links: [[Books MOC]] #outline / #welcome # Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling  * Type: #books/ * Universe/Series: ADD SERIES * Author: [[Matthew Dicks]] * Year published: [[2018]] * Year read: #read2021 * Month read: [[2021-08-August|August 2021]] ## Part I: Finding Your Story ### Chapter 1: My Promise to You ### Chapter 2: What is a Story? A story fundamentally involves change. We start out as one person, and become another. Usually, we become better, but we can become worse as well. This makes me think of the classic Greek ideas of comedy (ends in joy) or tragedy (ends in disaster). If your story doesn't have change, then you have an anecdote. Incredibly, you do not need dramatic events to have a great story and they can actually make it harder to tell a good story. The more dramatic the event, the more the focus is on the incident and not the transformation. Some of the best stories come from quiet moments that can be easily missed. ### Chapter 3: Homework for Life Homework for Life: A habit in which the author records one story worthy moment from the day. Ask this question daily: > “If I had to tell a story from today, what would it be?” He later rewords the question: > “What is my story from today? What is the thing about today that has made it different from any previous day?” This is a way of generating a constant steam of new story ideas. ### Chapter 4: Dreaming at the End of Your Pen Crash and Burn: An exercise to generate story ideas that involves stream-of-consciousness writing. Do not get attached to individual ideas. Let go of ideas as soon as new ones emerge. All the while you are writing these emergent ideas down. Do not judge or censor the ideas that flow from your mind. Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, etc. Do not stop writing. Write even when your mind is empty. Trick: List colors if you don’t know what to write about. Eventually, a color will draw an association, and you can write about that. Trick: List numbers if you don’t know what to write about. Like the colors trick, a number will eventually generate an association. You can use any kind of list to generate these associations (countries, foods, cities, people in your life, etc.). Author performs this activity with pen and paper and allocates 10 minutes for the exercise. ### Chapter 5: First Last Best Worst Another way to get ideas is to play "First, last, best, worst" where you pick a category (ice cream) and try to list the first time, last time etc. You may remember an interesting story with one of these events. ## Part II: Crafting Your Story ### Chapter 6: Charity Thief <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YjrlGhAB4a4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ### Chapter 7: Every Story Takes Only Five Seconds to Tell The key of any good story is a moment of transformation. This usually takes about five seconds to tell. Everything else in a story is about directing to and exaggerating this point of transformation. A bad story tries to tell you everything and nothing, a good story focuses on this one moment. ### Chapter 8: Finding Your Beginning Your beginning should be the opposite of your five second moment. So start with the five second moment and start with the opposite. - I was once - I was once doing - I once felt this Finding the beginning is difficult. You may need to really search your memory. Ideally, you want it to be as close to the end as possible. This helps avoid strange time jumps, rushing details or adding too many moments into your story that distract from the five second moment. Start with forward momentum. This helps you feel like you are going somewhere. This is "start in the action" from copyhackers. Kill any warm up. Don't set expectations I.e. "this was hilarious" ### Chapter 9: Stakes Stakes are what keep you watching/listening. We don't really want to hear many stories about transformative moments but if you have stakes, you want to watch. You should introduce an "elephant" early on. - the need, problem, want. The elephant can change to a different Colour. - not changing, just the colour. It's the same thing Backpack - add your hopes or needs in a moment. Tell them your plan. This makes people want to succeed. Breadcrumbs - hint at the future, but don't give it away. Hour glass - slow things down at the key moment. Explain details they don't care about. Crystal balls - make a plausible, incorrect prediction. We guess what will happen. Then reveal incorrect. ### Chapter 10: the five permissible lies of story telling #### 1. Omission. We all leave things out. We should do this for good reason and principles. Exclude people. - especially third wheels. They often take your focus as they become you in the story. The