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A few nights ago my wife and I were sitting at a café with friends having dinner. Our friend, Jim, was telling us about his bout with kidney stones. As I listened to the drama – and it was a drama – I became strangely caught up in it. Afterward, I found myself wondering why I was so intrigued by the long, involved account. After all, kidney stones are not the most exciting or romantic of subjects.

Then it hit me. It was, in fact, a story – not mere information. It had all the elements of a story: a protagonist (my friend Jim) who desperately wanted something (freedom from pain and a return to functional health), and an antagonist (the kidney stones) that were preventing him from achieving his need/desire.

Jim told his story well. When I analyzed it later that night, I realized it followed the tried-and-true three-act structure. The problem presented itself. The hero engaged in an up-and-down struggle to resolve it. There were turning points, a climax and a final resolution. The story had us on the edge of our seats.

It’s funny how people create stories from their experiences. Every day, people are battling health problems, getting fired, suffering accidents and having personal conflicts with family members, friends or work associates.

All these events – and many others – provide rich material for tales of human interest, and most humans are hard-wired to craft these events into fascinating personal stories, complete with embellishments, exaggerations and added dramatic flair.

The point is, people tell stories, and as a writer you should develop the habit of listening for them and to them. The stories people tell in everyday conversation can be valuable fodder for you, no matter what you write – whether you’re working on a novel or a magazine advertisement.

Plus, good stories are fun … or fascinating … or scary … or infuriating … or heartwarming. The point is, they pique our emotions, and as humans we love to have our emotions pumped.

As a writer, you’re in the story business. Listen for them. You’ll hear them everywhere.

Read the following sentence and decide what it means:

I work out frequently without feeling any satisfaction.

Does it mean “I work out frequently, and I don’t feel any satisfaction from doing so?” or
“I work out, but frequently feel no satisfaction from it?”

It could go either way, and the meanings are clearly different. So the sentence is ambiguous. Shame on the writer.

The problem is, it’s not clear what part of the sentence the modifier “frequently” modifies. If it modifies the phrase that precedes it, the meaning is “I often work out and never get satisfaction from it.” But if it modifies the phrase that follows it, it implies “When I work out, I often get no satisfaction from it … but sometimes I do.”

The fix could be as simple as adding a well-placed comma, as in …

• I work out frequently, without feeling any satisfaction.
• I work out, frequently without feeling any satisfaction.

Ah, the comma. What I wonderful little device it is. It packs more clarifying power per pixel than anything else in our quirky language, with the possible exception of the period. Thank you, Shakespeare, for inventing it.

Read the following paragraph and note where the tension begins to rise.

It was the kind of night in the backcountry I had always been afraid of: dark and utterly silent. No wind broke the silence and no moon tempered the darkness. I began to question whether I should have made this four-day trek alone. Before I could come up with an answer, a sound came crashing through the pines directly behind me. In the split-second, adrenalin-soaked reasoning of terror that is rarely wrong, I knew it was an animal and I knew it was coming to kill me. I twisted instinctively toward it. It was something big. Very big. And moving fast. Close now. Closer….

Did you notice how the intensity of the narrative cranked up as the length of the sentences cranked down? That’s because short sentences build tension. It’s a classic literary trick. Short, staccato sentences have a certain quality of breathlessness, especially when used in intense situations.

Use them to build tension in your writing, whether it’s fiction, nonfiction or copywriting.