Seven Questions Tosharpen Your Stories

free-rangethinkingtm For More Happy Endings

hether you work at a small nonprofit, large foundation, or any public interest organization in between, storytelling remains W your single most powerful communications tool. The only question is: are you making the most of it?

Storytelling as Best Practice can help ensure you do. Written expressly for public interest communicators, this booklet culls the best advice on storytelling that has been featured OCTOBER 2003 in free-range thinkingTM over the last four years. You’ll find articles on:

• How to create, maintain and effectively use a story bank. Good stories cut through the clutter and connect with people’s • How story memos make program hearts, opening their minds to your point of view. Dull stories don’t, officers better communicators. • Why managers need to pay close and all too often, that’s what public interest groups are telling. attention to stories told inside Storytelling your office. How stories strengthenas your Best organization, Practice sk someone from a typical non- Alright, perhaps it wouldn’t be quite • How stories can make you a more engage your audience, and advance your mission. profit to tell the story of “The that bland, but storytelling in the persuasive presenter. Wizard of Oz,” and you’re liable public interest sector is often by Andy Goodman

Happenauthor, to Good Causes You’ll also find a reading list (with Why Bad Ads A to hear something like this: flatter than the Wicked capsule reviews and excerpts) to help you dig deeper Witch of the East. In into this topic. For long-time subscribers to free-range thinkingTM, An at-risk youth from a their devotion to Storytelling as Best Practice can be a valuable refresher course. And blended family in the Seven data, many non- for new readers, this farm belt is rendered profiteers have booklet will be a unconscious during forgotten how to To order Storytelling as Best Practice, please send a check for $10 an extreme weather Questions tell a compelling convenient compilation ($7.50 per copy plus $2.50 first class postage and handling) to: of articles you may event. When she story, even when awakens, she Andy Goodman 3250 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1400, Los Angeles, CA 90010 have missed since the toSharpen they have plenty grazing cows started undertakes a long, to tell. And Please make check payable to Andy Goodman. (Sorry: we are not hazardous journey in that’s a problem, prepared to accept credit card payments at this time) Allow 1-2 gracing your inbox. weeks for delivery. which she is aided by Your because stories an assortment of vari- help engage ously-challenged adults Stories audiences, making while also being pursued them more receptive Free-range thinkingTM is a monthly newsletter for public interest groups, foundations, and by a person of color*. Upon to the facts. So here are progressive businesses that want to reach more people more effectively. For a free subscrip- reaching her destination, she seven questions to ask your- tion, send your request to: [email protected] or call 213.386.9501. Back issues are available on the web at www.agoodmanonline.com Newsletter edited by Carolyn Ramsay. learns that her journey was all a self before launching into your next dream and wakes up in her own bed story. with a newfound appreciation of the importance of family and community. a goodman * Green, in this case. GOOD IDEAS FOR GOOD CAUSES

1. Who’s the protagonist? ences rapt with attention. “The stuff of stories have just enough telling details to Just as a car needs a driver to get it where storytelling,” says Robert McKee, a renowned set the scene and people it with colorful obert McKee is legendary in Hollywood it’s going, stories need someone to drive Hollywood script doctor (see box), “is the gap characters. for teaching aspiring television and the action. This person (or group of people) between what we think will happen when we is called the protagonist, and traditionally take an action, and what actually happens.” 6. What’s theemotional hook? screenwriters how to structure a structured stories follow protagonists in Take another look at that success story of By consenting to read or listen to a story, R compelling story and people it with pursuit of clearly defined goals. To help yours and see if you can recall any barriers the audience subconsciously enters into a interesting characters. He was the your audience identify with the protagonist or surprises that cropped up along the way. contract with the storyteller. In return for expert to whom Nicolas and enter the world of your story, don’t be From the listener’s perspective, that’s where their time and attention–an increasingly Cage’s character turned Learning afraid to name names (when appropriate) the story gets interesting. valuable commodity, not so incidentally– for help in the movie and provide enough physical description they expect more than a recitation of facts. from Hollywood’s or background to let them see this 4. Where’s the conflict? They want an emotional experience that “Adaptation,” and having Story Guru individual in their mind’s eye. There is no drama without conflict, makes the time worthwhile. “Our appetite taken his course myself, I can and comedies, for that matter, for story is a reflection of the profound offer my endorsement as well: McKee is the 2. What’s the hook? also fall flat without it. Heroic human need to grasp the patterns of real deal when it comes to under- Another technique for action always comes into Seven living,” says McKee, standing the intricacies of storytelling. drawing people in is sharper focus when juxta- “not merely beginning the story posed against villainous as an intel- After years of teaching in Los Angeles where the audience Questions misdeeds, and while your lectual and New York, McKee has summa- stories will probably not is. This is your story’s exercise, rized his course in the book, Story: “hook”– the descrip- reduce to simple-minded toSharpen but within a Substance, Structure, Style and the tion of a place, circum- battles of good versus evil very personal, Principles of Screenwriting. Even if stance, or premise that (unless your name is Bush, emotional you never hoped to write the Great everyone understands Your that is), it helps to have experience.” and with which they clearly defined heroes and American Screenplay, McKee will readily identify. If the Stories villains with different notions 7. Is the meaning help you write and tell better subject of your story is of how the story should end. clear? stories, and that’s an asset in global warming, for example, Finally, your any field of communication. starting with facts about concen- 5. Have you included telling details? story should trations of carbon dioxide in the atmos- Recently,I heard a story about a small have a crystal “Science, once the great phere is not going to engage the average community in West Virginia whose economy clear moral, a explicator, garbles life with person. On the other hand, saying, “Have collapsed when its primary industry, coal reason for taking complexity and perplexity. you been reading about the incredible heat mining, was shut down. The narrator this particular Who can listen without wave in Europe?” is more likely to get heads described the place as “a company town,” journey. “We don’t cynicism to economists, nodding. but the image of a controlling and penny- need more infor- sociologists, politicians? pinching company became vivid when she mation,” writes Religion, for many, has become an 3. What keeps it interesting? added that every home was required to turn Annette Simmons empty ritual that masks hypocrisy. As our faith Predictable stories are boring, and no on its porch lights at 7:00 pm each evening in The Story Factor, “We need to know in traditional ideologies diminishes, we turn to matter how proud you are of a recent victo- “…because that’s how the mining company what it means. We need a story that the source we still believe in: the art of story.” ry, if your story boils down to “We identified made sure the streets were lit.” A single explains what it means and makes us feel a goal, we pursued that goal, we reached telling detail such as that can replace a like we fit in there somewhere.” from Story, by Robert McKee that goal!” you’re not likely to have audi- paragraph or more of description, and good