3.It’s lazy. We gain very little by saying “so-and-so looks or acts like so-and-so.” It’s shorthand, but it doesn’t reveal much about character.
Instead of comparing my former girlfriend to a Zooey Deschanel character, I now say something like this:
Jen was the kind of girl who never seemed to have a job but always seemed to have just enough money. She was carefree. The girl who would never grow up. Never grow old. Never worry or complain. She always had a new obsession, and each obsession was cooler than the one before. She was ethereal but present. Happy but aloof.
This description makes people nod, smile, and laugh. No one squints.
Accents
The rule on accents is simple:
Don’t.
There is never a reason to imitate the accent of a person from another country or another culture. A white man imitating the accent of the Mexican cabdriver (as I once heard a storyteller do) only runs the risk of making the white man sound insensitive and racist (which it did).
There is one exception to this rule: you can always do the accents of parents and grandparents. Parental love conquers the potential hazards of racial stereotypes.
I also think that you can imitate the accents from the region where you grew up, particularly if you share a race with the people who you are imitating. For example, I grew up near Boston and had a Boston accent. I’ve lost much of it after living in Connecticut for almost twenty-five years, but I could reproduce the accent for a story if I wanted, and it occasionally creeps into my speech.
I don’t think I would use it. I can’t see any reason to do so, and I think it might be a distraction. But it wouldn’t be objectionable, just as it wouldn’t be wrong for a person who grew up in Ireland but has lost the Irish accent to imitate it when repeating dialogue from childhood.
But I would tread lightly here. Even if a blond, blue-eyed, white man grew up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood with Puerto Rican friends, imitating a Puerto Rican accent under these circumstances is fraught with peril and should not be done.
When in doubt, don’t do an accent.
STORY BREAK
The Weather Sucks. So Don’t Talk about It.
As I write this, it is snowing outside. Meteorologists are referring to the storm as a blizzard. Much of Connecticut is shut down (though I’ve just returned from a successful trip to Dunkin’ Donuts), and apparently the grocery-store shelves are empty, but here’s the thing:
Tomorrow, less than twenty-four hours from now, the storm will have ended. The sun will shine high in the sky. The roads will be clear. And though we may have a foot or two of snow on the ground, we have certainly seen this much snow before in New England and will see this much snow again. Probably more.
I despise the ongoing, never-ending, relentless conversations about the snow, the impending snow, the snowfall projections, and the incessant complaining about the snow. One of my primary goals in teaching storytelling is to make the world a more interesting place. If people know how to tell great stories and know the right stories to share, then the world becomes a more entertaining, connected, and meaningful place to live. I believe this with all my heart.
Conversations about the weather are the antithesis of this ideal of an entertaining, connected, meaningful world. They are the death of good conversation. They are the enemy of the interesting.
My humble suggestion: Avoid these conversations at all costs. Change the subject. Do not engage. Walk away if necessary. You will be the happier, and the more interesting, for it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Time to Perform (Onstage, in the Boardroom, on a Date, or at the Thanksgiving Table)
As I’ve said, I’ve only been nervous while performing twice in my life. Once was that time at a Moth Mainstage at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre. It’s a story I’ve told in chapter 9.
The second time was in 2015, when I told “The Robbery” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I had told a version of the story the year before at a Moth GrandSLAM, but I have no recollection of telling it. My post-traumatic stress disorder is linked specifically to the events that took place in that story, but after years of therapy, I was finally able to talk about the robbery without breaking down.
It had become a scar instead of a wound. Or so I thought.
I took the stage that night, stepped up to the microphone, and took a deep breath. The next thing I remember, I was walking off the stage and back to my seat. I sat down beside Elysha, and she said, “What happened?”
Though I told a coherent version of the story, and I had actually scored well (finishing in second place), it was not the version of the story that I intended to tell. I was angry, defiant, and emotional. I left out some of the more reflective parts of the story and included parts that I had intended to leave on the cutting-room floor. The sound engineer that night, Paul Ruest, later said to me, “I’ve never heard you get so upset onstage.”
I have no recollection of the performance. It’s a perfect hole in my memory.
My therapist later explained to me that I had not mentally prepared myself to tell that story to a large audience. “There’s a big difference between telling the story to me or Elysha and telling the story to hundreds of strangers. You can do it, but you need to be prepared.”
A year later, I was ready to tell it again, this time in a Moth Mainstage in front of an audience of almost a thousand people. But for the second time in my life, I was nervous. I didn’t want to black out again.
I also wanted to do well. Catherine Burns, The Moth’s artistic director, the director of my story, and the human being whose opinions on stories I value the most, would be sitting in the front row. For the second time in my life, those damn butterflies began fluttering around.
Catherine was nervous that night too. She was directing another story and was worried about the storyteller. He was performing for the first time, and she wanted him to do well.
