Last Saturday, a sunny but brisk spring morning in Chicago found me at a crime fiction event, “Murder and Mayhem in Chicago,” put on by Midwest Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, with additional sponsorship by Roosevelt University (the event venue) and Spectrum Audiobooks. Authorities rounded up the usual suspects, but I did home in on a few key storytelling clues:

1. Location, location, location: Roosevelt University is freaking awesome and inspirational. The conference took place in the historic Auditorium Building (1889, Sullivan and Adler) on Michigan Avenue, which has been the university’s home since 1946. Its name honors Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Roosevelt University was known in the 1950s as the “Little Red Schoolhouse” due to its inclusive student policies and lack of cooperation with subversive-hunting authorities of the time. With massive stonework walls, peeling-paint portals, and sweeping staircases, it is a ripe setting for a mystery. 
2. And speaking of location, Chicago is awash in crime writers and crime stories. Midwest Mystery Writers of America is headquartered in Chicago for good reason. Location can do a lot more work in a story than merely be a physical place with the requisite attributes—doors, walls, dungeons, etc.— for the action to take place. History and sociology also build the story of a place. Everything from bootlegger wars to immigration patterns have made Chicago what it is and determined what it evokes as a story setting. This effect is true for any location the storyteller chooses. 
3. Engage the audience, or the story dies: I actually didn’t take a lot of notes on the panels, but did write down things like “start as close to the end as possible,” “leave out the boring parts,” “tell the human interest story “ (true crime panel), “make material engaging and approachable without looking away from the dark moment,” and “convey emotional depth and consequences” (cozies panel). The art of storytelling lies in engagement; a compelling plot isn’t enough. To be story, the audience must enter the narrative, and it won’t do that if it doesn’t care. And, generally, audiences care about people with whom they’ve invested emotionally (“people” can mean, of course, animals, plants, robots, artificial intelligence entities, volleyballs, mannequins, ghosts, monsters, houses—you get the idea.)
4. A brave new world of publishing: In case you haven’t heard, book publishing has changed a lot from the days of the big New York houses wrapping the debut novel in ermine, plastering its image all over billboards coast to coast, and sending its author out on a multi-city book tour, all expenses paid. (I think I saw that plot in some movie, now on Turner Classic, as a child.) Storytellers can nostalgically bemoan change and get a real job or embrace the fact that creators now controls their own career. Scary (“What if I make a mistake?”) and irritating (“I don’t have time for this. I just want to write.) but ultimately empowering, controlling your storytelling career means learning a lot, making mistakes, picking up the pieces, and learning some more.