Kaleigh Moore

The first draft of any piece of writing, 99% of the time, is NOT GOOD. Full stop. From jumbled logic to false conclusions—you need to take a hard look at your writing and get rid of the nonsense. But…how? Today is another moment I’m going to tie a piece of Philosophy into the writing process. The cure for crappy first drafts lies in an ancient but powerful technique: The Socratic method. Your First Draft is a Brain Dump First drafts tend to be a bit chaotic because writing is, at its core, a...

My most recent Philosophy course just started, and for the first class, we were assigned a short story to read. From there, we had to write a one-page paper summarizing what we took from it. Here’s the exact guidance we were given for the paper: You will give the paper a title to orient the reader from the start, and then introduce your topic clearly in the first paragraph. Keep in mind that a convincing paper needs to be clear and coherent, and exhibit a judicious use of pertinent detail. It...

I just finished a complete series re-watch of the TV show Mad Men, and the thing I was struck by most in this viewing was that Don Draper’s character was a masterful storyteller. Yes, he works in advertising, and it is *his job* to know how to tap into those human emotions, motivations, and aspirations. But he does it with such…finesse. The thing is: Lots of people tell stories. But few do it well. I was going back through the interviews I conducted with writers and editors for Yeah Write...

In a world of content where AI writing tools exist, now, more than ever, we need writers who know how to create character-driven stories. No matter the writing use case, the bottom line is that when we sit down to write, we're human beings writing for fellow human beings. Joseph Campell's explanation of "The Hero's Journey" illustrates the classic narrative story arc. Humans have told stories to communicate, explain, and persuade each other for thousands of years. That's not going away...