The Secrets of Story

By: Matt Bird

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Secrets of Story is a revolutionary and comprehensive writing guide for the 21st century, focused on clever ways to get an audience to fully identify with an all-too-human hero. Authors will learn to how to cut through pop culture noise and win over a jaded modern audience by rediscovering the heart of writing: shaping stories that ring true to our shared understanding of human nature. Providing conversational advice that spans multiple disciplines - from fiction to film to creative nonfiction - Matt Bird's insightful techniques allow characters to come alive and stories to reach a new level of appeal.

©2016 Matt Bird (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

I want this guy to be my editor

I hesitated to download this book since it had only 15 reviews which made me wary of artificial ratings. Much to my surprise I soon realized this book is an absolute treasure. I spend most of this past year (I am very serious about getting this right) consuming writer's resources hoping to find a few gems. I rank this book near the top along with McKee's "Story", Stein's "on writing", and Swain's "Techniques..". For the first time I am considering hiring an editor for my novel and if I do it will be Matt Bird. Thank you, Mr. Bird, for the effort you put into this work. It is an immense help to me.
- Charles Dunn 01/2017

Career Changing

If I could have given this books ten stars, I would have. I have read at ton - and I mean A TON - of writing craft books. I spent 3 years of my life and over fifty thousand dollars earning an MFA in creative writing. If I had found this book first, I wouldn't have needed the degree.

In The Secrets of Story, Matt Bird offers something I've found to be missing in almost every other craft book I've ever read: a succinctly explained breakdown of the specific elements that make a story memorable, emotionally compelling, and therefore, of course, highly salable. Throughout the book, he lists over 120 questions to ask about your story, which lead you to discover your story's weak spots and possible holes. Then, he gives examples--specific examples from books and film to illustrate his points. I experienced so many "ah-ha" moments while listening to this book (I purchased the audiobook through Audible) I can't even begin to list them. The narrator, Eric Michael Summerer, is absolutely perfect for this book and adds emphasis - and humor - in all the right places.

I am the author of a memoir and six novels, only enjoying marginal success, but I didn't know WHY. How come my stories haven't taken off and captured the hearts of millions, instead of only a few? Now I know. I promise you, my next book will be light years better. Matt Bird has given me the tools I so desperately needed to bring my writing to the next level--and maybe a few levels above that.

Note: this book is not for the casual, weekend warrior who claims to want to learn to improve their craft, but isn't willing to put in the work it takes to get there. I highly suggest you listen to the audio version of this book first, then buy the paperback. Which is exactly what I have done. It will reside on my writing desk as a reference guide from this day forward.

Thank you, Mr. Bird, for giving me what the many, very talented teachers in my MFA program tried to, and what the scores of other craft books I've read failed to do. You have shone a light down a dark tunnel. You have given me the tools I need to make my stories resound in the hearts of my readers.

Thank you.

Best book on writing ever! A comprehensive effort

This will be my number one recommended book to my writer friends to novices and old hacks.

The most important screenwriting book on Audible!

I had no idea who this guy was until I bought this book. Now, I'm convinced he's one of the most knowledgeable people in the screenwriting biz. Much of the stuff he touches on, I learned at a certain west coast school's MFA program, but I ended up paying a helluva lot more for that education than I did for this book!! Also, it's nice to have everything all neat and clean in a tidy package like this.

Anyone writing a screenplay, no matter what level you're at, would be well-served in listening to this audiobook.

And that is all. Time to write.

Must Read for Story

An amazing book ever student and writer must read. The author does a great job articulating concepts not mentioned in other such story books and has up to date (2016) references.

Good Story Impossible? 'Au Contraire'!

Forget about what you've read in other writing books--Matt Bird goes for the unconventional, the counter-intuitive. From books to films, he uses great examples that will help you craft outstanding stories. I consider myself a writer, not screenwriter, and I found "The Secrets of Story" to be amazingly useful. He addresses myths in-depth, and tackles how-to, all in the one go of the book.
Perhaps you know him best from his blog, "The Cockeyed Caravan". If you do, you'll recognize The Ultimate Story Checklist and will appreciate it here, where it's dived into and where it appears as the Appendix. You can go to his blog also and download it there for free, but boy did I enjoy having it expanded upon. Perhaps you'll also recognize his delightful sense of humor, of irony (and if you don't have irony in your life, in your story, you're wasting everybody's time!).
What you'll learn most is how to write to an audience. This does NOT mean pandering or writing to the market, but it does mean people will actually read/see your work and will walk away with a sense of satisfaction and perhaps even joy.
I haven't learned this much even from Robert McKee's works on story and dialogue. And forgive me if it's blasphemy, but I was far more thrilled with "The Secrets of Story" than I was with Stephen King's seminal work, "On Writing". Don't get me wrong: you'll probably want both.
But if I had to choose? I'd choose this one, hands down.

