And like all good things, this takes practice.

But sit with this for a while and you’ll soon find a metaphor as simple as “dull as dishwater” quickly transforming into “with about as much personality as a bowl of fucking porridge.”

So experiment.

Become the mad scientist.

Because this is your potion.

And you get to decide what elements to include.

Now, onto the next point: rhythm.

2) Constantly change the rhythm

I fucking love a dance.

I may not be the best (in fact, anyone that was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the video I posted of me dancing on Twitter a couple months back will know for damn sure I’m not the best)

But in my many years of tearing it up in dingy old clubs, 3am raves and just general jamming around my flat when I’m the only one home, I’ve learned one important lesson:

Good dancing is all about constantly changing the rhythm.

Continually mixing things up.

Never staying with one move for too long.

Always keeping both yourself and the people around you guessing.

And it’s exactly the same with your writing.

If you want to keep readers hooked on your every word, you need to be constantly changing the pace. 

The base of your writing should be short, snappy, of course.

But too much of that and your writing will become monotonous. Mundane

Every so often you need to take the time to weave in a long, winding sentence to break up the rhythm, keep your readers on their toes and elongate the experience for everyone involved. This way, when you do eventually return to the rapid-fire pace that makes up 90% of your story, it’ll hit harder than the Gorilla hits the drums in that Dairy Milk advert Cadbury’s ran a few years back (see what I did there?)

You can’t only rely on the Ying.

You also need the Yang

Because explosive writing makes things exciting.

But expansive writing adds depth.

Combine the two?

You’ve got yourself a story that’ll cause your reader to miss their train stop because they’re so disgustingly invested in your every word.

Now for the final tip.

3) Dare to break the 4th wall

I’m sure you’ve heard of breaking the 4th wall in movies.

It’s that moment when the actor turns to the camera, looks you directly in the eyes and, for the first time in the film, alerts you to the fact they’re aware of your presence.

Suddenly, the fictional nature of the world you’re watching gives way to the literal reality of the medium you’re watching it through and you feel as though you’re no longer a passive bystander, but an active participant in the whole charade.

But it’s not just movies this works for.

You can do it with your writing too.

I’ve been doing it to you this whole time.

Look back through this email.

Search for the brackets.

The parentheses where I stop being the narrator, speak directly to you and suddenly you’re not just reading - we’re sharing our own internal thoughts and engaging in a discussion together despite the fact you’re over 1,000 miles away.

Because good stories aren’t a monologue.

They’re a conversation.

An in-depth discussion between you and the person on the other side of the world eagerly flicking through the Gmail app on their phone.

And if you want your readers to start feeling more connected with your stories than they ever have before then, brick-by-brick, you need to start breaking down the wall that currently exists between the two of you.

Right.

That’s me done for the day guys.

I hope you enjoyed that one - I sure as hell had a lot of fun writing it.

Talk soon,

Harry