What Else? Tired of the Same Old Story?
You’re pitching a story idea — eyes glaze over — then the editor sighs: “What else ya’ got?”
Your writing just jumped the shark: views are cratering. People are tuning out, so you get frantic, talking faster to regain attention.
The great disconnect? The space between the inner “good story” within your writer’s soul and the outer, ever-common “failure to communicate.”
Your editor, reader, or spouse asks you to sum up “the story.” You intuitively feel a great story somewhere within your crusty word salad but it’s not “sounding right.” Your message isn’t coming out as well as you imagined.
The dreaded disconnect between intent and reception happens with all forms of storytelling: all writing, relationships, leadership, journalism, politics, and entertainment. This “failure to communicate’’ is the hallmark of life.
In my early days as a newspaper reporter, after covering a four-hour meeting, all sorts of ideas would be swirling through my mind, each competing with the other.
I’d get back to the newsroom, the editor asked what the story was, and I’d keep throwing out ideas, only to hear the devastating “What else ‘ya got?”
