Deciding What Story To Tell

I have decided to write a book and in the process am learning more about storytelling. Not just the art, but the science behind it. Framing stories, it seems, bears a lot of resemblance to framing decisions. It is a choice unto itself.

A lot has been researched and written about story structures that authors, writers, and all of us, actually, use to tell stories. Christopher Booker was an English journalist for The Sunday Telegraph and accomplished author. His tome, The Seven Basic Plots, builds on the work of Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and undoubtedly influenced some of the popular story structures that you read about including the famed Pixar Pitch who used this outline technique to become one of the most successful studios in movie-making history. At the bottom of this post is more details about these stories and their structures.

These same approaches apply to decision making. You can only make a decision once you frame up the choice you are making (which shouldn’t just an either-or, yes-no choice, but that is a topic for another day). You can only see clearly the choice to be made when you understand the real dilemma, the potential outcomes, the characters, the setting, and circumstances. Decision making is in itself storytelling, even before you share your decision with others.

Why is this so important? The stories we tell shape our lives. They reinforce our values and culture. They limit or expand our options. They explain or explore our biases. They provide context and labels to what otherwise would be dry, meaningless facts. They are what make us human and drive connection.

If you are a business leader facing tough choices in your industry, do you describe your situation as “a perfect storm” or a “comedy of errors.” It depends on the perspective you take.

If you are a job seeker, the story you tell about your career, experience, and ambition is critical as you build relationships, craft a resume or LinkedIn profile, or conduct interviews. Or a college student wanting to get into a prestigious university with less-than-perfect grades. Do you tell a story of redemptive resilience in the face of challenges or one of defeated tragedy?

Listen to the stories told by successful politicians from any persuasion or party, and you may find a master class in story framing, where the hero faces the monster of the opposition. Politicians also love rags-to-riches accounts that sound like they belong in a Horatio Alger novel.

As a marketer and leader, I have made a living telling stories. Not only stories to customers to connect them meaningful to the products or services of my company, but also the stories of customers that I tell internally to advocate for their needs.

Stories can take the form of narratives or videos, borrowing from tribal campfire rituals perfected by the publishing and media and entertainment industry. Or they can take the form of market requirements documents given to a product development team, a resume given to a hiring manager, or a prospectus given to an investor. We are all story tellers and decision makers.

Now as an (aspiring) author, I am telling stories again. Stories of business leaders who have made and implemented impactful decisions and the lessons those experience hold for the rest of us. Decisions that required proper framing, situational analysis, and a hero’s sense of possibility.

Think about the stories you tell yourself and others. Is that the story you wish to tell? Below are some resources that might help you put the facts of your business or personal experience into a more useful, and possibly more entertaining, frame.

RESOURCES

Below are outline summaries of The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker, as assembled by Eric Koester from the Creator Institute at Georgetown University. I have also included a free bonus “Pixar Pitch” outline, courtesy of Dan Pink’s To Sell is Human.

Overcoming the Monster
Introduce Hero (optional)
Anticipation stage: Hints of the monster with a call to action and preparation.
Dream stage: Initial stage, brushing with the monster or agents. Dream-like success with seeming immunity to danger.
Frustration stage: Confrontation with the monster but failure to defeat it.
Nightmare stage: Final ordeal death match where only one can survive. It seems inevitable that the monster will win.
Miraculous escape: The monster is killed through the courage, skill and ingenuity of the hero.

Rags to Riches
Introduce Hero (optional)
Initial wretchedness and the call to action
Getting out with initial success
The central crisis
Independence and ordeal
Completion and fulfillment

The Quest
Introduce Heroes/Team (optional)
The call and preparation to leave.
The journey, across perilous lands, strewn with opposition and temptation.
Arrival and frustration as the quest is not completed.
Final ordeals with an escalating series of trials.
The goal is finally reached and the quest completed.

Voyage and Return
Introduce Hero (optional)
From normality to falling into the other world.
Dreamy fascination with puzzling and unfamiliar things.
Frustration as the mood darkens.
Nightmare as there seems no way out.
Thrilling escape and return to normality.

Comedy
Introduce Hero (optional)
A little world is under the shadow of confusion, uncertainty, separation and frustration.
Confusion deepens and darkens until everyone is entangled in a seemingly unresolvable nightmare.
Miraculous resolution occurs as truth is discovered, leading to realization, forgiveness and joy.

Tragedy
Introduce Hero (optional)
The hero has incomplete needs and focuses on some way of fulfilling these.
A tempting course of action to achieve needs appears and the hero commits to this, perhaps encouraged by a shadowy figure. Things seem to go well, at least for a while.
Things gradually start go frustratingly wrong as the the slippery slope begins. Grasping at straws, the hero may commit increasingly dark acts, perhaps encouraged by the shadowy figure.
The situation gets out of control and despair sets in as the end seems nigh.
The hero is destroyed through voluntary or external action.

Rebirth
Introduce Hero (optional)
Traumatic experience and awakening to a new beginning.
Low self-esteem being increased following discovery of one potential.
Inner conflict as the kinder side of one's character wins over the selfish self.

The Pixar Pitch
1. Once upon a time there was …
2. Every day …
3. One day …
4. Because of that …
5. Because of that …
6. Until finally …