Getting on the Right Side of the Story
“Everything I’m about to tell you is true. Or it ought to be!”
-Samuel Clemens
“Mark Twain”
American author, Humorist and Social Critic
(1835 – 1910)
It’s one thing to get in front of it and try to write something entertaining.
Quite another to get behind it and simply allow the story to tell you!
Confusing? Yeah. But many experience the challenge of working at the car wash, making up stories that they hope will get them into the movie business. So they sit around spinning tales with car chases, and exploding planets… Their purpose is simple, mere entertainment – mere money. They’re in front of a story, hoping to make it serve them. We suggest they may have it backwards.
The real story teller isn’t trying to entertain, or to make money. He’s trying to make a path for the story to make a break for it and escape out into the open air of existence. His stories may entertain. They may get retold. At some point, they might get “optioned by Bollywood.” Money may change hands. But that’s not the point. Great writing has a lofty purpose: Introducing the reader to another universe – with all the lessons and inspirations that can be found there. The story has a point, and the writer’s job is to let it go free and make itself understood. The teller is there – behind the story – serving it and its ultimate purpose.
The hack makes something up to fill time and space – or waste them. He has a need, and he writes to fill it. It’s entertainment – merely. The hack is above and in front of the story.
The artist is struck by a story and he struggles; listening to discern the small quiet voice, then puts it in writing, then polishes and smoothes – hoping for an easy birth. Then… he lets it go. He’s behind the story, and beneath it – making it intelligible to us. Good stories surely entertain, but they also teach, inspire, enable, ennoble, and sometimes elucidate. The great ones stay with us forever. Witness, the stories of The Christ, The Buddha, The Founding Fathers, Diogenes, Caesar, Augustine, Odysseus, and Luke Skywalker.
Now before you rise up at the thought of great spiritual teachers being referred to in the same breath as mere stories; allow us to humbly point out that neither Jesus nor Siddhartha wrote anything down. But they told stories. We know of them, as we know almost everything we know, because of the stories that followed them down through history. Acts became stories, stories became legend, legends become religions… (It helps to have George Lucas as your screen writer…) Now of course, some of what we refer to here is fiction. We think that distinction, while significant; is not so important. With Fact, a writer re-tells (some say re-writes) the story of a leader – inspiring others to act alike. With Fiction, a writer tells the story of a leader – inspiring others to act alike. But it only works if you’re on the right (correct) side of the story.
If you’re having trouble writing, find the great purpose in your message, and work from there. Start at the end and allow the story to unfold its wisdom through you, rather than trying to make it up from scratch. Get behind it and work backwards. Get beneath it and serve. Then you’ll be on the right side of the story.
A human being can be inspired by anything that connects with his heart, soul or imagination: a parable, a story, a song, a rhyme, a play. Mere entertainment might do that, but great entertainment always does. Occasionally a hack, reaching high for assistance; connects with the divine; and discovers a story that will become legend… and so on. His original profit motive shrinks in the face of genuine inspiration.
As Mark Twain pointed out, “Everything I’m about to tell you is true, or it ought to be.”
Get on the right side of the story and it won’t matter if it’s true – because it ought to be!
Applications:
1. Personally
Let the story tell you. Often as we write, we simply begin and thrash around, hoping for something to hit us. It’s a tough way to work. Try this instead: Begin by thinking about the point. Who’s the reader again? What should they think, feel, know or understand about life when it’s over? Now, Start. How does it end? Work backwards into the story and allow it to reveal itself to you – don’t force it.
2. At Home
Helping young niece Kaylee not to be afraid of the noise of the Mustang Cobra we rented for the weekend, we felt a story was in order:
“Hey Kaylee, we’re going for a ride in a very special car. It has a lion inside – up front there under the hood. He’s invisible of course. He’s a good lion, and he’s very powerful – very loud. So you might be scared if you didn’t know that, but we want to tell you how to handle the lion. See, I have this pedal here, and when I need for the lion to give me speed and power – I just push and he knows my signal. Then he comes out and roars! Want to hear? OK, here goes! And then, when we can go slow and easy, we relax the pedal and the lion quiets down.” (Here comes the point…) “Mostly, people don’t need the lion when they’re just driving around town like we are. But sometimes, it’s good to have one on your side. We have to be careful not to overuse the lion so he doesn’t get tired, and he doesn’t get angry and decide to eat us. So we use the pedal very carefully.”
It began with, “How do we make this noisy car safe and friendly, then caution against over-use?”
3. At the Office
The use of fiction (and imagination) to dramatize a point is often overlooked as a pitching tool – when we are so often drowning our prospects with facts… Consider inviting your prospective client to imagine a perfect future as it will be once you are working together:
“So a terrible thing happens in your marketplace, and an instant response is required. You put in a call to our response desk and we dispatch a team which arrives in under five hours. We work together through the night in your conference room, building the strategy, working out the handling, and crafting your statement to the press. Then we coach your Chairman through every conceivable potential line of questioning until he can handle the press, the stress and the interplay while staying cool and in charge. He goes in front of the cameras 36 hours after the event, and handles them brilliantly. It’s not over, but the healing has already begun.”
“That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how our relationship can, and should play out.”
So, you begin crafting your pitch – your story – by first considering the end and then work backwards to build the story. Factual yes, but also using fiction and imagination to indicate a better future.
It may not be true, but it ought to be! Get on the right side of the story and launch!
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