…Nor am I sure that storytelling is something you can learn. I think it's basically instinctive, and comes naturally to people who are both sensitive to their audience and easily bored. If you're easily bored, that's a great start. Good storytelling is essentially a matter of expert pacing, no matter what the medium is. And pace is something you can probably learn best from studying the masters. Knowing where to put a climax, where to build tension, where to pull back and relax — that's something you pick up when you read a lot, or watch a lot of cinema, or listen to a really top-class raconteur. One thing I can say here is that for writers, pace is not only about content, but about the way you put together sentences. A series of short film shots — the sort of thing film directors do when they're covering a gun battle. Long and complex sentences give a slower, more relaxed feel.
You have to keep all this in mind, when you're telling a story.
'Advice for Business Writers From a Master Storyteller' (The Business Writer Compilation No.1) [date unspecified]
Use the link below to visit the website of Australian novelist and historian CATHERINE JINKS:
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