09 Jun Gimme a brand beat
Welcome, and thanks for reading my first Story Beats blog!
It took me a while to think of a name for this blog. At first, I thought, why not just blog? It’s a humble, well-known four-letter word that feels friendly enough, right? Then I got off a call with client where I’d been rather poetically, if I do say so myself, talked about names being the cornerstone of a brand. So, it turned out, this Story Doctor had to take her own medicine and think of a name.
Before the 1700s, the naming of things was considerably more chaotic because there were no rules! Until a certain scientist came along by the name of Carl Linnaeus who designed a system for naming our natural world, which is still in use today.
So good old Carl figured out names for things and the world made a lot more sense.
For most of us, naming is creating. It’s pulling something out of thin air and assigning it a personality. Until we give a name to something, it’s hard to get traction, momentum, or any sense of movement going. Names declare, illicit, dare, call, demand, and define. (How’s that for some alliteration?)
What names won’t do for us is tell us how to get there as in, coming up with the IDEA behind the name.
That’s an internal job. (Unabashed shoutout uh to myself but I’m pretty good at it if you need help.)
So, why Story Beats?
Quite simply, a story beat is the smallest unit of story creation. It’s a teeny but mighty building block, like a human cell, that, when combined with other little story blocks, builds into a structure, a story. A big part of the craft of storytelling is figuring out what story beats to use and when. It seems simple but it takes a lot of handwringing and practice, practice, practice. In my process, I bring craft plus a whole lot of care to solving your story problem. In other words, I create beats that get business. I feel like that should be my future t-shirt.
I should also mention that the name of my newsletter is the same as the blog because KIS—keep it simple, I deleted the stupid because 2022—and if you subscribe you’ll be one of the special story people who receive story care but only twice a month! Don’t pressure me to spam you!
Hey, thanks again for reading, though it’s not like there’s anything to distract you on the internet. Here’s some Janet Jackson asking for story beats. Okay just beats. Whatever, she knew what she was doing.