A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling

A Story is a Promise offers a clear, concise look into the mechanics of how to tell a story and how a story engages and rewards the attention of an audience. Examples are used from popular books, movies, and plays, including a breakdown of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, The Usual Suspects, and the novel The Lovely Bones.

The Spirit of Storytelling focuses on how writers can transcend their personal issues when they write and give their story character fully realized internal lives. A section of the book titled Deep Characterization helps authors to realize if they've slipped into personal storytelling (meant to transport the author) in place of telling a story to an audience (with the goal of transporting the audience).

The book is a great resource to help new writers understand the process of telling a story, how to make good choices for describing characters, and how to set up a plot.

The book also offers a resource to understand how and why popular novels became bestsellers.

Read the book that popular literary agents have recommended to their published authors.