(Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes)
What do the bloggers Naomi Dunford, Johnny B. Truant, Kelly Diels and Hugh MacLeod all have in common?
Think about that for a bit.
While you’re thinking…
Imagine raising your family off the grid. Miles past the end of the road. No electricity, save what you can generate for yourself.
No neighbors.
Heh.
The mind boggles.
You can do anything you want, whenever you want. Ride your horse over the mountain. Play Led Zeppelin until you’re deaf in both ears. Shoot guns! Any caliber! Anytime! Frolic naked in the glorious rays of the sun! (Ok maybe not, but still.)
But when the weather goes bad… or the snowmobile breaks… what then?
Sounds like a story in the making.
I’d better back up a little bit. A few weeks ago I was emailing back and forth with Marshall, who (by the way) lives off the grid. We were discussing his website, in particular how much potential he has for hitting it really big. His story has got to be fascinating. I’m sure of it. The key is in the storytelling.
So I promised Marshall I’d start writing about storytelling:
I don’t know how to help you directly with story telling, but there’s bound to be a lot of information online. In fact, I’ll look up story telling myself right after I send this [email] off to you.
Thus, a blog post is born.
Storytelling seems like hard work
Some people seem to be natural born storytellers. I am not one of these people. I have to work at it. Hard.
Working hard means I have to practice telling lots of stories, even when the stories turn out crappy.
Like the following.
A few weeks ago I posted a request for an accountability partner to give me motivation to finish 12 short screencasts on Practical WordPress Tips, or…
Deacon took me up on it, and sweetened the deal with an incentive: finish 2 days early, dinner is his treat wherever I want to eat.
How hard could it be, right? These screencasts are short, 2 – 5 minutes long.
But the screencasts have to be done in one take.
After procrastinating 10 days, I spent Tuesday – all day – recording the screencasts. All day to produce 12 stupid little videos. Easy peasy.
Yeah, right.
Everything seemed to start just fine. By mid-morning I had five of the 12 complete. By late afternoon, things weren’t looking quite so good. Think of any mistake possible, I made it:
- Leaving the microphone off. Check.
- Forgetting to plugin the microphone in. Check.
- Forgetting to turn the power on the mixer. Check.
- Coughing, check. Scraping chair, check.
- Forgetting what I wanted to say, check.
- Getting frustrated: check check check!
Even worse, I recorded in the wrong video format and had to spend a bunch of time finding software to convert the videos from swf to mp4.
And worst of all, the end result, the very best I know how to do… is crappy. Bummer.
But…
Since I finished the videos early Deacon bought me dinner at Macaroni Grill. And ripped up my $100 check:
That felt pretty good.
Even better, a few days later I had to record a 2 minute screencast several times to get it right. I slurred my words, forgot what I want to say, had the microphone off, you name it, it was just like that Tuesday from hell. But nothing I hadn’t already dealt with.
This screencast turned out better than the first 12. I whipped it out really fast in spite of the mistakes. Progress in inches is still progress.
You can learn storytelling
As I promised Marshall, I did look up storytelling. Even bought a book: “How to Tell a Story – The secret of writing captivating tales.”
Turns out it’s not that hard. Stories have a standard structure. Learning – and using – story structure will improve your storytelling. As you can see above, I’m teaching myself.
In previous articles, I’ve taught you about titles, and about subtitles and teasers. Next up, let’s steal borrow an absolutely killer technique from screenwriting and playwriting: the inciting incident.
The inciting incident allows your reader to emotionally connect with your motivation for writing, drawing them further into your writing and setting the scene for your story.
In short, the inciting incident messes with their heads and sucks them in.
From Richard Toscan,
Inciting Incidents can be the vaguest hints of concern. Or the most obvious sledgehammer. Either kind works. You just need to have one.
(What’s my inciting incident for this blog post? Does it work well, or could it be better? In your opinion, do I use a vague hint or a sledgehammer? What about for my screencast story, hint or sledgehammer?)
Write better stories now!
If you suck at storytelling and want to improve, you’re probably going to tell a lot of crappy stories too. Might as well get started. As my Great Aunt Vina Williams used to say “Time’s a wastin’.”
