Storyworthy

by Matthew Dicks

  STORY BREAK

  A Storyteller and a Magician

  Elysha and I are dancing at The Moth Ball in 2015 when a Moth staffer approaches and asks for me to follow her. A donor would like to meet me. Elysha ditches me for the restroom, and I follow the staffer into the dining room, where I am introduced to a man named David.

  “I’d like you to tell your story again,” he says. “So I can record it into my phone.”

  I agree, even though the request is odd. While we wait for the Moth staffer to secure us a quiet spot, I ask the man if he’s ever told a story before.

  “I did a TED Talk once about how I held my breath for seventeen minutes.”

  I stare at him. “Are you David Blaine?” I asked. “The world-famous magician?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I thought they told you.”

  I tell my story again. David Blaine records my performance. Then he offers to perform a card trick for me. I agree.

  David Blaine then proceeds to convince me that magic is real. At the end of his trick, I find a playing card that I had signed in my shoe, which I never removed throughout the duration of the trick. It’s so unbelievable that I am a little frightened. I turn to a New Yorker reporter who tagged along to watch the trick.

  “Did you see that?” I ask.

  “How did he do it?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It’s impossible. I think he made a deal with the devil.”

  David Blaine laughs. “I’d like to talk to you more about storytelling, if you don’t mind. Let me give you my card.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “You already have it,” he says. “Left breast pocket.”

  Sure enough, it’s there. It’s a playing card — the king of spades — with his contact information embedded within.

  We say good-bye, and I go and find Elysha. I tell her what she just missed. She’s still angry to this day.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Two Ways of Telling a Hero Story (or, How to Avoid Sounding Like a Douchebag)

  No one likes a braggart.

  If you’re religious, perhaps you know Proverbs 27:2: “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth.”

  Or Leonardo da Vinci: “He who truly knows has no occasion to shout.”

  Or Mark Twain: “Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”

  One of my favorites is by humorist Evan Esar: “The only way to cure an egotist from bragging is by surgery — amputation at the neck.”

  Avoiding bragging can make storytelling difficult, because we all have moments of true accomplishment that we want to share, and, in some cases, we are almost required to share:

  Job interviews

  College applications

  Meeting the in-laws for the first time

  There is nothing wrong with sharing your success stories, but they are hard stories to tell well. The truth is this: failure is more engaging than success.

  You’d rather hear from the ballplayer who struck out in the ninth inning with the bases loaded to lose the World Series than the slugger who hit the home run to win the World Series. It’s just a better story.

  Getting fired from your dream job is probably more entertaining than being hired for your dream job.

  Tragic first-date stories are far better than perfect first-date stories.

  The story of an F is almost always better than the story of an A+.

  Think about it this way: The story of an incredible meal at an amazing restaurant is unlikely to contain anything of merit in terms of story. More than likely it will simply be an oral accounting of the food that a person consumed attached to a series of adjectives describing each item.

  But if I told you that I was served soup with a fly flittering amongst the beef and vegetables, trying not to drown, you would likely ask, “What did you do?”

  Why?

  Something is going to happen. We have ourselves a potential story.

  Nevertheless, there are times when you might want to tell a success story, and when you do, there are two strategies that I suggest you employ.

  1.Malign yourself.

  2.Marginalize your accomplishment.

  Rather than attempting to be grandiose about yourself or your success, you must undermine both you and it. This is because of two realities:

  First, human beings love underdog stories. The love for the underdog is universal. Underdogs are supposed to lose, so when they manage to pull out an unexpected or unbelievable victory, our sense of joy is more intense than if that same underdog suffers a crushing defeat. A crushing defeat is expected. An unbelievable win is a surprise.

  You already know the importance of surprise in storytelling. If you cast yourself as the underdog, your audience will enjoy your success. They will root for you. They will expect you to lose and hope for you to win.

  This is why Bruce Willis is outnumbered and barefoot in Die Hard.

  This is why Star Wars opens on a massive star destroyer attacking Princess Leia’s tiny rebel ship.

  This is why Jack is from the wrong side of the tracks in Titanic.

  Underdogs are what make movies like Rudy, Revenge of the Nerds, The Breakfast Club, Miracle, The Karate Kid, A League of Their Own, Rocky, The Bad News Bears, Erin Brockovich, and Hoosiers so beloved. All of these movies feature protagonists who are not expected to win. They are flawed, forgotten, failed people who achieve unexpected success.

  In a story entitled “Bring Me a Shrubbery,” I tell about changing the life of a chronically shy student named Lisa through our unexpected shared love of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Through the humor of Monty Python, Lisa begins using her voice for the first time. Lisa’s parents tell me that I “saved her life” by bringing their withdrawn daughter out of her shell and helping her to make friends.

  It’s a success story, to be sure, but I open the story by describing a moment on the first day of school that year when I throw my shoe in the direction of a student and accidentally clock her in the head.

  Why do I open my story with this moment? I want to be sure that my audience knows that I’m not perfect, nor am I pretending to be. I’m not the best teacher in the world. Not even close.

