Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks
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Dicks had quite a life. Moments born out of consequence read like Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Over the stretched 300 pages he does a good job of persuading me that you don’t have to be clinically dead, or be publicly slandered for a crime you didn’t commit to tell a great story.
Storyworthy is a autobiographical book about becoming a storyteller. The intertwined lessons of life extracted into lessons in writing and storytelling are well worth the time. There’s a great amount of repetition unique to the seemingly unpracticed storytelling style Dicks applies to his award winning speeches. I did not care for it in the book. It diluted the great snippets of hard acquired knowledge, having me to hunt instead of easily pick.
Pro tip: Want to bring an emotional impact to the stage? There’s many valuable lessons. Looking for brevity in writing? Look at Few Short Sentences instead.
It’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are , where we come from, and what might be possible. — Alan Rickman
People connect to what they know.
We’ve all had our emotional ups and downs. Let down by loved ones. Lifted by friends. Use that during storytelling.
The goal of the storytelling is to connect with your audience. Build the bridge out of authenticity, vulnerability and universal truth. Big stories about life and death can be hard to tell because of that.
Pass the Dinner Test
Storytelling is not a theater nor poetry. Don’t over perform. Tell your story like you would over dinner with friends. Irregardless whether its a professional setting or not.
Surprise is the best emotion at your disposal in storytelling. Don’t open with a thesis statement, that will ruin the surprise. Hide the surprising bit within the story (foreshadow).Employ laughter strategically. Specificity is funny. Rarely matched things are funny (Babies and blenders).
We listen to stories to be moved, so end on the heart.
The longer you speak, the more perfect and precise you must be. The longer you stand in front of an audience — whether it be a theater or a boardroom — the more entertaining and engaging your words must be. So speak less. Make time your ally.Don’t memorize your story word for word. Memorize first few sentences - start strong. The last few sentences - end strong. The beats (or scenes to keep with the movies reference) of your story.
Get a laughter in the first 30 seconds. It signlas to the audience to relax, because they are in good hands (not to be stressed for me). In intimate settings it signals the storyteller has the floor. You are expected to finish the story now.
In opposing though, nervousness can be your friend. It shows how much you care. It helps you connect with the audience, who is nervous for you. Depends on the crowd.
Get a laugh just before the cry.
Get a laugh just after the drama. Give your audience a release.
Make audience cry for different reasons.
Failure is more engaging than success. Drama engages, everything going smoothly soothes.
Summiting Mt. Everest is a successful adventure story. The change in your life during the summit is a great story.
Your story must reflect change over time. Stories that fail to reflect change over time are known as anecdotes.
How did it change your life? — good question to ask about any story anyone tells you. or start with. why was it meaningful experience to you (the vacation), the breakup, the dinner. If it wasn’t it’s not a story to tell, move on to stories that are meaningful.
Anecdotes are fun, small talk bridges gaps nothing wrong with that. Build bridges with meaningful stories that are honest, revealing.
Anecdotes will bring a laugh, but won’t last long. Standup comedians will have a lot of anecdotes, but are usually not storytellers. Ask yourself, what you remember from a standup night. Ask yourself whether there has been a change in you, an emotional impact. Compare it to a good story from a book, from a movie and how that made you wonder for weeks or years. That is the lasting effect of a great story.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a story about a scientist who finds God. The example of spotting the real story, behind the surface adventure movie. Why we find it impactful, often without realizing it. Plus it’s a great movie.
Everything must serve the five second moment. Everything else is built out of, around and to support the moment.
Bring the beginning to the five-second moment. Do you need to tell all the details of how you arrived to a location where the story begins, or can it just start right at the spot? What does the listener really need to know to understand and feel the change like you have.
The story should be about one thing.
You can tell the story twice and it can be about a different thing the next time. Find the moment in the story by rambling through it, practicing the storytelling scope.
It is a constantly flowing torrent of words. When listeners need to step outside of the river to ponder a detail, wonder about something that confuses them, or attempt to make meaning, the river continues to flow. When the listener finally steps back into the river, he or she is behind. The more stones, flotsam, and stronger the current, the more the listener has to work to catch up. They hardly ever can.
Soderbergh starts his stories as close to the ending as possible. He gets it.
The beginning of the story should be the opposite of the end.
Why? Because stories are about fundamental change. Fundamental change means empty glass being full, water turning into wine, what wasn’t now is.
