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

Best book on writing ever! A comprehensive effort

This will be my number one recommended book to my writer friends to novices and old hacks.

Valuable resource with good insight

In my desire to be a writer I have read many books on how to write, how to build characters etc etc.
This is actually the first book that Supplied enough information to make the time spent reading/listening to it worthwhile.
Mr. Bird gave great advice and broke down a lot of the details into smaller and more understandable chunks of information.
I was actually beginning to lose hope that I would find a book that is so useful.
I have already read this book twice and I intend to keep reading it until everything sinks in to my thick cranium.
I would definitely recommend this book and say that it's worth every penny.

A book on writing by a proven writer.

Here's how you should look at books about writing @ audible. First, search to see if the writer has ever published anything other than books on writing. There are quite a few on here who are just rehashing stuff they've read on others' blogs. The next thing you do is look at the reviews. If you see a bunch of reviews from around the same date, or exactly the same date- that's someone buying reviews or having all their buddies review it under fake gmail accounts.

Now to this book. I got burnt out. I've listened to a lot of books on writing. Maybe I just needed something fresh, so I bought yet another writing book. Very quickly, I realized I'd discovered THE writing book. Every twenty minutes or so, I had to pause the thing just to absorb what was being said to me. 'This is me,' I said a hundred times- me, the great unpublished, misunderstood writer who thinks he should go on breaking rules.

This book is way too mind-boggling. When you listen to it, you're grateful it exists. That this wisdom has been passed down from the gods to us. It's that amazing. And the narrator is top notch.

You want to write- you buy this. You already write- you buy this. I plan on listening to it many times.
All you need is this and The First Five Pages. Those two books will get you through.

Truly useful!

I liked this so much I sent a copy to a friend who writes. Seems to be genuinely useful information. Recommend it to any writer. Easy and good narration that was straightforward and clear. Well done!

Thoughtful advice about how to tell good stories.

I am really glad I got this audiobook. There is a lot of content to think about in regards to story, characters and pacing using samples from existing stories. The examples range from popular recent movie scripts to comic books. There are also behind the scenes info of projects we all know and loved...and disliked, so you know where the big name writers were coming from.

This book offers plenty of good advice when writing while entertaining you with thoughtful situations that might stump many storytellers including from the author's personal struggles. It is a great combination that will hold a listener's attention throughout.

Eric Michael Summerer does a great job narrating it, maintaining interest while keeping the informative tone this book needed.

Recommended to aspiring authors, confused authors and anyone who are interested in the craft of telling stories.

Single best book for new writers.

It's a good book to start writing either fiction or nonfiction. This book gives you both the tools you need and the confidence that you WILL need.

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.

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.