CHAPTER 7
Storytelling Fundamentals and Prof. K.’s Three-Step Narrative Development Process
Do not despise the story. A lost gold coin is found by means of a penny candle; the deepest truth is found by means of a simple story.
—Ancient proverb
Let us now start to break stories down further. What types of business narratives are used on a daily basis with companies small and large? How many of these stories are consciously constructed and what are the fundamental rules behind these narratives? In this chapter, I hope to offer some answers to these and other questions relating to storytelling.
An interactive exercise
I begin most of my seminars with a little interactive exercise. So, now, I’d like to try it here with you. If you will indulge me and be so kind, please lift your hand, point at yourself, and freeze.
Are you pointing at your chest or at your head?
Usually when I’m dealing with a room full of executives, where do you think the majority of their fingers are pointing?
Many psychologists would argue that where you point when you are asked this question shows where your unconscious mind locates your true self.
Are you cerebrally based or emotionally-based? Are you intellectually driven or heart-centered? Do you lead with your head or your heart?
After engaging in this interactive exercise, I then spend the next few minutes trying to convince the room full of intellectually driven writers that to achieve further success, their goal now has to be about lowering their finger to their heart. It has to be about getting in touch with their soul, their authentic, true self. And I argue that the best way to do that is by working on their storytelling skills.
When I push in this direction, initially there always seems to be a certain amount of resistance. I can hear it now: “Yeah, but I’m an executive with a lot at risk. I can’t just change the way we do things here overnight.”
I understand this resistance. It makes sense, because the skill set that is most rewarded and allows most people to succeed in school is usually not the same skill set that allows people to be good storytellers.
Please indulge me for a while longer, and try to open your heart and soul to becoming a better storyteller. All it takes is a willingness to give it a try as you read on. Trust me: It’s worth it. The rewards will go far beyond just telling a good tale or selling a few more bars of soap.
The basic elements of story
What makes for a good story? And how can that be learned and applied to your business?
There’s an old Indian proverb that says, “The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story.” In essence, that is what a good storyteller can and must do: involve his or her audience via a story that carries them all the way to the truth. This involvement is the key to persuasion. Stories can allow you to take seemingly dry material and involve people emotionally in your presentation.
In other words, a good story can actually make your audience care as much about what you are talking about as you do!
In a nutshell, what many writers fail to see is that storytelling is about more than just proving how intelligent, erudite, and well-versed you are. So just breathe and relax. What a relief! Finally, the pressure’s off.
In fact, a good storyteller knows that it’s his or her job to get out of the way of the story. In other words: It ain’t about you, baby! It’s about the story you are telling!
What you must come to realize is that piling on information might prove that you know a lot of facts or have a lot of technical or scientific knowledge, but it does not necessarily create any sort of emotional connection. And many times, it ends up being this emotional connection that makes your story really sing.
Now, I’d like you to look at your favorite TV commercial, movie, or book, and think about which storytelling elements were used to connect you to the story.
I bet the storyteller had a single protagonist that you could connect with. I also bet that the story had dramatic action that was full of ups and downs and surprises. Beyond that, there were probably credible situations and lots of conflict.
The example I am always drawn to is one of my favorite TV commercials from my younger days. Do you remember the old Michael J. Fox Diet Pepsi commercial? It follows the Golden Rule to the letter. An engaging character, Michael J. Fox, wants to get a Diet Pepsi to impress his attractive new female neighbor. There are several obstacles keeping him from achieving his goals, but, in the end, he finally succeeds. Along the way, there are ups and downs, dramatic action and surprises, and even comedy to keep you watching and caring.
Even though this short spot was made in 1986, I have never forgotten it and love the way the Diet Pepsi people were able to tell a compelling little story in a short amount of time.
Learning from the best
Where can a person who wants to improve their storytelling look for help?
All the work I’ve done through the years has shown me that to really learn about storytelling, one needs to go outside the classroom and explore the places where stories are king. Think about it: Who are the people making a living by telling stories, who really understand the art of spinning an engaging and compelling story?
