CHAPTER 9
Prof. K.’s Storytelling Rules and Tools, Part 2—Character and Dialogue
I will tell you something about stories…. They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.
—Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
All of these rules and tools are about audience engagement. They are about creating a feeling of relationship with your consumers and/or customers, making them care so they want to stay connected to your brand. This is the goal of most narratives: to create a deep emotional involvement with your story. This chapter will continue with a series of helpful rules and tools related to character and dialogue.
The Lee Van Cleef axiom
One of the most famous bad guys in the history of Western films is Lee Van Cleef. At the end of his life, legend has it that he was asked, “What was it like, spending your life playing bad guys?”
And he responded, “Heck, I’ve never played a bad guy in my life!”
What I think he was trying to say in this quote is simply that, as an actor, he never thought of himself as a good guy or a bad guy, but merely a human being trying to achieve a goal. If that goal involved killing other people, so be it. He did not bring morality into it, but merely thought in terms of character motivation.
This is a good lesson for writing strong antagonists. Most bad guys don’t think of themselves as bad guys. With this in mind, it might be easier to create fully realized antagonists, or at least bad guys, who have no compunction about doing bad things.
The killer and his cute cats syndrome
Every story needs conflict, and that usually comes in the form of an antagonist. Along these lines, the question of humanizing the bad guy always pops up. If a bad guy is just pure evil, he might play like a caricature and hurt your story. But if a bad guy or girl is too compelling and sympathetic, then they could subvert your story. So, how does one create a credible antagonist that helps your story?
The simplest way to humanize a bad guy/gal without making him or her too sympathetic is to give him or her a bevy of cute cats. Of course, you can’t just pop in a few kittens and—voila!—have a lovable antagonist. What I am saying here is that bad guys have lives, too.
They need to eat and sleep, and they might have pets they love, such as cats. Think about them as fully three-dimensional human beings and then they will play as real in your story, instead of just as caricatures.
The reverse side of this is that if you make them too likable, too three dimensional, and too much of an animal lover, you risk having your audience feel more for them than for your hero. So be careful.
The answer is simply this: Make your antagonist credible, but don’t let them overshadow your protagonist.
The V8 edict of endings
Do you remember those old V8 TV commercials when people would forget that they could have had a V8 cocktail and they would smash themselves in the head? I used to love them, and whenever I forgot something I would mimic the V8 head strike.
I bring this up in relation to how things sometimes work at the end of poorly executed stories. A character is at the end of their ropes and then, just when they need some vital bit of information, they think of it and they smash themselves in the head, uttering, “Why didn’t I think of this before?”
Most of the time, this device feels just cheap and false. The key to making this kind of thing work is planting and paying off. If the unknown information is planted several times in the story in a subtle way during act one and two, when the character comes to remember it in act three, it will feel organic to the story and not contrived. And, thus, the audience will accept instead of reject it. (See The Evelyn Krevolin Credo!)
The coughing blood narrative nuance
In keeping with the V8 concept, there is the character coughing blood syndrome. In a story, if we see a character coughing up blood onto a hanky two or three times during the course of the narrative, we kind of know that they are going to die before the end of the story.
It’s not really even a conscious thing, but we feel it.
In real life, when someone coughs blood, it’s not a good thing, but they aren’t necessarily going to die within the next few hours. This calls attention to a specific fact about storytelling. In well-written stories, all the elements that are in the story are there for a reason, especially any element that is repeated two or three times.
Think about it. The majority of the character’s life happens outside of the story and those events that are chosen by the writer to happen in the story are usually there for a specific reason.
Thus, we as the audience start to intuitively pay close attention to that which is given to us in the story. If someone says or does something, be advised that it will probably reappear later and have meaning.
So it is incumbent upon you to plant information in a subtle way that will push your story forward and allow for the events at the end of the story to unfold in a way that all the story elements coalesce by the end.
The puppy on the side of the road principle
As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in his book Blink, first impressions are incredibly important. And the same holds true for all of your stories. It is hugely significant to think about the first time your reader or your audience will meet any of your important characters.
First, consider the setting and moment attached to this first meeting. In romantic comedies, people talk about having a cute meet. However, for any type of story, our initial impression is a big deal and must be something you as the author thinks a lot about.
Where does the scene occur when the audience first meets the protagonist? What do you want to convey by having the scene set here? And what does the protagonist do in his or her first scene to help define him or herself for the audience?