During our mic check, I started to wonder if Catherine was worried about me too. I thought she had confidence in me, but now I wasn’t so sure. About half an hour before showtime, I finally asked, “Do you ever get this nervous about me?”
“No,” she said. “You could certainly mess up your story, but you never stop talking, so I know you’ll eventually find your way back.”
That was the second and last time I was nervous taking the stage to perform. Catherine’s words meant the world to me, not only because of the confidence they conveyed, but because she was right. As long as a storyteller keeps telling a story, all is well.
I’ve seen people stop speaking onstage. Typically these are storytellers who have memorized their stories word-for-word, and at some point, they’ve forgotten a word. I’ve seen moments of silence last a minute or more. They feel like forever.
Part of it is nervousness too. When your mind is frayed and frazzled because you are afraid (which is what nervousness really is), it’s hard to perform at your best.
This does not mean that nervousness is always a bad thing. Back in 2012, I stepped off the stage at The Bell House and was met by Steve Zimmer, who, as I’ve said, is one of the best storytellers in the world. I had been admiring Steve from afar for a while, mesmerized by his craft. He has beaten me two or three times already and deservedly so. He was (and is) my storytelling hero.
Steve stopped me as I walked back to my seat and said, “You know what your problem is?”
I had never spoken to my hero before, so I was flummoxed. “No?” I managed.
“You’re not nervous up there, so you have to have a great story every time.”
Steve said other things to me that night. Kind and generous things. Things that made me feel as if I was on top of the world. Today I’m proud to call him my friend.
But that night in The Bell House, I knew almost instantly that Steve was right. When Steve performs, he is nervous. Backstage, he paces and mumbles to himself. Onstage, he is jittery and uncertain for the first few moments of his story, despite his honest-to-goodness g
reatness.
His nervousness serves him well. Audiences love Steve before he even says a word. Every person in an audience wants to be on the stage to some degree. Maybe it’s less than 1 percent of their being that wants to perform, and maybe it’s 99 percent. Whatever the percentage, Steve connects with the audience before he even speaks, because through his nervousness, he shows them that he is just like them.
They are rooting for him before he ever says a word.
I stand there like a jerk. I’m not worried at all. If the audience doesn’t like me, I act as if it’s their own damn fault. Steve is right. I had better tell a great story, because I give the audience nothing to love as I stand before them. I’m an overly confident, probably arrogant, “neckless stump with legs for arms,” in the words of one friend.
The lesson here: Nervousness can be your friend. Too much of it is never good, but not being nervous at all isn’t good either. I bristle at the saying, “If you’re not nervous, you don’t care enough,” because I couldn’t care more about performing well, but there is some truth in this statement. It ain’t always bad to be nervous.
Elysha is nervous before every show she hosts, and during the first few minutes onstage, her hands have been known to shake. She eventually eases into confidence as the show proceeds, but initially, she is visibly anxious.
The audience loves her for it. They love her courage. Her authenticity. The way that she is just like them, just as nervous as they might be if they were hosting the show.
There are moments, of course, when nervousness won’t help you. If you are presenting at a professional conference, pitching or selling a product, delivering the State of the Union address, or teaching high-school seniors, nervousness will not be perceived well. When you are supposed to be the expert or the authority, confidence is often required.
But performing onstage? Talking to a girl on a first date? Delivering a wedding toast? Even a job interview? A little bit of nervousness is fine. Helpful, even. It’s endearing. It shows how much you care. It bridges the gap between you and your audience.
I was recently asked why I am not nervous onstage. I used to say that twenty years working as a wedding DJ equipped me to speak extemporaneously to large groups of people without being nervous.
But then Bengi, my DJ partner, reminded me that I wasn’t nervous when I started working as a DJ. I was supremely confident from the get-go, even though we had no idea of what we were doing.
So I told the woman who asked that I wasn’t sure why I’m not nervous. “Maybe it’s just in my DNA. Maybe I’m just a confident jerk.” Then another woman who had spent the week learning storytelling from me raised her hand. She said, “I just think you’re not afraid because speaking onstage can never be as bad as all the stuff you’ve been through.”
She might be right. When you’ve been brought back to life by CPR twice, been arrested and tried for a crime you didn’t commit, been homeless, and suffered through a brutal robbery and decades of PTSD, the stage doesn’t seem so bad.
I started this book assuring you that you needn’t die or spend time in jail or get pulled from a burning building to be a great storyteller, and it’s true. Absolutely true. But perhaps reminding yourself of the adversity that you’ve overcome in your own life will help with your nerves. Maybe it’ll give you a little bit of confidence onstage.
Maybe it’ll give you too much confidence onstage. So much so that your storytelling hero sees it as a problem.
Regardless, don’t avoid telling stories because you’re nervous. Embrace your nerves. Allow them to serve you well.