In general, there tend to be clusters of them in Hollywood, in Washington, DC, and on Madison Avenue. In other words, to really understand storytelling, all writers should look at the best mass media, the most eloquent political communications, and the finest commercial advertisements, and ask themselves, “What are these storytellers doing successfully (or unsuccessfully) that I can learn from?”
But wait—I can hear dissenting voices: “I just want to be better at selling my product and creating deeper engagement in my company and with our staff, clients, and customers. What do Mad Men or Washington politicos have to teach me?”
This is a valid point, but these worlds are not mutually exclusive. Politicos and advertising execs all know that they have to deliver their messages in an engaging way that allows consumers to accept and retain what they’ve said. This, then, is the essence of what a good story can do; and it can’t be said enough: When properly presented, there is no more compelling means of communication.
Look around the country today and what you will see is that many people believe they can communicate best by information-dumping, usually via PowerPoint. The rules are changing, though, and audiences have a shorter attention span than ever.
Stories as filters and frames
Once we understand and accept the fact that the average person can take in only so much information, especially when that information is complicated and technical, it is fair to assume that much of any presentation, especially a technical one, will not be retained nor create a personal connection with your business.
Stories, however, are a comfortable means of communication and enriching connection. As I mentioned earlier, they have the great advantage of being non-hierarchical.
In fact, because most people tend to remember only three bits of information at a time, according to studies on clustering and memory, a story is one of the most effective means to cluster a large amount of information into one packet of knowledge that can be retained. In essence, stories are a good way to summarize and simplify information; they are a good filter and framework for average people to retain large clusters of information.
Actually, it is human nature to assimilate facts, order them, and make connections between those facts until they are assembled together in the form of a story. This is the way we construct our reality; we provide causal connections between discrete facts, and then these connections congeal into a story. In Stranger Than Fiction, author Chuck Palahniuk says, “We spend our lives looking for evidence—facts and proof—that support our story.”
This aspect of human nature was illustrated in a famous experiment involving pantyhose and women. In the late 1970s, Timothy Wilson and Richard Nisbett, two psychologists, set up an experiment. They had four pairs of pantyhose that were labeled A, B, C, and D. Women were asked to hold, examine, and decide which pair of pantyhose they preferred. As the women went from left to right, they tended to prefer the pair on the right side, D, the most and the pair on the left side, A, the least.
And can you guess what the real truth was behind this whole experiment?
Well, the amazing fact at the core of this experiment was that all four pairs of pantyhose were identical!
Yes, we, as human beings, are constantly creating stories. So when asked to give reasons for why they preferred D over all the others, the women all created stories to explain their choices. They talked about things like texture and quality. To justify their choice; they created stories that helped them rationalize the choices they’d made.
Timothy Wilson writes about this quality, which he calls the “adaptive unconscious,” in his book Strangers to Ourselves. He states, “The causal role of conscious thought has been vastly overrated.” We write stories to explain our actions. And this experiment also shows the huge difference between the way we think we choose and the ways we really choose.
The narrative fallacy
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his wonderful book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, talks of the human propensity to create stories as something that leads to a “narrative fallacy.” In Taleb’s words, “The narrative fallacy is the creation of a story post-hoc so that an event will seem to have a cause.”
It reflects our need to fit a story or pattern to a series of connected or disconnected facts. Taleb believes that most people are more comfortable seeing the world as something structured, ordinary, and comprehensible.
Think about this in terms of the story about how your parents first met. Most likely, this story deals with seemingly random events, but these events have been rewritten and/or re-contextualized to have a fated or predestined quality to them. For example, the story might go something like this: “Your father never used to go to that restaurant, but for some reason he chose to go there on that day, and well, the rest is history.”
The more we think about it, the clearer it becomes that storytelling is much more than just something that is done around the campfire or with children at bedtime. Maybe the most compelling way to illustrate our brain’s deep-seated need to create narratives is the fact that we dream.
