A simple story hack to make anything more interesting

Let’s have a moment of real talk: Sometimes the stories we’re tasked with writing aren’t the most thrilling things imaginable.

But even the driest subject in the world can be made more interesting if we approach it with the proper storytelling eye.

Douglass Hatcher, president of Communicate4IMPACT, shared a “story hack” to help you turn nearly any idea into a compellingly structured creation.

After all, humans are always looking for stories. In the absence of a clear narrative, we’ll create our own,

Hatcher pointed out. A beginning, middle and end are keys to any good story, and this hack will help you develop those in a way that keeps the story moving forward.

The advice comes from a source that may seem a little unconventional for business writing: Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of “South Park.” But stay with us here.

“We can take these beats [scenes],” Stone said at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, “which are basically the beats of your outline, and if the words, ‘And Then’ are between those beats, you’re [screwed]. You have something pretty boring.”

“What should happen between those beats is either the word But or Therefore.”