How to Set Fire to Your Online Writing

Illuminate your message with storytelling

Image from Arthur Hidden @freepik

I watched as he rubbed the stick between his palms, twirling it faster and faster against the little notch he’d made in the log. He was beginning to sweat in the jungle heat, and I felt bad that this proud indigenous Peruvian was being made to perform this ancient ritual for a bunch of tourists.

I was about to offer him a lighter, when smoke started to rise from the hole, and he quickly put the shavings he’d saved from the from the notch on top of the smoke and blew and, just as it had done for thousands of years, the first small flame rose.

And then he told us, the little bunch of visitors to his village, how his people believed fire first came to the world.

But first, why am I telling you this story (about a man telling me a story)?

You Need Story to Start A Fire

You need story to start a Tweet thread, you need story in a Tweet, you need story in a Medium post, in a Substack newsletter, and you need it in a blog post.

You need that shit in everything.

You could be selling kitchen cupboards, but when you write about those kitchen cupboards, you need to tell a story.