In our dreams, we aren’t thinking up a story, we are creating a story to fit all the memories, which include those being moved from short-term to long-term storage and those that are being thrown in the trash. While our brains are sorting through them all, we need to string all that stuff into something which makes sense and that then becomes our nightly dream narrative. Hence, both during the day and at night while we sleep, we are constantly sorting through the events of our lives to create narratives.
This reminds me of the story of how the tradition of a Christmas tree came to England in Queen Victoria’s time. Within 10 or 20 years of this tradition being adopted in England, people were telling stories of how they remember celebrating Christmas and sitting under the tree at their grandparents’ house. Suddenly, something brand-spanking new went right back to biblical times. We can’t help it. We are always creating narratives, and sometimes they aren’t even true.
And it is worth noting that storytelling is an essential form of communication that, as an art form, can be learned and developed. At its heart, much of the storytelling you will be using is about persuasion, about showing others what you want them to know or understand via a narrative. As Bill Bernbach said, “Persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach).
Stories as the rules of the game
Without myths, without religious beliefs, and without stories, life is essentially arbitrary. Things live. Things die. Nature consumes itself and goes on. There is no inherent meaning in natural processes until they are placed within a context, a mythic system, a story.
Once a convincing story has been constructed, voila! What was once arbitrary is now endowed with meaning and structure. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories help cluster the random information of our life together in a way that endows this game of life with meaning.
Stories are the dominant form in which we think and dream. Just keep reminding yourself that your audience is trained to receive stories, and it’s up to you to tap into their story receptors. Remember, too, the stories that work the best—the ones that stay with us and affect us most deeply—are the ones that speak to us not only on a rational level but also, and often more importantly, on an emotional level.
Stories must allow us to engage and connect. No matter how rational we consider ourselves to be, the truth is simply this: A majority of all that we do is not driven by rational impulses. We are irrational, unconscious creatures. A great storyteller intuitively knows this. With a good story, a talented storyteller can speak directly to your subconscious and hook you without you ever even understanding how or why.
Let me illustrate this phenomenon by moving into the realm of the supermarket. What stories, you may ask, are at play here? Well, I’d argue that when you walk down the supermarket aisle and stop in the soap section, you have to choose between a multitude of different brands of soap bars that all essentially do the same thing: clean. In the end, the brand you choose will be the one that has told the story that speaks most directly to you.
If you chose Dove, it probably has something to do with the feeling of purity that you associate with this product. If, instead, you reached for Irish Spring, well, you’ve been drawn in by a different story, one that speaks of a stronger, more “manly” lifestyle as well as to the fresh and natural beauty of Ireland.
Thus, a brand, company, or salesperson that is doing their job well is intuitively telling you the right story, the right way. A good story that is so compelling that you can’t help but listen and buy into is one that inevitably leads you to buying into that product as well. In other words, a successful storyteller educates by engagement and not manipulation.
With this understanding, it becomes incredibly valuable to determine what story you are telling and, if it is not working, to learn how to tell a new story that works better. When thinking in terms of stories, it is important to realize that a story is comprised not just of its text.
A story exists within its context and speaks beyond itself through its subtext. Thus, with a deep understanding of the power, meanings, and ramifications of the story’s text, context, and subtext, a storyteller can do wonders.
There once were two young fish,
Who were swimming along one day when they
Happened to meet an older fish who said,
“Yo kids, how’s the water today?”
The young fish kept swimming until one turned to the other and asked,
“Wait a second, what the hell is water?”
Storytelling is everywhere; we just don’t always notice it. Like the water that fish swim in or the air we breathe, it’s all around us. A well-constructed and well-told story can be an incredibly powerful instrument with which to create an emotional connection between you and your audience.
So, now, I hope you are really starting to think about the stories you hear every day, the stories you are telling, and maybe even the stories underneath many of the common activities you engage in.
Which of the stories in your life or about your brand or your company do you think are the most effective and why?
