One reason stories are so effective is because, when presented with conviction, enthusiasm, and clarity, they are memorable—and you need a speech to be memorable because people have short attention spans. According to Gloria Mark, a psychologist and the chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, attention spans have been shrinking over…
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Here’s a story about stories. I recently gave a speech at a networking group of which I have been a member for eight years (and am quitting this month, but that’s not important right now). I had 10 minutes to talk about ghostwriting, since we were expected to talk about our business. I had previously…
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Early in my career as a book editor, and edited a manuscript of an expository essay in which the author asserted that the presence and existence of ISIS signaled that Armageddon, as described in the Book of Revelation, is here. I had to do a lot of fact checking, especially making sure the author correctly…
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I’m going to begin by stating something incredibly obvious: Words matter in speeches. Trust a speech writer in NYC. Duh, I hear you thinking. Fair enough, let me continue. A speech should be written concisely, meaning the speaker gets up, gets it done quickly, and gets out. That means the speaker (and by extension, the…
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To AI or not to AI, that is the question. See what I did? I, a human, took something famous written by another human and put a twist on it. I wanted to see if I could get AI to write the same line, so I went to ChatGPT and asked it to “Take Shakespeare’s…
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As a ghostwriter, the copy is everything. If the client doesn’t like what’s been written, it’s going to be a longer, less enjoyable process. Or worse, the client will walk. This means that the copy has to sing. It has to wow. It has to excite the client. Mastering your essay writing can in turn…
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A website is not enough. You need SEO, too. Busy areas have competitive SEO markets where you may need our services like a ghostwriter in NYC. Last week, I wrote about how the best way to find a ghostwriter is to find a ghostwriter’s website. This week, I’m going to twist things around and address this…
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Scripts are out. Spontaneous is in. I recently came across a column by Ted Gioia, who calls himself The Honest Broker. He wrote that the recent presidential election showed that giving speeches from a teleprompter isn’t effective anymore and ”The word ‘scripted’ is now an insult. Plainspoken dialogue is considered more trustworthy.” Gioia then goes…
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I recently introduced a new feature into my contracts: the escape clause. It arose because I had a prospect who insisted on it, and because my business advisor recommended it after I told him about this prospect. But first things first. Escape clauses (sometimes called “out clauses”) let a party leave the contract before the…
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To paraphrase James Carville, not only is it the story, stupid, it’s also the emotion. Plenty of studies have shown that storytelling matters. Here’s one example. One critical aspect of good storytelling is including emotion. Adding details that trigger your brain’s amygdala (the emotional processing center) automatically makes the story better. A story with emotion invests,…
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