While you are considering this, think about how we can convey lots of information visually and simply. This takes us to the “puppy on the side of the road principle.” What I want you to think about with this concept is this: When we first meet your main character, if he or she is walking down the street and past a cute little puppy, how do they respond to the puppy?
This will tell your audience everything they need to know about this character. Do they kick the puppy, feed the puppy, or ignore the puppy? Each choice is a huge indicator of character and we yearn to quickly know what kind of people we are dealing with in your story.
So think about how you first present your characters and what actions you can have them perform.
The Missouri mandate
A good business presentation can get the client to sign on the dotted line and mean millions of dollars in business. A good lawyer can tell a story, create a message that “changes people’s behavior,” and maybe even get the jury to start thinking about his or her client differently. A good screenwriter can write a script that gets you to see the world differently after reading it. A great playwright can write a play that will change you after only two hours in the theater. And a great novelist—well, of course they can change the world. It’s happened before and will happen again.
In all these different mediums, this is usually done by following the cardinal rule of storytelling. As they say in the great “Show Me State” of Missouri (yes, you may have heard it before and you’ve heard it because it’s so important): Show me; don’t tell me!
This rule is best exemplified by a Chekhov quote about writing in which he says, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of moonlight on broken glass.” This is intuitively what a great storyteller does. He or she shows you the glint and you get the rest.
In other words, it is about leading the audience to water the right way so that they do drink. If your readers think they are coming to their own conclusion by putting together the useful information that you have already given them, then they will feel as if your story allowed them to reach their own opinions and thank you for guiding them to it.
Here’s an analogy that might help explain this concept. In essence, as a good storyteller, you need to start thinking like a good math teacher who does not give his or her students the answer to a tough math problem, but gives them the theorem to solve the problem and they come to the right answer on their own.
Perfecting your protagonist
Your hero or protagonist is hugely important to your story. So let’s talk about your hero for a minute. There are really two types of heroes: the imperfect hero and the perfect hero. And the imperfect hero is way more interesting. So, I always urge my students to try to create an imperfect hero as their protagonist. This allows the hero to grow, learn, and change during the course of the story. And that makes for good storytelling.
In terms of heroes, think of their special skills versus their special weaknesses. And then through the course of the story, have them get in touch with their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. This should lead to character growth or what I like to call character arc. Your character should never be the same person at the beginning of the story as they are at the end of the story.
The Three Ps property
If your character feels flat or stereotypical, then try to think of them in terms of how to “three-dimensionalize” them. In other words, try to employ what I like to call the “Three Ps” of every person’s life:
Professional.
Personal.
Psychological.
You need to know about all aspects of your character’s life. For example: What do they do for a living? Where do they work? How much money do they make? What is their personal life like, including family, friends, and home life? And what is their inner or psychological life like?
A character only becomes truly three dimensional when you’ve considered all three of these aspects for them, and your story only becomes truly three dimensional when you’ve considered all three of these aspects for all of your characters.
How to have S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
A good story should be many things at once and serve several purposes. I like to think of a good story in terms of an acronym: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. In other words, a good story should be:
Simple.
Unexpected.
Concrete.
Credible.
Emotional.
Succinct.
Spelled properly.
The S.U.C.C.E.S.S. acronym is a helpful checklist as you construct your story. In addition, in Frank Luntz’s book, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear, he provides a similar 10-point checklist that will help ensure that any message will work. His 10 points include, “Simplicity, Brevity, Credibility, Consistency, Novelty, Sound, Aspiration, Visualization, Questioning, and Context.”
So whether you like my acronym or Luntz’s top 10 qualities, the end result is the same: Both allow you to evaluate a story in order to ensure that it is effective.
Another important point to keep in mind is that your story is something that should be told, not defined. You are merely the guide who ensures that your audience gets taken where they need to be. It is your job to let your audience get the moral of the story from the cumulative impact of the events that you string together.
My mommy needs an operation mandate
In old movies, inevitably the bad guy would reveal that he/she became a gangster because, well, their sweet old mother needed an expensive operation and, frankly, robbing a bank was the only way to get the money because they came from a pre-Obamacare world, were poor, and were underprivileged.
So, what can we take away from this?
First, this feels outdated now, so try not to use it. Second, and more importantly, what it does show is the need to justify a character’s action, especially if it is an unethical or illegal one. For us to feel for and understand why a character does what he/she does, there needs to be a good justification that we, as the audience, can relate to.
Unless you want your bad guy to be such an amoral, anti-social psychopath that he just kills for pleasure, you will need to consider the motivations and origins of how someone becomes a “bad guy.”
