The Secrets of Story

Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers

By: Matt Bird

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

The Secrets of Story is a revolutionary and comprehensive writing guide for the 21st century, focused on clever ways to get an audience to fully identify with an all-too-human hero. Authors will learn to how to cut through pop culture noise and win over a jaded modern audience by rediscovering the heart of writing: shaping stories that ring true to our shared understanding of human nature. Providing conversational advice that spans multiple disciplines - from fiction to film to creative nonfiction - Matt Bird's insightful techniques allow characters to come alive and stories to reach a new level of appeal.

©2016 Matt Bird (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

I Have Become A Fortune Teller

What did you like best about this story?

I've become a fortune teller after reading this book. I was watching a movie the other day I'd never seen and could predict many of the clique plot points, twists and turns thanks to this book. Amazing book on the process of writing a good story. Didn't realize how formulaic writing is especially for movies and TV shows. Really explains why there are so many bad movies and TV shows out there. Think Transformers or almost every comic book movie.

Any additional comments?

Author gives reader a formula on how to write good work. Got me thinking may be there should be, quote, bad writing and we should be able to create, quote, bad TV shows, books, and movies. I was kind of off put on how structured the creative process is and that's seen as a good thing. I'm not so sure.

Fantastic Reference Tool for Characters & Plot Dev

Matt Bird’s The Secrets of Story is the perfect book for any writer looking to tell a story whether they write novels, plays, screenplays, etc. I love to write and I’m always looking to improve my skills. Up until now, the only go-to book I ever used when it came to the craft was Stephen King’s On Writing. Matt Bird’s The Secrets of Story is just as good, dealing more with what makes for a good story more than anything. If you’re looking for tips on grammar and punctuation, this is not the book. But if you want to know what really appeals to audiences and what makes a good story tick, Bird dissects the formula for compelling stories and helps you to craft characters your audience will cling to. There are so many good pointers within this book, I couldn’t begin to nail them all for you in this review, but I will say this is a must have tool that I will refer to on a regular basis. Bird also provides worksheets and checklists on his website to help you better absorb what he is explaining and so you can see how your own fiction will hold up under scrutiny. This was another one of those books where I was iffy on the author also being the narrator, but in this case Bird does a superb job. He has a captivating voice and his stories are personable. There couldn’t be a better narrator for this book.

Succinct

Succinct. The outlined points encouraged me to explore aspect of the novel I am writing from new perspectives. Inspiring.

Great read!

Loved this book! I highly recommend to any writers or creators looking to learn the best way to craft a story, really insightful with many useful tools for story crafting.

Fantastic writer’s resource

If I had to choose one “on writing” book to give to a fellow aspiring writer, this might be it.