How to Write Exceptionally Well — Mitch Albom

You can’t walk through an airport without seeing a Mitch Albom book on one of the shelves. He’s most famous for writing Tuesdays with Morrie, which may very well be the best-selling memoir of all time. He’s now written 14 books, which combined have sold more than 40 million copies. In 45 years of hitting the keyboard, this is the deepest conversation he’s ever had about the craft of writing. I asked him to approach this like a college writing seminar. Give me the rigor. Give me the examples, baby. Show me how you go about your craft. And that’s what he did. He taught me the ins-and-outs of character building, writing novels, and our conversation started with how to tell great stories. 00:00 Introduction 00:36 Serve the story, always 05:56 Slow parts fast, fast parts slow 07:48 Theme first, then the story 12:28 What makes a good premise? 22:34 Building a writing routine 30:24 Mitch’s approach to storytelling 44:08 Write for the reader, not yourself 48:10 Finding the story in everything 59:09 Good stories need good rhythm 1:03:39 How Mitch reads 1:12:24 The richness of Biblical writing 1:14:14 A funny story about a rabbi 1:32:55 Loss of life vs. loss of love Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSbo... X: https://x.com/david_perell