Storyworthy

by Matthew Dicks

  12.Don’t use a quote that you’ve heard someone use in a previous commencement speech. Don’t use a quote at all, if possible. Instead, be quotable. Your job is not to recycle but to create something new.

  13.End your speech in less than the allotted time.

  A note on #4, which is probably the most important of the rules:

  In 2016, humorist Mo Rocca delivered a commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College and provided one granular bit of wisdom that is both applicable and memorable.

  Some perspective: Your great-grandparents — and some of you may be lucky enough to have known them — survived the Great Depression and defended freedom during World War II, defeating Hitler and the forces of darkness, ensuring that their progeny could also enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There’s a very good reason the women and men of that generation are known in history as the Greatest Generation.

  Well, I did some research, and it turns out that the life expectancy of that generation was just 54. Your life expectancy is 76. That means that you can take a deep breath, chill out — catch up on House of Cards and Narcos — and spend the next twenty-two years figuring out what you want to do — and you could still end up matching the achievements of the Greatest Generation.

  This singular idea — that graduates today will live on average twenty-two years longer than those from the Greatest Generation — is a tremendous bit of wisdom. Rocca uses this fact to encourage graduates to relax and place less pressure on themselves to succeed immediately. He encourages them to take the time to explore the world. Try out many things. Consider all their options. Stumble into opportunities. Rocca says:

  Some of you may not know exactly what you want to do or who you want to be. Your brain may be whiting out from too much possibility. Or maybe you’re simply drawing a blank. You haven’t found your passion. Well there’s no shame in that. Quite the opposite.

  Rocca’s bit of wisdom will remain with me for a long time. I’ve already used it twice with people I serve as a life coach in order to remind them that it’s never too late to start something new. We have more time than we think.

  This is exactly what you want from a commencement speech: one final lesson that graduates (and commencement-speech stalkers like me) can use.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Stakes: Five Ways to Keep Your Story Compelling (and Why There Are Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park)

  There is a good reason that hundreds of people attend Moth Story-SLAMs once a week in New York City (not to mention around the world), but only about fifteen or twenty of them put their names in the hat to tell a story:

  Stakes.

  Public speaking of any kind provides a lot of stakes. As you probably know, many people place public speaking ahead of death on their list of greatest fears. Standing before three hundred strangers and saying anything is incredibly difficult. Sharing a story from your life — something that expresses truth and vulnerability — is even more challenging.

  But that’s not the end of it. A Moth StorySLAM is a competition. Your story will be compared to nine other stories that night. You will be assigned a numerical score based on your performance — a score for everyone to see — and those scores will be posted on a sheet of paper that will hang all night long as a reminder of your failure or success.

  When you tell a story at a Moth StorySLAM, there is a record of the event. It is neither ethereal nor forgettable. It is quantified and cataloged.

  In other words, there are stakes, and for many people, those stakes are rather high. It’s hard enough to speak in front of hundreds of strangers without notes. Add a layer of public evaluation, and the barrier is too great.

  Speak Up, the show that my wife and I produce in Connecticut, is not competitive. It is a curated performance of stories, and storytellers are rarely in short supply. We have a stable of regulars always willing to take the stage, and rookie storytellers are taking our stage all the time.

  Frankly, we often have more storytellers than we need. But if we added a layer of competition to our show, I suspect that this would not be the case. We would have far fewer storytellers volunteering to take the stage. The pressure to perform well in our show is not nearly as high as at a Moth StorySLAM. There is no score. There is no public accounting of a storyteller’s performance. If you don’t do well, we are on to the next story before you know it. Stories told at a Speak Up event are ethereal and impermanent.

  Moth StorySLAMs are competitive because competition adds a layer of stakes to the show for the audience.

  Who will win?

  Who will lose?

  Will you agree with the judge’s scores?

  Will your favorite storyteller of the night be victorious?

  Even if every story in the show is a flop (and I’ve never seen that happen), there is a reason to stay to the end of a StorySLAM: you want to know who the winner will be.

  Stakes.

  I’ve only been nervous performing twice in my life. I told a story for a Moth Mainstage at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston in 2013. It’s a big theater, and it was my first Mainstage with The Moth, but I wasn’t nervous until I found out that tickets to the show were more than a hundred dollars each. Given the amount of money that each audience member had paid, I suddenly felt the pressure to perform exceptionally well.

  Jimmy Fallon was also in the green room one floor below me, waiting to perform after The Moth was finished. His presence didn’t help.

  I was also nervous on the night I told my robbery story for The Moth’s Mainstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music two years later. But I will wait till chapter 22 to tell about that.

  In both cases, I was feeling the high stakes of performance. Simply defined, stakes are the reason audiences listen and continue to listen to a story. Stakes answer questions like:

  •What does the storyteller want or need?

  •What is at peril?

  •What is the storyteller fighting for or against?

  •What will happen next?

  •How is this story going to turn out?

