What are some effective techniques to build anticipation and curiosity in your audience?

Avoid starting with what you will tell your audience. Imagine a movie script telling you in the next minute you will laugh. Grab attention by throwing out an unexpected headline style phrase, pause to build anticipation and then tell your story.

Sorry but these “tips and tricks” are a dead end. They’ll amount to a paint-by-number structure inhabited by wooden characters. It’s characters that need depth, facets, truth. Without starting there, nothing will ever cone of all that hard work.

Pacing is an important part of storytelling. Words matter. So does rhythm. There’s a time for brevity, yes, but there’s value in wooing a reader into an intentionally crafted long-form sentence. There’s an art to keeping your audience engaged. Pack a punch, then let your words breathe. Speak boldly, and then invite your audience to feel your emotion through artful adjectives. For evidence, re-read this example and look for pacing.

Reciting your story aloud and recording your performance is a helpful way to study and perfect the pace and tone of your story. Something that works on the page may sound very different on the stage.

The most memorable and beloved writers have typically had the talent of knowing precisely how to "set a scene" by evoking the undeniable impact of human emotions. No one could quite describe a golden field like Emily Dickinson, and the writing prowess of Alfred Hitchcock has certainly kept a few readers awake at night. Thankfully, we can take cues from the greats when tapping into emotions. If you're writing a sales presentation, focus on initiating a sense of urgency and an air of opportunity. For an explanatory text, provide actionable tips that help bring clarity and assuredness. In short, never underestimate the power of the written word.

I do not have any particular way of writing. I just write, and then one word builds another word; one idea builds another idea, and my characters find themselves in situations that are suspenseful. I try to show not tell; and through emotions and imagery, I create the atmosphere. And yes, I agree with hooks, cliffhangers, and open ends. My advice: Just write. The suspense will come.

Ask the audience questions. Ask the audience questions. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Empathy: the greatest stories connect their purpose to a greater central truth that we have all experienced or can relate to. A good way to test: why is this story matter to every person on earth? It's a simple way to see if you've structured empathy into your story in a purposeful way.

That’s an important question to ask. When my students are too young to have developed a point of view, I ask to start with they hate or what needs correcting.