impact

As I've written many times already, having a great story underneath your music is probably the most important thing you can do if you want your music to be meaningful and compelling.  The audience will forgive you for making mistakes, but they won't even pay attention for more than 30 seconds if your product is hollow.

So great, let's all write stories.  But we want them to be great stories, not just mediocre and certainly not counterproductive.  How can we tell if we're on the right track?  Here are some guidelines.