When it’s time to perform, here are some other hints to help you do well, whether you’re telling a story at your uncle’s funeral, your mother’s fifth wedding, your high-school graduation, your dream job interview, or The Moth.
Don’t memorize your story.
Actors are required to memorize their lines. You are not, nor should you. Actors also have fellow actors on the stage or in the wings to help them when they forget a line. Actors are also pretending to be other people.
It’s hard to be authentic and vulnerable when you’re reciting lines. It’s also obvious to an audience when a storyteller is simply reciting a story instead of telling a story.
Instead of memorizing your story word-for-word, memorize three parts to a story:
1.The first few sentences. Always start strong.
2.The last few sentences. Always end strong.
3.The scenes of your story.
If you’re following my advice and placing every moment of your story in a physical location (chapter 11), then your story will be composed of scenes: places where the action, dialogue, and internal monologues are taking place. If you remember these places, you will remember what happens there, even if every prepared word of your story suddenly flees your mind. In “This Is Going to Suck,” for example, my scenes are:
1.On the sidewalk outside the record store
2.Driving in my car through Mendon, Massachusetts
3.The accident scene immediately following the collision
4.The ambulance
5.The emergency room
6.The waiting room outside the emergency room
7.The other side of the emergency room
I don’t memorize my stories. I memorize the places where my story takes me, so even if I can’t remember how I want to tell it, I can still do so. I may lose some laugh lines, clever transitions, and “golden sentences,” but I’m still telling my story. It may not sound as good as it could, but I’m not trapping my audience in awkward, story-killing silence.
As Catherine said, I just keep talking.
Some people remember their scenes in a list, but I actually remember these scenes as circles in my mind. The size of the circle reflects the size of the scene. The color of the circle reflects the tone and tenor of the scene. This is not something I do purposefully. It’s just the way I have always remembered my stories. I tell you this because for some people, this method has been exceptionally helpful.
I try not to have more than seven scenes in a story. The phone company uses seven digits in our phone numbers because they determined that seven bits of information is the most that the average person can retain at one time. Seven feels right to me. I have some stories that only have three scenes — even better. I have a story composed of just one scene. But seven is my max.
Make eye contact.
There are many times when I am standing onstage and I can’t see a thing. A spotlight is shining in my eyes, and I am enveloped in a curtain of black. In those cases, eye contact is impossible.
But when you can see your audience — in a classroom, a conference room, your aunt’s kitchen, a reception hall, or a faculty meeting — eye contact is important. You can’t speak to the middle distance and expect your audience to connect.
That said, you also need not make eye contact with each and every person. You have enough to do without inventorying your audience.
My suggestion is this: Find a person on your left, a person on your right, and a person dead center who likes you. These will be the people who are smiling. Nodding. Laughing. Use these three people as your guideposts. Make eye contact with them, and the people in each of those areas will feel you are attending to them as well.
Choosing people who like you will make you feel great.
Control your emotions.
There are moments in a story when you may become emotional. This is perfectly reasonable. We talk about the moments of our lives that mean the most to us. Naturally, some of them will be emotionally charged.
I become emotional during “This Is Going to Suck” when I say that my friends have filled the waiting room outside the emergency room. Part of the reason for this is that I see my story in my mind’s eye. When I say that the emergency room doors open, I see them open as I tell my story. I see my story. I relive my story.
Not everyone can do this, but those who can often run the greatest risk of becoming emotional as the
y perform. To prevent myself from becoming too emotional in these moments, I’ve developed a trick. A strategy to get some distance from my story.
When I was a kid, I played video games in arcades. One of these games was a car-racing game. I would sit behind the wheel and race against other players behind other wheels. The game had an A and a B button to the left of the gearshift. If you pressed the A button, the screen displayed the road as a driver would see it through the windshield. If you pressed the B button, your perspective shifted to outside and above the car, looking down upon it.
As the moment of heightened emotion approaches in a story, I press the B button. I shift my perspective from seeing my story through my eyes to seeing my story from above. Rather than watching my friends appear in that doorway, I watch a wounded boy see his friends standing in that doorway. I am still emotional in that moment, but not nearly as emotional as I would be if I relived the experience through my own eyes.
It takes some practice to be able to alter perspectives in this way, but it can be helpful in stories when a little emotion is perfectly fine but weeping is not.
You can also inoculate yourself against the power of certain sentences by saying them over and over again before performing. By turning meaningful moments into repetitive sentences, you can sometimes strip some of the emotion from them. Often an audience’s presence will inject some (or all) of the emotion right back into the sentence, but usually to a lesser degree, making the moment more manageable.
There’s also nothing wrong with becoming emotional during storytelling as long as your emotion doesn’t overwhelm your craft. My wife was emotional during our entire wedding ceremony, but she was still able to recite vows, laugh, and enjoy the moment. She was endearing, sweet, and authentic. Beautiful too.
You should aim to do the same.
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