A newsletter about about telling, being and believing stories.
Exploring ways to live better lives and write better stories through memoir and psychology. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Science of Storytelling and The Status Game
Sign up as a full subscriber to gain access to four exclusive Science of Storytelling Live! masterclasses every year
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FREE SUBSCRIBERS
Welcome to the You Are a Story community! Free subscribers get one full essay per month, and previews to paywalled essays.
PAID SUBSCRIBERS: £6.50 monthly; £65 annually
You Are a Story is made possible by its paid subscribers. Thank you for being part of this community and making it possible. Paid subscribers gain access to every weekly essay, the full archive, and also community chat.
FULL SUBSCRIBERS: £175 annually
Our full subscribers are an exclusive group that form the top-tier of the You Are a Story community. Full subscribers gain exclusive access to quarterly online ‘Science of Storytelling Live!’ masterclasses, which alternate between fiction, non-fiction and technique. Each event runs between two and three hours, including plenty of time for questions and discussion with Will. Full subscribers also receive a personally dedicated, signed copy of Will Storr’s latest book.
FICTION MASTERCLASS:
Using examples from literature and film – from Chimananda Ngozi Adichie to Nora Ephron to Anton Chekov to Thomas Vinterberg and more – you’ll learn:
How great storytellers capture and keep attention
How to structure stories effectively yet differently for literary and mass-market audiences
How to create characters that are credible, fascinating and unpredictable
How to create characters that generate their own plots
Personality and the secrets of three-dimensional characters
The scientific study of plots
How to break free of standard story structures
How the perfect plot is the plot against the protagonist
The valuable and surprising secrets contained in storytelling’s evolutionary history
How to understand and create a flawed character
The secret of an effective and memorable ending
NON FICTION MASTERCLASS:
Using examples from books, screen documentaries and longform journalism, you will learn:
The science of nonfiction storytelling: what evolution tells us about the elements of a gripping true story
How to develop an idea that commissions editors love
The one big secret to writing nonfiction that readers can’t put down
How to write true stories about people: memoir, profile and autobiography
How to start your story
What neuroscience teaches about the importance of detail
The magic of ‘atomic writing’
How to structure your story to keep readers turning the page
How to write a perfectly satisfying ending
“Will Storr is one of my favourite writers. He’s whip smart, insightful and ridiculously entertaining”
JIMMY CARR
“A master storyteller”
HELEN LEWIS
“Will Storr is one of our best journalists of ideas… his books are just joyfully interesting”
JAMES MARRIOTT, THE TIMES
“Will Storr is a genius. I would happily read a shopping list by him”
RORY SUTHERLAND
Will Storr has spent nearly two decades exploring the remarkable power that stories have to shape us, individually and collectively.
His work is read and enjoyed by highly influential people on both sides of the Atlantic, from writers and public intellectuals including Ezra Klein, Philippa Perry, Susan Cain, Rory Sutherland, Nir Eyal and Hannah Fry, to academics such as Angela Duckworth, Seth Godin and Robert Cialdini to cultural commentators like David Brooks, Helen Lewis and Daniel Finkelstein. He has a wide circle of fans in British comedy, not least Jimmy Carr, Fern Brady, Russell Kane and Jason Manford. He has been interviewed about his ideas by some of the world’s leading podcasters, including Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Steven Bartlett.
His books include Selfie (“Approaching genius”, Sunday Times), The Status Game (“Excellent… perhaps his best,” The Times) and the Sunday Times bestseller The Science of Storytelling (“Excellent”, New York Times). His novel The Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone was described as “riveting” in a coveted starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.
Previously, Storr was an award-winning longform journalist who specialised in human rights reporting in Latin America, Africa and the remote Aboriginal communities of Australia. His work appeared in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Observer, the New York Times and the New Yorker. His groundbreaking reporting on sexual violence against men earned the Amnesty International Award and the One World Press Award. He’s been presented with the AIB Award for Best Investigative Documentary for his two-part BBC radio series.
He has also worked as a ghostwriter for public figures. First Man In, for Ant Middleton, spent months at the top of the Sunday Times bestseller chart and was shortlisted for non-fiction book of the year at the British Book Awards. Humanise, for Thomas Heatherwick, was described by Alain de Botton as “a masterwork”. His ghostwritten books have sold more than two million copies worldwide.