Prof. K.’s Three-Step Narrative Development Process:
Step 1—A single sentence/logline
Before you start creating your story, can you articulate the general premise in a single sentence? And does the premise really floor people when you tell it to them? Until everyone says, “Wow! That’s an awesome idea!” please do not go forward.
Let me explain why I believe this. First of all, having this kind of clarity really helps create a coherent, compelling tale. And, secondly, if the story is something that you want people to talk about (online or offline) or even tweet about, then they are going to do so with a sentence or two. That’s all they will have time for and that’s all that is necessary. And if it is really engaging, people will be hooked and your story will spread. So this is the concept behind this single-sentence descriptor.
You need not tell your whole story in one sentence. But do try to at least capture the general idea and the premise so it titillates others to want to learn about the whole story.
Step 2—The big seven questions!
When push comes to shove, in my mind there really are just seven essential questions that all storytellers must ask themselves. No matter what kind of story they are working on or what genre. These seven questions remain the same.
So here they are, and I hope that you are intuitively already asking yourself these questions as you create new narratives. If not, try them. Also, feel free to take a story you’ve already written and run it through these seven questions to really learn about the true nature of your narrative.
1. Who is your main character? (You can only have one.)
2. What does your main character want/need/desire? (In other words, what is their dramatic problem? This dramatic problem needs to be articulated in terms of both an inner emotional need and a concrete, physical need that exists outside the protagonist.)
3. Who/what keeps him/her from achieving what he/she wants? (Who/what are the apparent and true antagonists standing in the way?)
4. How in the end does he/she achieve what he/she wants in an unexpected, interesting, and unusual way? (For example, even in a love story when we know the lovers are going to get together, we must not know how they are going to get together.)
5. What are you trying to say by ending the story this way? (What are your themes and motifs?)
6. How do you want to tell your story? (Who should tell it, if anyone, and what narrative devices should you employ?)
7. How do your main character and any supporting characters change through the course of the story? (This is all about character arc; it is this change that makes the story emotionally compelling to your audience.)
Step 3—The step outline
Now, if you’ve succeeded in answering all the big seven questions, you should have good clarity as to what your story is really about. Great! Then it’s time to take that story further and really put it through the wringer to see if it really has what it takes to work! (And if not, don’t fret; soon, I’ll provide some other valuable tricks to help you make it work.)
Now let’s try to put the story back together in the form of a step outline—also called a scene or beat outline. Call it what you will, but it’s just basically a series of sentences or small paragraphs outlining the story as a whole. At this point, don’t get caught up in great lines of dialogue or wonderful turns of phrases (of course, if you do think of one, write it down immediately before you forget it). But for now, dialogue is not your main concern. What you want to do here is get the gist of your story out in the open so you can see what you have, what’s working, and where you have major problems.
Note that you can do this process with both a story that’s already been written and/or with an idea that has yet to be fleshed out. If you’ve got an old story you want to rework, try to do a step outline where you articulate in a sentence or two the purpose of every big moment in the story. If you have just an idea, imagine what each beat or event in the story should do in telling your story as a whole, and record those in the order that you think they’ll take place.
Either way, seeing all the major moments in your story laid out in front of you should be really illuminating. If in doing this, you soon realize that there are major gaps in your story, then this process has forced you to see where there are holes and now all you have to do is figure out how to fill them with the necessary story elements. Easy as pie, right?
I like doing this as a Word file on my computer, because once I get all the major scenes or moments laid out properly and in order in my outline, then all I need to do is describe the settings and actions, add dialogue, and—voila!—instant first draft of my story.
Case study: Pond’s Flawless White
Let me now show you a bit more about how stories work by giving you a case study of an experience I had working on an international brand. (Note: I have worked with many brands and companies, but in many of those cases I have signed confidentiality agreements, so I am unable to share those stories. However, in this case, I worked with the Pond’s Flawless White team on that product, and the global brand director has given me the okay to tell our tale. So here goes.)
The Pond’s Flawless Skin Care team had a problem. They had a great new product that studies showed could radically improve women’s skin in only seven days. So, then, you might ask, what was the problem?