Here’s a Website In A Weekend challenge: write a simple story (300-500 words is fine) about something as mundane as screencasting, taking special care with the title, the teaser and your inciting incident. Make it easy: use your next blog post; you’re writing it anyway.
After you publish your story, send me an email or leave a comment (you’re probably in my RSS feed anyway), and I’ll link your story right here anchoring with your title. I’ll support the link with your teaser or inciting incident, whichever seems best.
Here’s our #3 storytellers
- Justin Matthews gets the first slot with Cloris Leachman and Christmas Lights in the Nose…, a shaggy dog story nicely tied up at the end. Here’s the inciting incident:
I had a dream last night. Cloris Leachman was the sexy starlet in an unfolding drama that had someone very generic as the leading man. I was off to the side. Good thing too, I could turn my back on the love scene that was just starting.
- Anne On Line gives us “I Always Admired Mr. Franklin, But Now I Truly Respect Him.” Check this out:
Teddy had his stick.
Martin had a dream.
And Ben, well, Ben had gas.
Why is it I am only now learning about this?
Good question Anne. I thought everyone knew this. *snicker*
- Marshall from Real Off Grid Living (mentioned above) weighs in with another driveway story: Backwards Skiing with 1500 Pounds and Wheels. At the end of 3.8 miles of dirt road, Marshall is inventing a whole new genre, driveway stories. Here’s how he kicks off his latest:
“Ok. Jackie, kids, I think its time to wait outside the rig, I don’t think it or the snow is too stable!”, I heard myself saying New Year’s afternoon. I keep swearing to myself that this won’t happen again. Another year and another incident on the “washboard” with snow. At least this year it wasn’t dark, but unfortunately I wasn’t alone, so my family got to witness the sometimes frightening madness.
You gotta check out the picture that goes with this, classic stuff. Takes me back to northern Indiana, ca. 1978. *shudder*
By the way, not that it matters (*cough*), but Website In A Weekend just picked up Page Rank 3. Proceed accordingly.
Once you learn to tell the stories you already have, you will acquire a very large audience. I’m sure of it.
If you forgot, Johnny, Naomi, Kelly and Hugh are excellent story tellers. Each of them transform the mundane into magnificence. If you aren’t reading them, you should. I’m learning loads from reading their writing.
You got me in the intro man. When I saw the tweet, I know this stuff is just for me too.
BTW, congrats for the voided check. Ripping it must have been a sweeeet moment. Oh, and Congrats again for the PR3!
Z
Excellent! That was totally my evil intention.
That was a fine-tasting meal too. I tried really hard to get food pictures into the article, just couldn’t make it work.
Funny how everyone (me included) rags on page rank as being meaningless… but we still don’t waste any time bragging about it. That has to say something about human psychology. Not sure what though.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Life is Short. What Do You Have to Show for Yourself? =-.
This is what I get for clicking on a link from Kelly, homework! Wait, I haven’t written a post in days because I haven’t the foggiest. Maybe this was a sign. Now to come up with a good hook and RSS you immediately before I forget what I was doing.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..POW! BAM! ZONK! =-.
Yes! Strike while the iron is hot!
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Life is Short. What Do You Have to Show for Yourself? =-.
I’m crushing on you, too.
I mean, that was what this post is all about, right? Storytelling was a code. Screenshots were a code, and the encoded message is: “Kelly Diels, I adore you and want to bring you grapes and fan you whilst you recline and look enticing.”
Or maybe I misread and the secret message was intended for Johnny B. Truant, who, I am sure, also looks great on a chaise lounge.
PS You know who is a really, really good storyteller? Larry Brooks at http://www.storyfix.com. He’s also secretly in love with me. Tell him I said I send my love. Tell his wife, too.
xo
Pomegranates, dearie. Grapes are so… cliche.
We must stop meeting this way. People will talk. *muah*
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Google AdSense: text vs. image ads, which is best? =-.
Hey there I too must stop clicking links from Kelly, but I had a weird dream and was writing it in my blog anyway so easy homework.
Cloris Leachman and Christmas Lights in the Nose…
Thanks for reading!
Justin
.-= Justin Matthews´s last blog ..Cloris Leachman and Christmas Lights in the Nose… =-.
You are #1. Linking it in now…
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..5 Easy Tips for Managing 100s of RSS Feeds =-.
