Effective Altruism ForumGiving season 2023
EA Forum

Timon Renzelmann

Student
27 karmaJoined May 2022Pursuing a graduate degree (e.g. Master's)

Bio

Participation

Currently, I am studying Sustainable Energy Engineering as a masters degree (focus on energy systems analysis and transformation, policy and management), in Stockholm. I completed a bachelor degree in biomimetics. 

I am involved in the student group of EA KTH as a board member.

I am interested in literature and am writing stories myself since I am 9 years old. 

How others can help me

I am looking to publish the book I wrote about storytelling. If you are or know a publisher interested in such a project, this could really support me. 

How I can help others

I am happy to give feedback on stories (and their potential impact) as well share ideas on how to make them valuable. 

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On Stories, their impact and how to improve them
Timon Renzelmann4d1
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Thank you Moya,

I think you raise two important questions here.

1. That seems to be the million-dollar question, doesn't it? How do you write a bestseller, how do you make a blockbuster film? I didn't focus on this aspect in my research, so I could just give you some conventional wisdom here, which I don't think would be very useful. There are a lot of books out there on the subject. You might want to check out books like Stephen King's memoir 'On Writing', which I really enjoyed. An excellent TED talk I recommend is this one: https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare 

2. I also think that bad stories can (if not be harmful) waste people's time and that this can be a missed potential. Some popular stories, in my opinion, are quite superficial and not really valuable. They just seem to push the right buttons and get people hooked, as if they're scrolling through their social media feed. In the end, it's a waste of time and you don't really feel good about it. So there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. But I think it's also important not to go too far in that direction. Trying to optimise everything, including stories, seems unhealthy to me. Stories are more than simulations, they are art and we should keep them free.

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