Preface: A Coward Tells a Story
CHAPTER 2. What Is a Story? (and What Is the Dinner Test?)
CHAPTER 4. Dreaming at the End of Your Pen
STORY BREAK: Storytelling Instruction Can Apparently Be Romantic
CHAPTER 5. First Last Best Worst: Great for Long Car Rides, First Dates, and Finding Stories
STORY BREAK: This Book Is Going to Make Erin Barker Very Angry
STORY BREAK: Thirteen Rules for an Effective (and Perhaps Even Inspiring) Commencement Address
CHAPTER 10. The Five Permissible Lies of True Storytelling
STORY BREAK: Doubt Is the Enemy of Every Storyteller
CHAPTER 11. Cinema of the Mind (Also Known as “Where the Hell Are You?”)
CHAPTER 12. The Principle of But and Therefore
STORY BREAK: Storytelling Makes You Just Like Family
CHAPTER 13. “This Is Going to Suck”
CHAPTER 14. The Secret to the Big Story: Make It Little
STORY BREAK: Brevity Is the Soul of Wit
CHAPTER 15. There Is Only One Way to Make Someone Cry
STORY BREAK: The Return of Mathieu
CHAPTER 17. Finding the Frayed Ending of Your Story (or, What the Hell Did That Mean?)
STORY BREAK: Reconnecting with My Mean Old Elementary School Principal
CHAPTER 18. The Present Tense Is King (but the Queen Can Play a Role Too)
STORY BREAK: A Storyteller and a Magician
CHAPTER 19. The Two Ways of Telling a Hero Story (or, How to Avoid Sounding Like a Douchebag)
STORY BREAK: “Fine” Is Apparently Not a Good Way to Describe My Sex Life
CHAPTER 20. Storytelling Is Time Travel (If You Don’t Muck It Up)
STORY BREAK: I Berate Storytellers at the Worst Moments
CHAPTER 21. Words to Say, Words to Avoid
STORY BREAK: The Weather Sucks. So Don’t Talk about It
CHAPTER 22. Time to Perform (Onstage, in the Boardroom, on a Date, or at the Thanksgiving Table)
STORY BREAK: The Solitude of the Storyteller
CHAPTER 23. Why Did You Read This Book? To Become a Superhero!
In early 2000, I got onstage, I told a story at this thing called The Moth, and something in my heart and head felt better. I remember talking about my biggest screwups, about some childhood dreams that hadn’t come to pass, and about how my attempts to pursue them at half-steam were clumsy and ill-fated. The story I told that night, about going to Austin to become a singer-songwriter and discovering the hard way that I wasn’t prepared or particularly good at songwriting,