- The Yellow Bite
- Posts
- Become a better storyteller
In partnership with
Hey friend!
You know who storytellers could learn from?
Filmmakers.
Yeah, the same ones who make you cry five minutes into a Pixar movie.
Because every good film starts the same way.
Not with fireworks.
Not with fancy dialogue.
But with… emotion.
That quiet scene.
The character alone in a car.
The look on their face before anything happens.
That’s the part that hooks you.
Because once you care about the person,
you care about the story.
Simple. But powerful.
Now here’s the funny part…
Most creators do the complete opposite.
They start with the lesson.
They list the takeaways.
They show the win.
Then they wonder why nobody feels connected.
And trust me, I used to be one of them.
Last year, my writing hit a wall.
Every post sounded like a lecture.
Every story felt like a performance.
I was all information, zero emotion.
So, I started looking at what filmmakers do differently.
Turns out, they don’t wait for the perfect story.
They build it around emotion.
And that realization changed everything for me.
That’s when I came up with something called The Calm Framework.
It’s how I take emotional chaos and shape it into something that connects.
Here’s the gist of it:
1️⃣ Capture. Write the real moment. Not the recap, the raw bit.
2️⃣ Acknowledge. What emotion sits underneath it?
3️⃣ Link. Show your reader where they fit in.
4️⃣ Move. End with motion. What changed because of it?
Let me show you what I mean 👇
“Last year, I almost quit writing. Not because I didn’t love it, but because I stopped feeling anything when I did. Every post felt like noise. Then I realized—connection doesn’t come from more strategy. It comes from structure. I built a system that helps me write through chaos, not around it. It’s called The Calm Framework. And it changed everything.”
See what happened there?
No big performance.
No over-explanation.
Just calm, clear storytelling that connects.
That’s what you want.
Stories that sound human.
So this week, try this instead:
🟡 Prompt: “Write about the story you’ve been avoiding and why it matters now.”
Don’t overthink it.
Don’t sanitize it.
Just write the story that’s been sitting in your chest.
Then hit reply and share your version
Because sometimes the story you’re avoiding
is the one your audience needs most.
Till tomorrow,
Stephen “Still Writing Through the Chaos” Stanberry
Your career will thank you.
Over 4 million professionals start their day with Morning Brew—because business news doesn’t have to be boring.
Each daily email breaks down the biggest stories in business, tech, and finance with clarity, wit, and relevance—so you're not just informed, you're actually interested.
Whether you’re leading meetings or just trying to keep up, Morning Brew helps you talk the talk without digging through social media or jargon-packed articles. And odds are, it’s already sitting in your coworker’s inbox—so you’ll have plenty to chat about.
It’s 100% free and takes less than 15 seconds to sign up, so try it today and see how Morning Brew is transforming business media for the better.
Reply