Story Telling Crash Course - Session Twelve: The "What If" approach.

Welcome to the twelfth session of our little story telling crash course here on Steemit. We're approaching the end of our experiment and although it wasn't as consistent as the first 30days challenge, the one in January, I tend to think the quality of posts was a bit better.

As I was comparing the two challenges, I thought to myself: what if I'd make a third one? One during March, in which I will touch a completely different topic? Like writing news, for instance. Or some technical tutorials for those interested to learn to write apps for the Steem blockchain. I don't know yet if I would have time to do it, but I think it would be interesting.

As you saw from the above paragraph, the "what if" technique is used to enlarge the current context of the story. The potential described in the "what if" block may or may not manifest during the story, that's not relevant. What is relevant is that it puts the reader in a speculative state. It forces participation to the plot. Every time you ask "what if", rest assured that the reader is asking himself the same question and it looks for his own answers. This creates what we call these days "engagement".

And it's not even complicated. All you have to do is to put a "what if" block somewhere in your text.

Assignment: use the "what if" technique to create engagement in your post. It doesn't need to be complicated, just an easy to digest block somewhere in your article. Don't forget to tag your post with challenge30 and story or, even better, leave me a comment with a link to your article. I will personally review all of them and award a symbolic prize of 1 SBD to the one I like the most.

Links to previous sessions:

1. Story Telling Crash Course - Session One: Anchoring Techniques - Personal Stories
2. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Two: Anchoring Techniques - Quotes
3. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Three: Anchoring Techniques - Research
4. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Four: Master the Listicle Particle
5. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Five: Define and Create Palatable Text
6. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Six: Perspective Games
7. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Seven: Meaningful Detours
8. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Eight: Form Constraints - Write Only 3 Sentences Per Paragraph
9. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Nine: Form Constraints: Write Maximum 10 Words per Sentence
10. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Ten: More Constraints: Write Without Using Negations
11. Story Telling Crash Course - Session Eleven: The Question / Response (Interview) Approach

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.