Valuable resource with good insight

In my desire to be a writer I have read many books on how to write, how to build characters etc etc.
This is actually the first book that Supplied enough information to make the time spent reading/listening to it worthwhile.
Mr. Bird gave great advice and broke down a lot of the details into smaller and more understandable chunks of information.
I was actually beginning to lose hope that I would find a book that is so useful.
I have already read this book twice and I intend to keep reading it until everything sinks in to my thick cranium.
I would definitely recommend this book and say that it's worth every penny.

Thorough book on ideas for better writing

Matt Bird has an MFA from Columbia and has been working as a screenplay writer since then. In this book he tries to capsulize what he learned after Columbia as well as some of the things from Columbia he had to reject once he began his career.

This book is filled with interesting advice using real world examples, both from Bird's own experiences along with some notable and expensive Hollywood failures from a variety of writers. The focus of the book rarely crosses out of film into novels and stories, but there's a lot to be said for using the condensed limits of a film script as a guide for working in longer and non-visual forms.

Bird presents ideas on getting attention at the start, setting mood, creating realistic dialogue, taking feedback or notes from other writers (or directors/producers if that's your focus), rewriting, building tension, and, most importantly for Bird, creating characters the reader/viewer will care about and why that's different from having a character who's likeable.

With his focus on film he uses examples from film, most of them familiar, as examples for his ideas. If you are a fan of film this makes the book easy to relate to, there were hardly any movies used with which I wasn't familiar. If you're not a great moviegoer you might have more trouble seeing things as Bird does.

I can see this book as being a worthwhile guide and inspiration for someone just starting as a writer. I can also see it helping a writer lost in the deep woods with a story, novel, or screenplay to help them sort out why something didn't click or why a piece isn't selling. There are plenty of new angles provided for looking at a work, even a 120 item checklist at the end, to review characters, plot, pacing, dialogue, story arc, and writing a satisfying ending.

As of this writing the book is #25 at Amazon in the Kindle writing skills category and in the top 100 for printed books in that category. As a reader and only sometimes writer I can only hope that this means better writing is on the way from those reading the book. I doubt it, but I can remain hopeful. My feeling is that most writers improve by reading more and better writing from others, but even then a book like this can add a lot of clarity on what makes some writing better than others.

Best for a specific audience

That the author of this book is much more experienced than I am is not in question. I have no doubt at all that if I had continued after the 1 hour and 30 minutes that I listened I would have found several helpful tidbits. He is engaging in his style and the narration is clear.

However, this book is directed very pointedly only at writers who write to get paid/gain notoriety. Indeed, the author directly states that there is no reason to write unless you are doing so for an audience. He says this very shortly into the book and I probably should have stopped there but I was hoping that this was simply a difference of opinion I could overlook. That this is a grossly inaccurate opinion to me probably should have cued me in sooner that I wouldnt feel connected to this author or his beliefs.

He goes on from there to share an hour and a half of how you will not succeed as a writer. He tells you that you probably can't write, if you can, you probably don't know how to resonate with an audience (that same audience that is the only possible reason for writing), and if you do, you probably won't create very relatable characters. if you manage all that, you still probably won't find anyone to take your story and if they do they will change it beyond recognition.

Maybe he is completely correct. However, I write to amuse myself and since I enjoy honing my craft as much as I can, i like to learn about it. my goal in reading books like this is to learn to be a better version of myself in writing, not to be told that I must do it to please strangers and I'll probably fail at that anyway


if you are writing to break into the publishing world and to sell your books, you may find value here. I would suggest however that maybe you want to skip the first hour and a half (since it is incredibly uninformative and also negative) and see what else he might say of use. perhaps after that you could cautiously listen to his beginning.

good luck, whatever your hopes and dreams are

Very focused on screenwriting

Not really useful for a novelist. For every one of his rules, I can find abundant exceptions among popular novels, especially the classics.