Storytelling is one of the most important skills that a man can learn. It will help you with many different facets of life, essentially anything where communication between two humans is different. It will help you get buy in for your ideas, speak more influentially, get people to your side, get your ideas accepted, and so much more. Lately I’ve been doing another deep dive into story and story telling.
Especially for novel writing. I’ve worked with a couple of novelist in my coaching (I coach the business not the novel writing) and I find their work to be some of the most fascinating thing. Learn to tell stories well and you’ve mastered one of the most powerful forms of communication.
What I did was I bought a book called Story Genius by Lisa Cron and also took her Creative Live class called Wired For Story: How To Become A Story Genius and I highly recommend both to anyone who wants to learn how tell riveting stories that keep people hooked. I will say that these were both focused on novel writing but they’ll work for any story to tell really.
Why People Come To Story
Why do people read stories? At first glance it doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense. We read about fictional people, get a big rush from it, and then go back to our own lives. It doesn’t really make sense that story telling is something that every human culture has developed and held in high regard. What is it about the story, something that seems anything but practical, that gets it placed in the human consciousness next to fire and meat?
Here is why. Story is essentially a sort of virtual reality. It allows us into the mind, even soul, of another person to sees things from their perspective and see how they navigate the world around them, giving us clues and tips, inside knowledge as Lisa states it, that allow us to better function in our own world. I’ve talked before about this, how story serves as a sort of “test run” for different things. A man slays a dragon and slaying your every day problems don’t seem so hard.
But that’s not all there is too it. It’s also about picking up subtle cues and such about how people view the world and discovering how other people think, feel, and the actions that come from those two things. It’s a cheat sheet to help understand people in a way.
Story Is About Internal, Not External, Action
We’ve probably all watched or read stories where lots of stuff was happening, explosions, romances, fights, monsters, battles, arguments, and on and on and yet none of it really mattered to us. That’s because story is not about the external stuff that matters but rather the internal changes that the outer things facilitate or force. We want to know why it matters to the protagonist given their agenda. Story is about getting deep and feeling deep.
All the laser battles in the world don’t matter if we don’t know why they matter to the protagonist, the person who’s head/heart we are inhabiting for the story. How does what is happening affect the protagonist and cause them to alter/change their world view even if only little by little. How do the external events affect the protagonist internally. Stories are about internal changes in a character. This doesn’t have to necessarily be a character arc as they’re commonly understood.
But humans, being human, will have reactions to what goes on around them. And those reactions will cause changes internally. A character may go from bad to good or good to bad or a character may simple change in a certain way from what he experiences and sees around him. But change is a constant, internal change in reaction to external things.
The Third Rail Or What Powers Story
Lisa Cron talks a lot about the “third rail” the thing that gives you story power, named after the third rail on the subway system that gives the train power. The third rail is focusing on what a protagonist wants (his desire) and the misbelief that keeps him from it. The conflict between these two things is what causes the third rail to come too life and powers your story.
Watching a protagonist change and overcome his misbelief and change as a result gives story power. Lisa defines story as “A story is about how what happens affects someone who’s in pursuit of a difficult goal and how that person changes internally as a result” that right there is story in a nutshell. Lisa is a big fan of asking “why”, as in why does your protagonist want what they want? Why do they desire what they desire? Why are they doing what they are doing? Why, why, why.
The deeper you can get the more potential you have to write a powerful story.
Expanding Your Universe
If you have any interest in story or writing novels than I highly encourage you to pick up Lisa Cron’s Story Genius as well as take her Creative Live class Wired For Story: How To Become A Story Genius. The two work well off each other and are filled with great tips and tricks to becoming a better storyteller.
And I can think of few skills that are better worth your time and investment.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
