GLOSSARY · GHOSTWRITING
Invented story
An invented story is a first-person anecdote presented as something that happened to the author when it did not: the client who said the memorable line, the conversation on a flight, the employee who taught the founder a lesson. Invented stories are a recognised pattern in LinkedIn content because narrative posts perform well and because ghostwriters and AI drafting tools can produce plausible ones on demand. They are a form of lying to the audience, they are increasingly easy to spot by their lack of specific detail, and when one is exposed it damages every true story the author has told.
How it works in practice
Stories work on LinkedIn for a good reason. A specific event with a person, a problem and a turn is easier to remember and to believe than an abstract claim. The temptation follows directly: if a story would make the point, and no real one is at hand, write one. Some writers justify this as "composite" or "illustrative", but readers were not told that, and a post that says "last week a client told me" is making a factual claim. Invented stories tend to share features. The other person is anonymous and conveniently articulate. The lesson is tidy. There are no details that would be awkward or irrelevant, which real events always have. The author is always the one who learns or the one who was right.
Readers have seen enough of these to recognise the shape, and some now assume by default that neat LinkedIn anecdotes are fiction, which is a cost to everyone who tells true ones. The remedy is operational. Keep a running file of real events: calls, decisions, mistakes, questions customers asked, with dates. Draft stories only from that file. When a real story cannot be told because of confidentiality, say so and tell it as an anonymised pattern, clearly labelled, or make the point without a story. Draft checkers, including the one at klype.ai, flag anecdotes with no concrete anchor; a human review should ask simply, "did this happen, and could you say to whom?"
Example
Instead of "A founder told me last week that he wished he had hired slower", a reviewed post reads: "In our March pricing review, our head of CS pushed back on a tier change. She was right, and here is what she saw that I did not." Named role, dated event, and a detail that only someone present would include.
Common mistake
Letting a ghostwriter or an AI tool supply the anecdotes because the founder is too busy to recall real ones. The founder then cannot answer a follow-up question in the comments, which readers notice.