ending. Don't provide resolution. This leaves your audience uncomfortably and wanting to find out more. #### 2. compression Use this to make stories move faster and dramatic. You can make a route / timeline shorter to help understand a story. #### 3. assumption You can add forgotten details to your story. You may not properly remember but you can make a good prediction / assumption. When you do. Make it reasonable and likely #### 4. progression Change the order to make it more satisfying and understandable. Laugh before cry. Put the transformative moment at the end. #### 5. conflation Put emotion into one timeframe. Making a moment (perhaps the most pertinent) THE moment. Adding all the emotion of your event into one time. ### Chapter 11: Cinema of the Mind ### Chapter 12: The Principle of But and Therefore But and therefore instead of and. And is just moving along the same. But zags! Negatives are better. In ugly, dumb etc. I'm not smart. It hints at potential. It's good to end a run in a positive or to answer questions with positives. ### Chapter 13: This Is Going to Suck Matthew tells a story in its entirety to demonstrate principle he’ll share. https://youtu.be/U9v0O0oEmpQ ### Chapter 14: The Secret to the Big Story It's a big story (dramatic events) and that actually makes it hard to tell because they are hard for the audience to relate to. This was exactly the issue I was worried about with my last sermon. I was worried my anxiety issues wouldn't be able for people To connected to. The big stories are usually about something else. The big events are "exciting incident" that cause the transformative moments. Thinking about marketing the moment of transformation is probably the first time the user does a task that used to take them time. Small moments can even be better! ## Brevity! Shorter is better. The longer you speak for, the better you have to be. You have to keep people engaged for longer. ### Chapter 15: There Is Only One Way to Make Someone Cry Surprise is the only way to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. You can increase surprise by increasing the contrast - hide details - focus on certain details ### how to ruin surprise - Include a thesis statement. - you warn about the surprise. - Failure to explain the stakes - i.e. explaining the plan and hopes and dreams. - alternative - giving a hint and slow down when it works! - detail plan when it will fail, hide and hint at plan when it will work! - failure to hide critical information - planting the bomb - I.e. asking to call McDonald. How? - - make it seem unimportant by adding to the clutter - - camouflage - get a laugh to hide the detail. - hide a detail as far away as possible. ### Chapter 16: Milk Cans and Baseballs, Babies and Blenders ### Chapter 17: Finding the Frayed Ending of Your Story Sometimes we don't know the meaning of a story. The solution is to just try and tell the story without and craft but work it out. Matthew worked out two endings. But that's not okay, he needed one meaning. But You could have two different stories using the same moment. This is a way to work out why we do things. It's basically a kind of therapy. ### Chapter 18: The Present Tense Is King The present tenses helps make us feel like we're there. Past tense can be useful to avoid having confusion over two present tenses. Use the past tense in past tense. At moments of heightened emotion, shift into the present. Even in backstory. The present tense can help you re see you story as well. Feel like you are living it again. Use past for distance. For gross moments. Try tenses and see. ### Chapter 19: The Two Ways of Telling a Hero Story How to tell a hero story without being a douche bag Maline yourself We like underdogs. So we need to sound like we are underdogs. Or ... ### Chapter 20: Storytelling Is Time Travel ### Chapter 21: Words to Say, Words to Avoid Don't do this in stories - Don't ask rhetorical questions. This busts the bubble of the story - Don't address the audience or acknowledge their existence. - Be careful of props. They pull us to now not the story - Avoid things in times when they don't exist. Temporary impossibility. There are some things that can limit your reach - Swearing. - avoid vulgarity. - topics you wouldn't say to parents - other peoples names. - that's fine but keep it similar. - don't use celebrity comparisons - don't intimidate accents. ### Chapter 22: Time to Perform Be careful with big emotional stories. You need to be careful with your nerves. A bit of nervousness can help establish rapport. This is not true if you are supposed to be the expert. Don't memories your story. - Memorie the start - Memorise the end - Memories your scenes. - just the places. ### Chapter 23: Why Did You Read this Book?