Well, how do you convey this information in a convincing and credible way to the target market? The global brand director did not believe this could happen with an image of some skin molecules and before-and-after shots of a model with damaged and then improved skin.
He knew a compelling story would be the most persuasive way to do this. And he was eager to try something new. He also knew that engagement was way down with TV viewers, as more and more of them spent their time watching TiVo and shows on the Internet. In other words, people were trying different ways to avoid watching commercials, and if this one was going to work, it had to be special and really draw people in.
He and I discussed the idea of telling his Pond’s Flawless Skin story in a serial/soap-opera-style narrative that would extend over several TV commercials. This was a huge risk because the shooting costs would be exorbitant and there was also a chance of confusing or alienating viewers.
However, the upside was even more monumental. I loved the idea and knew that if we could hook viewers in the first commercial, we’d have them yearning to watch the rest. Then, instead of clicking away from the commercials, they’d be going online in search of our commercials and even e-mailing them to friends and family.
We had our core concept, and we knew the risks and returns involved. But we weren’t nervous because we knew what this challenge necessitated: a story so gripping that viewers would tune in again and again. We also knew that, because the product showed dramatic results through seven days, our drama must also take place through the course of seven days.
The global brand director, a talented team of copywriters, and I set to work. We brainstormed stories. I gave notes. We engaged in the three-step storytelling development process. We found our protagonist, our obstacles, and our surprising ending. We made sure that it was thematically consistent with the brand. We kept in mind that our hero had to change for the good through the course of the story.
There were outlines and more notes. And then draft after draft and more notes. Finally, they shot it. And we had ourselves a series of short films that we thought told an emotionally powerful story and also conveyed the product benefits we needed the audience to know.
But the big question remained: Would people really care enough about the characters and the story in our ads to want to watch them all? (Well, if you are curious, feel free to go to YouTube and watch the Pond’s Flawless White “7 Days to Love” TV commercial and see for yourself.) I’m proud to say that the story tested through the roof, and more importantly, it was a huge hit. Women loved it! Product sales soared! And we were thrilled.
The fun wasn’t over yet, though. Because things went so well with that brand, the good people at Pond’s decided to roll out a bit more prestigious product, Pond’s Gold Radiance. In that case, they needed an even more effective advertising campaign because the product was going to be more expensive than the other Pond’s products.
This called for the big story guns. The global brand director flew all of the marketing execs, creatives, and me to Bali for a week to bang our heads together and come up with something extraordinary. Here is the sequence of events that happened during our weeklong sojourn on that magical island:
First, the strategy planner came to us with the brief, which emphasized the core concept of eternal love. It was clear to him, based on the consumer research, that the women who were the target demographic for this product feared losing the love of their husbands due to looking older. They wanted a silver bullet to keep looking youthful (who doesn’t?) and to ensure their husbands’ eternal love.
So I gave a series of lectures on romantic storytelling, and then we did a series of writing exercises. We came up with a winning image: a gold wedding band. We also came up with a winning drama: a love story that takes place through the centuries between two star-crossed lovers who are torn apart and finally reunite in the present day.
But that was just the beginning. The script needed lots of work, so the copywriters did draft after draft, and the global brand director and I gave notes. Within months, we had a final script that told a compelling story and also featured the radiant gold ring and the product.
The results were phenomenal! And the TV commercial won several awards. (Go to YouTube and check out Pond’s Gold Radiance “Eternal Love” TV commercial.) The question that now inevitably arises is this: What if you don’t have millions of dollars to do big TV commercials and take your whole team to Bali?
The answer is simply, well, just hire me. And you and I can go to Bali and we can leave the rest of the team at home and then do a low-budget production. In all seriousness, the answer is really quite simple. Big budgets make it easier to do fancy campaigns with lots of slick TV commercials, but in the end these days, one can tell stories in print or through the Internet for very little money and still make a huge impact.
The key factor is not one of budget. It is about understanding your product, your audience, and your needs with what’s happening next with your brand, and then creating a new brand narrative that emotionally engages your core target market.