A great storyteller creates a cinematic experience in the minds of the audience.
Effective storytelling is cinema of the mind.
Always provide a physical location for every moment of your story.
Make your audience feel the story by transporting them there.
Use present tense to transport the audience into the story. Use past tense for flashback, but don’t do really do flashbacks.
Remember each scene as a circle. Circle has a size and color. Size is size. Color is the tone of the scene - cold, heartwarming.
Don’t ask rhetorical questions they break momentum.
Offer one granular bit of wisdom. Applicable and memorable. Something thats not too generalized.
Make your audience laugh.
Don’t use a quote, be quotable instead. Create something new.
Boring stories lack stakes.
Elephant. Large and obvious need, want, problem, peril or mystery that everyone in the room can see. You can change the color of the elephant throughout the story - to keep it interesting. Tell it’s a mystery, allude to what kind, but be open to a twist.
My mother was the kind of woman whom everyone adored. Instead: I don’t care how perfect my mother was. When I was nine years old, I wanted to disown her.
Backpack increases the stakes of the story by increasing the audience’s anticipation about a coming event. Make the audience wonder what will happen next. Bring the audience along with you emotionally.
Breadcrumbs give hints to the future events, but keep the audience guessing.
Edging (Dicks calls it Hourglasses which I’d rename Slowmo, but why not go all the way and get spicy). Slow time down when people are at the edge of the seat. Start describing, prolong the moment for that much better payoff.
Crystal ball is a false prediction to cause the aduence to wonder if the prediction will prove to be true.
I know I’m going to get arrested. Everything implies I will. I think it at the time, you think it now, because you are there with me. Then I don’t.
Crash & Burn. Stream of consciousness writing. Don’t let the pen fall go down, your fingers stop from moving on your keyboard. When you hit a wall keep repeating a few words over and over, this meditation will clear your mind for other ideas to make way. I personally like to doodle to get into such state. Do it for 10, 15 minutes. Afterwards go over with a critical mindset and pick out ideas that you can develop into full fledged stories.
First Last Best Worst. Prompted by words such as “kiss”, “pet”, or “gift” list the first, last, best and worsts you had.
Homework for Life. Tiny moments of every day matter. There are many each day and all we have to do is capture them to then tell a story. They are the details that differentiate the generalized view of the life we get when we look back. This had impact on my journaling. To capture the key moments and emotions, rather than recollection of every waking minute. Focus on why it mattered, what was different.
Dicks talks a lot about developing this almost like a muscle. To spot stories everywhere, especially where many do not see them. That’s how he turns his clinical death in a car crash into a story about his friends standing by him. He does not recount the accident (as he says, you are not there, how would you describe what’s happening when you are not there, that’s a story for he ER).
The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come. — Steve Jobs
Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever. — Ancient proverb
You alter the fabric of reality, shift time and space intentionally and unintentionally.
Improve your stories by omission - tell what’s important to the five-second story.
Make your audiences not sleep at night by leaving out the redemption.
Compress to push everything closer together. It makes the world more cinematic. Again think movies.
Change the order of events if it makes for a better story.
The ideal connective tissue in any story are the words “but” and “therefore”. They signal change. There’s a cause and effect. Avoid “and” stories they have no momentum. This doesn’t mean to connect everything with but, therefore and never have any and. This causality often comes up in designing user experience and describing user journeys. “User does something, because they want something, so they arrive at somewhere.”
Don’t recount events of the day by making an essay connected with “ands”.
Dicks gives misguided advice as well:
Don’t tell other people’s stories. Tell your own. But feel free to tell your side of other people’s stories, as long as you are the protagonist in these tales.
There are many great stories retold.
Don’t practice storytelling in a mirror. You are looking at the audience, the person you are talking to when telling your story, not yourself.
I think seeing your body language is important. My choice is video. Takes a little bit more to setup, but gives so much more of how you’ll be seen and perceived.
When it comes to secrets there is an innate human need to confide.Take care of your audience. Everyone has a different sense for vulgarity, dark humor, mocking and so on. The more mass appeal you want to have the cleaner the act you should do.
Conversations about the weather are the antithesis of this ideal of an entertaining, connected, meaningful world. They are the death of good conversation. They are the enemy of the interesting.
Learn to use a microphone. Always say yes to using the microphone. Even with microphone, speak to the back of the room. Is microphone on a stand? Adjust it comfortably before you start your story.
Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you. — Zadie Smith