If your school was a novel what would the opening line be?

Describe the hero of your school’s story.

What’s the plot of your school's story?

Choose a place on your campus and convey your school through sensory details – the way it looks, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells.

You have 10 minutes. Go.

The goal of this exercise is to practice using fictional techniques to tell your institution’s brand story. As much as we think and talk about brands as stories, we often fail to consider the essentials of a good story—character, plot, dialogue, scene, place, point of view, and sensory detail.

Next week, I’ll be leading a brand storyteller’s workshop formatted like a writers’ workshop at the CASE Annual Conference for Publications Professionals. Participants will dive into these and other exercises and I’ll be sharing some of the ways fictional techniques have helped me develop brand stories for William Penn Charter School, Swarthmore, Yale, and others.

This kind of workshop is something I have always wanted to do. I'd love to know if the idea intrigues you.

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