  I may save a girl’s life, but I also struck a child with flying footwear. I marginalize myself. I cast myself as the underdog by sharing a highly imperfect moment of teaching, so I can tell you about the closer-to-perfect one later.

  Second, human beings prefer stories of small steps over large leaps. Most accomplishments, both great and small, are not composed of singular moments but are the culmination of many small steps. Overnight success stories are rare. They can also be disheartening to those who dream of similar success. The step-by-step nature of accomplishment is what people understand best.

  This is how to tell a success story: Rather than telling a story of your full and complete accomplishment, tell the story of a small part of the success. Tell about a small step. Feel free to allude to the better days that may lie ahead, but don’t try to tell everything. Small steps only.

  In “Bring Me a Shrubbery,” Lisa’s parents tell me that I saved their daughter’s life. It’s a joyous moment for me, and I feel incredible for exactly three days. Then I pass by Stephanie in the hallway, a former student and an equally shy girl. Stephanie was so shy that her friend Quiana often spoke on her behalf when she was in my class.

  I didn’t save Stephanie. I quit on her. I never found her Monty Python and the Holy Grail. What was even worse, I stopped trying to find it.

  There were others too. Kelly from a couple years before. Kayla from a year before that. And in my first year of teaching, Joseph, whose voice I cannot remember, probably because he barely spoke in class that year. I didn’t save any of them.

  In fact, I didn’t even save Lisa. I got lucky. I shouted out the line from a movie, and by some miracle, it connected with a student in an unexpected way. I gave Lisa the space and encouragement to grow and
thrive, but had I not shouted that line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, she could have ended up like Stephanie and all the rest.

  In the end, it’s a success born from good fortune, but it was just one student. So many others had already passed through my classroom quietly. That is what my story is about.

  I maligned myself by admitting I’d thrown a shoe at a student.

  I marginalized my accomplishment by pointing out that while I may have saved Lisa, I had failed to save the many who came before her.

  I know. It’s not the easiest thing to do. Sometimes we are so proud of our hard-fought success stories that we want to tell every bit of them. Sometimes we want to be the hero, damn it. But the line between hero and insufferable person is a thin one. Caution is advised.

  Sometimes you can’t help but tell the whole story. In the summer of 2017 I worked with a man named Tim Warren who summited Mount Everest years before. Is Tim expected to stop his story halfway to the top of the tallest mountain in the world?

  No. That would be ridiculous. But Tim also failed to reach the summit on his first attempt, and he certainly didn’t reach the top on his own. He was part of a climbing team. By passing on some of the credit to the teammates who made his climb possible, and by highlighting his initial failure, Tim can tell the story of his ascent in a way that an audience can relate and connect to.

  I also suggested this: Can Tim’s story be about something other than Mount Everest? Can the climb to the summit be about something more personal? More interior? Perhaps a bit of individual growth that resulted from the climb?

  I know it sounds crazy to turn the summiting of Mount Everest into something other than the summiting of Mount Everest, but if I can turn a story about putting my head through a windshield and dying on the side of the road into a story about my friends taking the place of my family, why not?

  If the successful climb taught Tim to trust others, listen to his gut, accept failure, find inner peace, believe in himself, or uncover a strength he never knew he possessed, that would make for a story with much greater universal appeal and potential connectivity.

  We all have our own Mount Everests to summit. Tim’s just happened to be the real thing. If he can use that enormous pile of rock and ice to reach his audience on their own level by expressing something more personal about his feat, the power of the story and its potential to connect to an audience increases exponentially.

  Summiting Mount Everest is an adventure story. Changing your life by summiting Mount Everest is a great story.

  STORY BREAK

  “Fine” Is Apparently Not a Good Way to Describe My Sex Life

  I’m backstage at a TEDx conference at Kripalu Institute for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In a few minutes, I’ll be standing in that red circle, telling a story and talking about Homework for Life.

  As I review my story in my head, Dr. Ruth Westheimer appears. She’s following me onstage.

  “Hello, Dr. Ruth,” I say. I introduce myself. I tell her how honored I am to share a stage with her. I tell her that my wife would love to meet her if there’s time at the end of the conference.

  “Tell me about your sex life,” she says.

  I shouldn’t be surprised by this request, but I am. I stutter for a moment before saying, “It’s fine.”

  She shakes her head. “Fine is not good.” Then she offers me five tips for improving my sex life with my wife. I diligently write them down.

  After I’m done speaking, I meet my wife in the lobby. “Dr. Ruth gave me some tips for our sex life,” I say, perhaps a little too excitedly.

  “Why did you ask Dr. Ruth for advice on our sex life?” Elysha asks. She sounds annoyed. She’s clearly not as excited about this as I am.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Storytelling Is Time Travel (If You Don’t Muck It Up)

  I am not a spiritual person. Nor am I one drawn to mysticism, transcendental planes, or otherworldly notions.