The hostess with the mostess model
Let’s say I was new in town and I came to your house for a party and you were busy the whole time in your kitchen preparing food. If you didn’t greet me at the door when I arrived, and didn’t talk to me while I was there, how do you think I would feel about your party? I’d probably not have very positive things to say about it.
But what if you greeted me at the door with a warm hug and then, one by one, you introduced me to everybody at the party, always bringing up specific things that I share with each partygoer, so that I was quickly able to connect with each and every person there?
That night, when I returned home, how do you think I would feel about this party?
And now, how does this relate to what you’re doing in terms of storytelling? In essence, I believe this is a perfect metaphor for what good writers must do. You are the hostess of the party known as your story.
When you are telling your story, you are taking your audience in, connecting them to the characters, and taking them through the world of your story. In fact, you are the hostess (or host) with the mostess.
Way too often, I read a story in which the author introduces several characters on page one and then things get worse from there. It’s overwhelming and off-putting. Even if you know your characters and world well, you can’t just throw the reader in too quickly. First, you need to have the reader connect with your protagonist and then, and only then, you can take the reader along with the protagonist into the world and have them meet other characters. Additionally, you have to give the right anecdotes at the right time in the right way and in the right order for your audience to get the full picture.
Through your story, you have created a bond of trust, a relationship based upon an honest exchange that has just occurred between you and your audience.
Once this relationship is clear, once you’ve established trust and engagement between the main character and your audience, and you’ve then used that bond to enter the world of your story, it’s time to think about the dialogue that the characters use within the story. So here are some good rules to follow when engaging in the construction of how people talk.
Less is more dialogue
The key to dialogue is brevity. Many times when we are telling stories in business situations, we can jazz up our stories by adding a little dialogue. Sure, if you can do accents well, add a little accent, but in general I advise my clients to play it safe and be careful of overdoing accents. With that said, dialogue does bring your story to life and it’s worth adding when you can.
Maybe my favorite line of dialogue of all time is in the movie Escape From Alcatraz, in which Clint Eastwood’s character is asked, “What was your childhood like?” and he answers, “Short.”
In one word, we’ve been told all we need to know. Use dialogue when you can to make your story come to life, but use it sparingly.
The artifice of dialogue dictate
A story usually gets its flavor from good dialogue. But what exactly is good dialogue?
The truth is that real life dialogue and good storytelling dialogue are two separate things. Real life dialogue when put in a story does not, in fact, sound real. Instead, it sounds false.
In real life, we may say what we want, but good dialogue in a story is usually not so direct. Sure, there are times in a story when a character must yell, “WATCH OUT FOR THAT SPEEDING MERCEDES COMING STRAIGHT AT YOU!”
But in general, the dialogue that we like best is filled with texture, flavor, and great turns of phrases. It furthers the story, but it does not do it in a straight line. And, ideally, it is more clever and interesting than real-life dialogue.
The Elmer J. Fudd law
As a child, I loved watching the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. I distinctly remember an episode in which Elmer J. Fudd proclaimed something along the lines of, “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht.”
I think I remember this line decades later because it was so, well, incongruous. Even at a tender young age, I knew that human beings don’t just declare who and what they are and what they own. And if they did, it was not a very nice thing to do. My mother taught me the virtue of humility, and declaring one’s financial status upon meeting someone was just not done and not at all authentic.
So how does this apply to us? Well, way too often, my students have submitted to me work that uses dialogue to convey information that is just too “in your face.” Find interesting and visual ways to convey that someone is a millionaire, instead of having them declare their economic status. On video, this is easy. Having them ride up to a meeting in a limousine or Rolls Royce will pretty much do it. In a nutshell, don’t use dialogue to convey information that you can do so in a more subtle way.
The artifice (not artificial) ingredient
Artifice is our next key element. Let me explain. If you were to leave a digital audio recorder in a booth in a Burger King where two people were talking, and then transcribe the dialogue verbatim onto a page, it would not read like real dialogue even though, of course, it is a real, verbatim transcription.
You see, one must focus on the appearance of reality or what is called “writing with verisimilitude.” Your job as a storyteller is not to create dialogue that is real; your job is to create dialogue that sounds as though it is real and, hopefully, a bit more clever than average interactions. The distinction here—the “sounds as though it is real” part of the equation—is everything.
In the end, most business stories are not going to be that long, so the amount of dialogue should be limited. Within those limits, though, it’s always good to pepper your story with a bit of dialogue here and there to help it come alive.