Twilighter is here: Why you need this free app

brendan o'meara
I was thinkin’ …

Written by @BrendanOMeara

Sup.

I’m a fan of just about everything Noah Kagan and AppSumo do. You know how some people are just cool to be around (literally and digitally)? He’s kind of that guy; just good energy, makes you remember the time before the weight of the world crushed your spirit.

He and his team came up with this great product free product called Twilighter. It’s super easy to install and it allows readers the chance to highlight with their cursor anything in a blog post and tweet it out. So, for instance, if you wanted to select this sentence: Brendan is pretty rad. You could tweet it out. The idea is that it drives more traffic to the site, but also allows people to tweet out little nuggets straight from the post. Go on. Try it.

The same applies to y’all with websites/blogs. I have an incredibly small following (I love you all for being part of the gang!), but because authors of all kinds, especially nonfictionists like moi, need traffic and platform, this tool is a big help. Getting traffic is a must and a constant struggle. Like this:

 

Am I right?

That’s been my experience trying to get people to jam with me at my little blog devoted to nonfiction, reading, reporting, and my subsidiary affiliation, Donutarium ( launching summer 2014!).

So, go to www.sumome.com. Watch the short video. And get Twilighter embedded on your site so people can Twilight to their heart’s content … without the vampires, of course.

Let’s tweet. Let’s Facebook. Together.

Added bonus, my favorite band, just for fun, the Spanish is the cherry on top:

PIXAR’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

Written by Brendan O’Meara

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It’s no secret. Pixar, the heavyweight that brings us such awesome flicks as “Up”, “Ratatouille”, and “Wall-E”, has had its 22 Rules of Storytelling available online for a few years now. Some people blog about them, some people make imgurs, some people made a poster. I found this with Dug right in the middle.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cGUHjtw0MI0/T9_v64FLpgI/AAAAAAAAC0w/qx5FZ2TMTY8/s1600/Pixar22.jpg
I found this little poster from this website, giving credit where credit is due: http://raydillonrandom.blogspot.com/2012/06/pixars-22-rules-of-storytelling.html

I printed out this little poster and taped it above my work space. It’s more applicable to fiction, certainly, because like Rule No. 19: Coincidences that get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences that get them out of it is cheating.

But they are ALL elements of story that are embedded in the consumer, whether they know it or not. People seek these rules on an intrinsic level. As a writer of nonfiction, you can tune your antennae to situations that follow these rules and then report the hell out of them. Sports, my backdrop of choice, often has the elements of conflict woven into it.

You can’t argue with Pixar. Is there a bad Pixar movie? Is there an unwatchable one? They are funny, sad (I think most of them have made me cry on some level. Thanks “Up”. Thanks “Toy Story 3”.), triumphant and just plain fun.

I’m always looking for other media to help my storytelling and movies inspire me. May they inspire you.