I am taking your challenge! I need to do something like this in response to a similar challenge by a friend of mine, Aaron. He writes Unstressed Syllables, a new blog devoted to helping writers at any stage to make their work more effective and efficient. Your friend might like it.
I really enjoyed this post, and your voice. I look forward to reading more of your stuff.
I am also a big fan of San Francisco, and Berkeley. Have you ever eaten at Chez Panisse? My wife and I, ate there this summer and pine for it halfway across the country. Even their sparkling water was out of this world…how is that even possible?
Carlos, I didn’t get anything from you! If you can get me something say by Tuesday, I’d be delighted to add you as a 4th.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Forget Resolutions 2010: Less Talk More Action (& Week in Review!) =-.
Thanks Dave! Its nice to see how you work on creating content by keeping all kinds of snippets of conversations around. Thanks for the nice mention.
I purchased a different story telling book, I found somewhere, and when I get through it maybe we can compare notes!
I’ll take up your challenge with my latest blog post. Reading this one made me look at my New Year’s drive home in a whole different light! The first paragraph is the Inciting Incident.
.-= marshall´s last blog ..Backwards Skiing with 1500 Pounds and Wheels =-.
Marshall, I use “callbacks” and “open loops” extensively as devices for building and maintaining narrative flow of the web site as a whole.
Whenever I mention Deacon, “5am,” Holly, Extreme John (and others), there’s likely a loop opening, in progress, or closing.
For example, I have an open loop with Holly about eating gross delicacies from foreign countries. On video.
In this article, I closed a loop I started in late November about the screencasts.
Which story telling books did you get?
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Foodspotting: Twitter and Foursquare Hook Up for Dinner (& Week in Review) =-.
You want a story? I’ll tell you a story.
I was on swim team in high school when I asked my sister how to win the race. She said pretend there is a shark swimming behind you. Then she told me to pretend I was swimming toward a chocolate cake.
Talk about motivation. What really got me swimming however was hearing her voice as she followed me up and down the lanes screaming “Go Julie!”
I’ve since kept her words in my head to this day and use positive motivation to get the fire under my student’s buns. It works. Also if you can get your reader to smile you have it made.
My sister made me smile when she recently commented on my story and told me I now need to swim AWAY from the chocolate cake.
You can read the entire story here in my blog:
swim away from the cake….
.-= Julie Angelos´s last blog ..Julie’s Art Gallery – Can you tell which one is an oil painting? =-.
Excellent! I fixed the link to make it easier for people to click through.
Any more stories? Bring ‘em on!
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..5 Easy Tips for Managing 100s of RSS Feeds =-.
It’s too late for glory, but here it is anyway…
My subconscious mind let me down. We’re going to have to have a talk, because this just isn’t working out.
It’s inventory week at my job. I woke up earlier than Santa Claus on Christmas day, raced to work so as not to be the last one in (and therefore the purveyor of donuts the following day), injected coffee into my bloodstream (can I just get an IV of the stuff?) and headed to the floor…
Read more at Conscious Me
Carlos, excellent story!
You should be able to use CommentLuv to link back automatically.
Folks: go check out Carlo’s story, it’s really good.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..As The Internet Evolves – Anonymity Go Bye Bye =-.
I absolutely adore the way you send us back to all these little extras because this is an excellent post that I’d never have found if left to my own devises.
Reading this reminds me of what we talked about a story idea for GAB and has given me an excellent GAB task I can work on whilst away without web access later in the month.
Thank you :)
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..Friday Friend: @TheDrEgg #FollowFriday =-.
We aim to please.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Unlaunch Your Ebook =-.
Hi Dave, looks like you’re hitting your stride too, I’m thinking this must be the best post you ever wrote? But you’ve only just got started with this story-telling technique so I guess the best is yet to come:) I like the homework too. I’ll do it.
Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot´s last post ..Blog Writing Magic Series- How to Write Hypnotic Headlines That Drive People to Your Blog
I don’t know if it’s the best, but I agree it’s pretty good.
When I wrote this, I was writing extensively, every day. These days I’m writing almost exclusively technical material, or banging on code.
I’ll be back to writing soon.
Dave Doolin´s last post ..Blog Post Engineering 072 ready to roll