It started with Goosebumps. Then came Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stephen King. King led me to Kubrick, DePalma, Reiner, and Cronenberg, where my passion for film and screenwriting was sparked. This passion eventually led me to write my book. On that path, these 5 books helped me understand storytelling better: how it helps us understand the machinations of the world; makes sure our messages reach our audience; how language can tell its own story; how to find the spirit within the structure; and how storytelling can change your life. My world is richer thanks to these books. My ideas of what is possible are broader. Hopefully, they’ll do the same for you.
I’ve never seen a man’s life told with such clarity and skill as Caro lays out LBJ’s journey. I was in awe of how clear-eyed Caro was about what his story is about: not the facts and dates of LBJ’s life, but what Caro saw in LBJ’s life about ambition, politics, and the powers that shape society.
Caro never for a second loses sight of the story he is telling, and what it is truly about: power, how to get it, and how to yield it. Caro’s adherence to the themes he found in LBJ’s story is inspiring—and completely informed how I approach storytelling.
'The greatest biography of our era ... Essential reading for those who want to comprehend power and politics' The Times
Robert A. Caro's legendary, multi-award-winning biography of US President Lyndon Johnson is a uniquely riveting and revelatory account of power, political genius and the shaping of twentieth-century America.
This first instalment tells of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country, revealing in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy and ambition that set LBJ apart. It charts his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut…
I'm used to thinking of storytelling from a big picture, plot-driven perspective, and Made to Stick challenged that. This book really hones in on the small details that make ideas, lines, and moments so ‘sticky’ and memorable. The Heaths focus on the worlds of marketing and business, but I found their insights about how to shape and convey ideas useful, illuminating, and different from most of the ‘writing’ books I consume.
So many of their examples are themselves quite sticky, and I find myself going back to them again and again to challenge my writing and presentations to be even more efficient, unique, and memorable.
Why does fake news stick while the truth goes missing?
Why do disproved urban legends persist? How do you keep letting newspapers and clickbait sites lure you in with their headlines? And why do you remember complicated stories but not complicated facts?
Over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have discovered how we latch on to information hooks. Packed full of case histories and incredible anecdotes, it shows:
- how an Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
“There’s no way I could ever adapt this,” is what my screenwriting mind kept thinking as I read this book. There’s a reason the adaptations of Catch-22 were never as successful as we hoped they would be. Film adaptations work best for books with wonderful plots, stories, and visuals. But this book tells its story not just through plot, but through creating a rhythm and a language that expresses its intent more than any ‘classical’ story ever could.
I found it deeply inspiring, and it forever changed my understanding of both literature and cinema. Like the best works of art, it uses tools other creators barely pick up, to create something completely original.
Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.
Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the…
I read this book years ago, and it has become such a part of my DNA that I barely remember not knowing the ideas it introduces. A lot of screenwriting books focus on structure and premise, trying to decide what kind of event should happen by which page. This book gave me a freer, more spiritual way to think about and structure stories.
Vogler’s book—heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces—showed me how to think of stories as mythical journeys, almost Jungian in their symbolism. How even the most modern or intimate story can be seen as a warrior’s journey into an unknown land; How stories can benefit from being a few degrees closer to dreams or the unconscious.
I've been an avid fan of the book ever since, and can barely think of storytelling separately from the ideas in it.
Originally an influential memo Vogler wrote for Walt Disney Animation executives regarding The Lion King, The Writer’s Journey details a twelve-stage, myth-inspired method that has galvanized Hollywood’s treatment of cinematic storytelling. A format that once seldom deviated beyond a traditional three-act blueprint, Vogler’s comprehensive theory of story structure and character development has met with universal acclaim, and is detailed herein using examples from myths, fairy tales, and classic movies. This book has changed the face of screenwriting worldwide over the last 25 years, and continues to do so.
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
I’ve lived in 8 apartments, 3 countries, and 4 cities, and I took my copy of Stephen King’s book with me to every one of those homes. Apart from being a heartfelt, hilarious memoir, King’s book brims with an infectious love and curiosity for writing. King still seems to be fascinated, even mesmerized by the process of writing, and between his lines, I even felt he sees himself more as a vessel than a master.
I’m always deeply moved by all the stops in his personal story (and tear up when he gets the news that he sold Carrie) and by his sincere attempt to grapple with what good writing is and how to reach for it. It's an inspiring, life- and career-affirming read.
Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999--and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it--fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great…
This is the first book to offer an in-depth analysis of the storytelling techniques and patterns that make Pixar’s immensely popular films so successful and moving. Each chapter explores an aspect of storytelling that Pixar excels at: What do Pixar’s story ideas all have in common? How do they create such compelling, memorable characters? What makes their films’ resolutions so emotionally satisfying?
The ability to tell a great story is essential today—not just in film and media but also in business, marketing, and everyday communication. Almost anyone who speaks in front of an audience aims not just to inform but also to connect and inspire. Pixar offers one of the most accessible, inspiring models for learning how to do exactly that.
