Rhian Davies-Kenny
Normally, when you hire a copywriter, you get someone who can make nice words dirty up a pristine page.
They understand the brief, output copy when you need them to, and can hop into and out of projects at the drop of a participle. The end product will be the right sort of shape. It’ll pass muster and fill the gaps it needs to, anyway.
The client will probably think it’s fine, because they can’t miss what they don’t know. But a reader will forget those words almost immediately.
Copy created to fit a brief, without consideration for its place in a brand’s wider story, will always fall flat.
To be memorable, change minds and make waves, you need to use every word to weave a wider narrative.
Luckily for you, crafty narrative-driven copy is my thing. I’m a business writer with a background in creative writing. The trad storytelling skills that began to germinate during my undergrad and masters degrees are built into everything I create.
I understand the science behind story. I know when to follow the frameworks set by every storyteller from Gilgamesh to Gaiman, and when to fling those rules out the window.
That means considered copy, every time. This is expert understanding - born from both an undying passion for all things literary and an endless curiosity. An inquisitive spirit paired with an analytical mind. Inherent creative flexibility meeting an ear for syllabic rhythm.
When you hire me, you get more than someone to churn out forgettable filler. You get someone who’ll weave together meaning and feeling. Someone who’ll write the kind of words people remember.
Wondering what I've been up to?
Wondering what I've been up to?
Here’s a rundown of my storytelling history:
Future Present
Jan 2023 – Dec 2023
Over one chaos-filled year, I completely rewrote the rulebook on FP’s Storytelling service, most crucially with the workshop process. When I joined the team, the initial client info-gathering process was just a rigid Word doc list of sequential questions. Now, they run interactive half-day workshops, using a framework I architected. The session gives the client a creative space to uncover their presentation, and brand, stories. It’s dynamic, flexible and downright enjoyable.
As well as tearing apart and rebuilding agency processes, I also developed a new brand tone of voice, created a rich and varied content calendar, and crafted simple, replicable templates for everything from blogs to weekly newsletters, skeleton decks and workshop leave-behinds, all alongside doing my best work for tight deadline client projects. In short, I transformed Future Present’s Storytelling service from agency afterthought to valuable, marketable package. They’ll thank me one day.
Buffalo 7
Sept 2022 – Jan 2023
Buffalo 7 was a crash course in fast-paced story discovery, tack-sharp copy creation and writing easy-to-read complex subject matter scripts. Client journeys began with a four-hour workshop covering everything from personal pain points to tone of voice. Then I’d secrete myself somewhere quiet (but not too quiet), digest what I’d learned and create a compelling, storified presentation. I thrived in Buffalo’s environment of super- tight turnarounds, diverse clients, and an appreciation for doing excellent work. I just wish they’d been better at actually making money.
I’ve spent the last few years cutting my writerly teeth across a wild array of industries and styles. I craft the kind of content that knows when to slap and when to cradle a reader, when to stroke an ego and when to scathingly mock, when to hard sell and when to hold back. That means compelling content, memorable messaging and bacon-bringing brand clarity.
I approach every project with a keen eye for detail, built-in creative flexibility and a huge amount of curiosity – a combo that can drag even the most oversaturated blog topic out from the sewer of similarity and create something original. I blend my natural storyteller’s instinct with methodical techniques to identify and embody any client’s written voice, and then overlay that voice onto subtle narrative arcs to persuade and delight their readers. This article I wrote about how stories affect the brain is a solid example.
All my ideal projects begin with a Storytelling Workshop to kick-off, and I also sell standalone Discovery Workshops. These are 2–4-hour sessions that help stakeholders understand their product/service’s USP, uncover their ideal audience, and define their tone of voice. As well as providing much-needed narrative clarity for my clients, it’s also really fun.
Freelance
Jan 2021 – present
I finished my masters in Creative Writing in the summer of 2023. I did not, however, finish my novel. Eternal optimist that I am, I hope to have this finished and ready for publication in 2024.
My masters equipped me with all the critical reading skills you’d expect it to, as well as a hefty injection of much-needed creative confidence. Before enrolling, I’d started a fairly depressing, and unsuccessful, career in sales. After enrolling, I embarked on my much less depressing, and doubtlessly imminently successful, career as a Storyteller.
Manchester Metropolitan University
2021 - 2023
I like spending my weekends outdoors wherever possible, hiking, wild swimming, wild camping, walking dogs and generally communing with trees. It almost goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that I’m a voracious reader of all kinds of literature, and I usually have several writing projects of one form or another on the go. At the moment, I’m reading Tolkien and sketching out the characters for a new novel, with the help of ChatGPT.
I enjoy using photography as another creative outlet, and I’m teaching myself to play the piano. After much pestering from friends and family, I’m also putting together my own cookbook, with a low FODMAP speciality. Hit me up for corking recipes.