You're Not A Textbook

A secret weapon for all creators is knowing how to tell a story

Author

Kevin Lee
September 23, 2023

(TLDR & free gifts in the bottom, don’t miss it!)

What the actual heck. It’s already 3 AM again.

It’s my 14th day in a row.

Ever since I started watching “Black Clover” I haven’t had a night of decent sleep.

What is this magical power?

Why can’t I just go to sleep? I kept clicking next episode every 20 minutes. I’m hooked as hell.

There’s something about stories.

Sometimes they don’t even have to be good.

And It’s not just anime.

  • Korean drama

  • Movies

  • The Office

  • Breaking Bad

  • Game of Thrones

Even porn with plot! (okay, maybe not this one)

The fact that I know I have a binging tendency makes me absolutely afraid of starting any new anime.

Even knowing I have this weakness, I still started a new anime anyways.

Sometime about stories, they really just scratch the corner of our brains in a subtle and satisfying way.

And this made me realize:

Storytelling is a massively underutilized skill within our creator economy.

Too often we try hard to “gain authority” in certain subjects by basically reciting whatever knowledge you have in your head.

Absolutely valid. People think you’re a genius.

But at the same time, you’re kind of bland.

Unless they’re specifically looking for answers on a certain subject and your content happened to come across them, your readers will never be hooked.

And the worst nightmare of any creative worker is spending hours and hours creating what you think is a masterpiece, just to have people dismiss it because it’s boring.

I too, have been making this same exact mistake.

I can write easily. But how do we get people to actually read the whole entire thing? And I’m not talking about any technical writing skills.

We’re leaving that behind, technical writing skills is for schools.

If you’re a real person living in the real world, time to get with the program.

The truth is that you should write at a 6th grade level just to make sure that everyone can read your stuff.

So let’s toss behind the idea of academic writing, where you were forced to write like a robot just so your English teacher and stroke his own ego.

And start writing from your heart, in a way that is captivating—through storytelling.

When you can convey your lessons and your message through a story, not only is it way more enjoyable to read, but people tend to remember what you say a lot more.

Take for instance:

I can tell you an important lesson right now.

“Storytelling is a must have skill for bloggers, because it will improve your reader retention rate.”

Or I can tell you a story:

I have been a complete failure of a blogger. I’ve written over 30 blogs already and no one seems to take an interest in my writing.

Then the creepy YouTube algorithm literally read my mind and presented me with exactly what I needed to see.

“How to make your blogs really POP”

Jesus Christ I do not want to click that video because part of me feels violated and I don’t want to let the YouTube algo think it has won, that it knows me better than I know myself.

But I have absolutely no integrity and I do need help so I got over my internal struggles then clicked on the video anyways.

I watched the whole 15 minutes.

Turns out what I lacked all along was the skill to convey message in a way that people can absorb with ease.

I’ve been writing like I’m that dry and boring teacher in class.

Yes we can all tell that you’re smart, but man are you boring.

That’s when I decided to switch up my writing style a bit.

Every blog after that, I try to start with a character, and start using that character’s life to convey my messages.

My readership is slowly picking up.

I got excited, it’s working.

I looked up even more tips, I learned about the hero’s journey.

I learned how to create characters.

I learned how to create struggles and wins for said characters.

I learned how to build suspense, and curiosity.

Readership picking up even more, the more skills I learned.

What a fantastic chain of events for my blogs and content creation strategy overall.

—

Sure, maybe it would’ve been faster to read just one line of text and get the idea.

But what happens when you have hundreds and hundreds of lines of dry texts?

If I want to read something dry and end up learning only 20% of the content I would just go read PubMed articles.

(Seriously I dare you to go read anything on PubMed)

Don’t be that bald headed heavy glasses professor.

Become the most interesting person anywhere, by being able to tell stories.

There are a lot of things to learn here and I have yet to master anything.

But that’s my goal for the next few months. Which is really hone in on that storytelling skill.

It’ll greatly benefit my blog and my YouTube channel.

And more importantly, the more I learn the more I can teach you.

We can then all become that grand wizard with long white beard who seems to know everything and how to teach anything.

Hopefully my personal experience and world view has some kind of positive influence over you. If you’re still not sure what’s right for you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me on any of my socials.

How I can help you:

Feel free to reach out to me for emotional support as well, especially if you’re a medical student or doctor going through BS. Trust me I know, and I am here for you.