  I am much more of a blunt stick. Straightforward. Uncomplicated. Grounded in what I can touch and see. I eat an Egg McMuffin for breakfast every day. I don’t practice yoga because no one is keeping score. I don’t pray or meditate. I don’t believe in ghosts or angels. I have no superstitions. I don’t even throw coins into fountains to make wishes. I’m a joy to be around.

  So this is the only time I’m going to get a little hokey with you. The only time I’ll propose something less than tangible. Here is what I believe: In its best form, storytelling is time travel. If I am doing my job well and telling an excellent story, you may, for just a moment, forget that you exist in the present time and space and travel back to the year and location that I am describing.

  My goal as a storyteller is to make my audience forget that the present moment exists. I want them to forget that I exist. I want their mind’s eye to be filled with images of the movie I am creating in their brains. I want this movie to transport them back to the year and spot that my story takes place.

  A lonely New Hampshire highway in the fall of 1991

  The sidewalk outside of a record store on December 23, 1988

  Main Street in Newington, Connecticut, in a rainstorm at 2:00 AM

  If a storyteller is performing well, and if the conditions are right, I think this magic can happen. I believe that audiences — in theaters, in boardrooms, or at dinner tables — can be transported back into the past.

  It’s admittedly easier to achieve this form of time travel if the conditions are just right. Lights turned down. Comfortable chair. Silence. Perhaps even a glass of wine or beer in the bellies of your audience members.

  This is why movie theaters are designed the way they are. Filmmakers want you to forget that you’re watching fiction. They want you to laugh and cry and worry about people who are pretending to be other people in a story that never actually happened.

  It sounds crazy, but you know it works. You’ve become so engrossed in the lives of fake people that you have wept among strangers in the dark. This is what great storytelling can do.

  Filmmakers also want you to forget about your own life for a while. Put aside your troubles. Ignore the fact that you’re sitting beside strangers in a seat that has been occupied by thousands of strangers before you. Filmmakers want to transport you too. Not through time, but to a fictional world they have created on the screen.

  As a storyteller, I seek a similar goal. I attempt to encircle my audience in a time-traveling bubble. I want to thrust them back to a time and place of my determination. If I’m doing it right, and my audience is in the right frame of mind, and the conditions are ideal, I believe it can happen.

  But it’s a fragile bubble. It can be popped easily. It doesn’t take much. Storytellers must be careful if they don’t want to ruin any time-traveling magic that they might muster.

  Here are some rules to avoid popping this mystical bubble:

  Don’t ask rhetorical questions.

  Actors in movies never ask rhetorical questions of their audience (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off being the only exception I have found so far), and neither should you. Asking a rhetorical question causes the audience to devise an answer in their mind. You have just turned your story into a Q&A session. You’ve reminded them that you exist, they exist, and this moment that you and they are occupying exists.

  Don’t address the audience or acknowledge their existence whatsoever.

  Avoid phrases like “You guys!” for the same reason you shouldn’t ask rhetorical questions. When a storyteller says something like “You guys, you’re not going to believe this!” the bubble is instantly broken. Time travel has abruptly ended. The audience is keenly aware that someone is standing in front of them, speaking directly to them and the people sitting around them.

  This also applies when the audience talks back to you. If you say, “I was walking across the campus at Ohio State” and someone in the audience shouts in approval at the mention of their alma mater, say nothing and do nothing. Unless you’re speaking in a Baptis
t church, storytelling is rarely a call-and-response scenario, so pretend the whoop or the cheer was never uttered. Ignore it completely.

  We disregard fools in the hope that our lack of recognition will cause them to cease acting foolish in the future. Allow them to silently stew in a puddle of shame and regret, and move on.

  No props. Ever.

  I once listened to a man tell a story about his frantic sprint through the Miami airport while dragging his daughter to catch a flight. He treated everyone in his path terribly. He was rude, dismissive, and unkind. When he finally arrived at the ticket counter, he demanded that the airline employee hurry so he and his daughter could board the plane before it was too late. The airline employee looked at the ticket, smiled, and told the man not to worry. He had plenty of time. The ticket was for next month.

  The man looked down at his daughter and realized that he had just dragged her through the airport, setting the worst example for her ever. He felt like a fool.

  Great story told brilliantly. I could feel the heat and humidity of Miami. I could see the throngs of travelers blocking his path. I could even hear the public-address system call out flight numbers and gates. I was in that airport with him and his child. Brilliant.

  Then he removed the ticket from his back pocket and waved it to the audience. “And it’s still good,” he said. “Too bad I won’t be in Miami three days from now to use it.”

  Pop! That was it. I was no longer in the Miami airport. I was in a theater in Brooklyn, staring at a middle-aged man with a piece of paper in his hand.

  Time travel over.

  Did the ticket help his story? Of course not. It punched his nearly perfect story right in the mouth.

  Don’t use props. They never help. Even worse, they always hurt.

  Avoid anachronisms.

  An anachronism is a thing that is set in a period other than that in which it exists. It’s a microwave in the Middle Ages. A refrigerator during the Renaissance. The internet during the Inquisition.