  Stakes are the reason an audience wants to hear your next sentence. They are the difference between a story that grabs the audience by the throat and holds on tight and one that an audience can take or leave. Stakes are the difference between someone telling you about their mother and someone telling you about the time they wanted to disown their mother.

  Stakes are the reason we ride roller-coasters. They are why we climb trees and arm wrestle or race our friends across the backyard. Stakes are why sports dominate our culture and why asking a girl on a date can be so difficult.

  Stakes are the Nazis and the snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Darth Vader and his storm troopers in Star Wars. The iceberg in Titanic. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.

  Stakes are the reason we listen to stories when video games and pizza and sex exist in the world. We could be doing any one of these things, but we listen to stories because we want to know what happens next. In the best stories, we want to hear the next sentence. And the sentence after that. And the sentence after that.

  Just imagine if I asked a friend, “Would you like to go to a movie where a man who does not believe in God ultimately finds the faith required to save himself and the woman he loves?”

  The answer would probably be no. No, thank you. I don’t want to see that movie.

  Instead I say, “Do you want to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark? It’s a movie about an archeologist-turned-hero who must battle Nazis, snakes, booby traps, and evil scientists in order to save the world?”

  The answer is more likely to be yes.

  The Nazis and snakes are the stakes. They are the things that keep our attention scene to scene. They are the reason we buy a ticket and popcorn and give up two hours of our life.

  Boring stories lack stakes, or their stakes are not high enough. Stories that fail to hold your attention lack stakes. Stories that allow your mind to wander lack stakes.

  There are many ways to add new stakes or
increase the existing stakes in a story, but not all stories need to have stakes added or increased. Some stories are naturally infused with stakes. Their content alone is enough to grab an audience by the throat and never let go.

  I tell a story about a time I was paid to be the stripper at the bachelorette party in the crew room of a McDonald’s, much to the dismay of the bride-to-be (and myself). This story does not require any additional stakes or heightening of the ones already there. No tricks are needed. I don’t need to craft ways of holding the audience’s attention, because the audience is constantly wondering what will happen next.

  That story, entitled “Strip Club of My Own Making,” is available on the “Storyworthy the Book” YouTube channel.

  But “Charity Thief” is a different kind of story. The ending of the story is admittedly compelling. Impersonating a charity worker to steal money from homeowners on behalf of the charitable organization is unusual and surprising (and perhaps appalling) and packed with stakes, and the resulting conversation with the man about his wife and his life is captivating.

  But getting to that blue door isn’t terribly exciting.

  My tire deflates and disintegrates.

  I purchase a new tire.

  I have no money left over for gas.

  I feel alone.

  I beg for gas.

  I’m refused.

  Then I devise a new plan.

  Not exactly the makings of a great story, but with the use of a few cleverly deployed strategies, I make this introductory sequence far more entertaining and compelling than it really is.

  Specifically, I use five different strategies to infuse this story with stakes. These strategies are both easy to apply and almost always effective.

  I happen to use all five of the strategies in this story (one of the reasons I use it as a model for teaching), but you should know that this might be the only story where I make use of all five strategies. As I said, some stories, like “Strip Club of My Own Making,” are already loaded with stakes. But others need some help to raise the stakes at specific moments, and this is where these strategies can prove useful. I will explain each one here and show you where I use them.

  The Elephant

  Every story must have an Elephant. The Elephant is the thing that everyone in the room can see. It is large and obvious. It is a clear statement of the need, the want, the problem, the peril, or the mystery. It signifies where the story is headed, and it makes it clear to your audience that this is in fact a story and not a simple musing on a subject.

  Elephants are critical to the success of a story. Movies have trailers and summaries that you can read on websites like Rotten Tomatoes to inform you of the gist of the story. Your friend might see a movie and give you an idea of what the film is about. You’re likely both informed about the film and excited to see it when you enter the theater. Rarely do you go to a movie theater and not know what the movie is about. You almost always have a general sense of what is to come.

  Storytellers don’t have the benefit of a trailer. When a storyteller begins speaking, whether in a theater or a dining room or a conference room, the audience often has no idea of what to expect. Are we in the midst of a comedy? A drama? An action adventure? A romance? Something in between? Is this story going to challenge our sensibilities? Make us cry? Offend us? Inspire us?

  The audience doesn’t know why they are listening to the story or what is to come, so it’s easy to stop listening. If you don’t present a reason to listen very early on, you risk losing their attention altogether.

  The Elephant tells the audience what to expect. It gives them a reason to listen, a reason to wonder. It infuses the story with instantaneous stakes.

  The Elephant should appear as early in the story as possible. Ideally, it should appear within the first minute, and if you can say it within the first thirty seconds, even better.

  The Elephant is the difference between these two beginnings of a story:

  Version #1

  My mother was the kind of woman whom everyone adored. The model of decorum and civility. She served as PTO president and treasurer of the ladies’ auxiliary. She was the only female umpire in our town’s Little League. She baked and knit and grew vegetables by the pound.

  Version #2

  I don’t care how perfect my mother was. When I was nine years old, I wanted to disown her. Leave home and never return. Forget she ever existed. My mother was the kind of woman whom everyone adored. The model of decorum and civility. She served as PTO president and treasurer of the ladies’ auxiliary. She was the only female umpire in our town’s Little League. She baked and knit and grew vegetables by the pound.

  The first story offers a character sketch of the storyteller’s mother. We have no idea what kind of story we are listening to, so it’s easy for us to check out at this point. Nothing is at stake. There is no wonder. We don’t need to hear the next sentence.

  The second story starts with an Elephant. It contains exactly the same character description, but it opens with a clear explanation of what to expect.

  “When I was nine years old, I wanted to disown her. Leave home and never return. Forget she ever existed.”

  The audience has a good idea of the story being told, and it’s likely that they will want to hear more. Now they have something to wonder about:

  Why did this woman want to disown her mother at such an early age?

  Will things turn out okay in the end?

  Was her mother to blame for these feelings of ill will, or will we discover that the storyteller was the real problem?

  Three simple sentences at the start of the story change our perception about everything that follows. The Elephant may strike you as a simple and obvious technique, but it’s not. Pay attention to the way that people tell stories. More often than not, you will find yourself two or three minutes into a story, unsure of where the story is going and why you should continue to listen.

  Is this tactic simple? Yes. Obvious? Unfortunately not.

  Elephants can also change color. That is, the need, want, problem, peril, or mystery stated in the beginning of the story can change along the way. You may be offered one expectation only to have it pulled away in favor of another.

  Start with a gray Elephant. End with a pink one.

  In “Charity Thief,” the Elephant that I present at the beginning of the story is a simple one:

  I’m stuck in New Hampshire with a flat tire and no spare.

  The audience knows this almost immediately. It all happens within the first two sentences of the story. At this point, the audience is probably thinking that this is an escape story: How will Matt escape from New Hampshire and return home without a spare tire or money?

  Those are the stakes. The problem is clear. Now the audience has a chance to guess. To predict. To wonder. Hopefully the audience wants to know how it all turns out.

  Eventually the Elephant in my story changes color. The story isn’t really about escaping New Hampshire at all. It’s really a story about understanding the nature of loneliness. I change the color of the Elephant halfway through this story. I present the audience with one Elephant, but then I paint it another color. I trick them. This is an excellent storytelling strategy: make your audience think they are on one path, and then when they least expect it, show them that they have been on a different path all along.

  Note that I’m not actually changing the path that the audience is on. It’s the same path we’ve been walking since the start of the story. The audience just didn’t realize that it’s a much deeper, more interesting path than first expected.

  Don’t switch Elephants. Simply change the color.

  Changing the Elephant’s color provides an audience with one of the greatest surprises that a storyteller has to offer. My wife has often said that this is my preferred model for storytelling, and she’s right. I’m always most excited about a story when I can change the color of the Elephant.

  “The laugh laugh laugh cry formula,�
�� she calls it.

  The audience thinks they are in the midst of a hilarious caper, and then they suddenly realize that this story is not what they expected.

  This method of storytelling is especially effective when the end of your story is heavy, emotional, sorrowful, or heartrending. To keep an entire story from being filled with weight and emotion, I try to find a way to make the beginning light and fun, hilarious and joyous. I present an Elephant that is happy, adventurous, and amusing to contrast with the weight, the sadness, and the solemnity at the end.

  Start with a pink, polka-dotted Elephant and end with varying shades of blue.

  My story “The Promise” is a perfect example of this. It’s a story about my lifelong relationship with my high-school sweetheart, Laura. The Elephant that I present at the beginning of the story is simple: “Matt must execute the perfect first kiss with his new girlfriend, who also happens to be his first love.” Then I proceed to tell the audience how I fail miserably at every attempt to kiss her. With each failed attempt, the audience becomes more convinced that the story will culminate with our first kiss. But in truth the story is about a promise I make to Laura when we begin dating. It’s a promise I describe at the beginning of the story. It’s a promise that I must keep almost twenty-five years later. That is what the story is really about.

  Striving for that first kiss helps the audience understand our relationship better. It brings our love for each other into clear focus. But it’s a story about far more than a simple first kiss. The beginning is funny and joyous. The ending is sorrowful and tragic.

  Another excellent example of this is “Lemonade Stand.” The Elephant that I present at the beginning of the story is “Matt wants to earn a hundred dollars at his roadside lemonade stand.”

  The lemonade is quickly discarded in favor of more profitable items: my brother’s Star Wars collection, my sister’s Barbie doll wardrobe, and my grandfather’s barbecued chicken. The story starts out as a boy’s hilarious and possibly unethical attempt to earn some cash, but the truth of the story, and the truth about why I need a hundred dollars, is much more.