2019 StoryHow In Review

by | Dec 28, 2019 | Business Storytelling, Storytelling

 

Our goal at the StoryHow Institute is to be your one-stop resource to help you become a better communicator. We fulfilled our promise in 2019 through publishing 22 articles with much more planned for 2020. Next month, Ron will be releasing a new deck of cards called the Proverb Construction KitTM (finally!). He’s researching two new books and is writing a specialized version of the StoryHow PitchDeckTM.

We look forward to serving your storytelling needs in the new decade.

Here’s a recap of StoryHow in 2019:

1. Proverb Construction Step #3: The Finish

This final post in a three-part series helps put the finishing touches on your self-created proverbs.

2. Storytelling Lessons from the Game: Two Truths and a Lie

The Icebreaker, Two Truths and a Lie, teaches great lessons in storytelling.

3. Storytellers use the Three Red Herrings

Storytellers are experts in ethical deception.

4. Storytellers use Apophenia

Apophenia, the human’s propensity to see patterns where none exist, is a powerful tool for your storytelling toolbox.

5. How to tell a story in a half-second

It’s called the startle response, the most basic human response to unfamiliar stimuli. Not only does it form the basis of all human understanding, but it forms the roots of storytelling

6. Commonality is the Super Glue of Human Bonding

Ron looks in to why finding something in common with a total stranger is the quickest way to bond.

7. The Storyteller’s Kryptonite

New study reveals that ad hominem attacks are the kryptonite of human communications

8. Unbelief is the Friction that Keeps Persuasion in Check

Although naysayers can blow up an argument through simple character assassinations, chief negotiator Chris Voss offers an antidote.

9. Storytelling Starts with Verbs and Nouns

Ron finds storytelling advice from one of the oddest places, the design engineers on the Apollo space program.

10. Storytellers Train Elephants

Before you step into the three ring circus of storytelling, you might want to brush up on your elephant training skills.

11. Who Knew Storytelling Could Be so Dangerous

Ron goes back to his storytelling roots with the release of his latest podcast episode on Griddlecakes Radio.

12. Storytellers Question Their Beliefs

If you still believe something after five years, question it. You’ll either learn something new about it, or change the view entirely. Both are good for storytellers.

13. Storytelling at its Finest, Apollo 11: What We Saw

Sometimes the best way to learn storytelling is to study the works of others. Ron goes card-by-card through the StoryHow(TM) PitchDeck to see how Bill Whittle used Roles, Events, Influences, and Techniques in his storytelling masterpiece, Apollo 11: What We Saw.

14. When Storytellers Become Entrepreneurs: weshowup.io

Storytellers bring new perspectives to the great game of business. Kahlil Ashanti is changing the way tickets are priced with his company, weshowup.

15. Our Lives Are Measured by the Stories We Leave Behind

Life is a great story, with plots, subplots, twists and turns. The best ones set themselves deeply into our memories. What are your favorite ones?

16. Tradeoffs are the Spice of Life

While marketers want to tell ideal stories, more often than not, their customers choices are less than ideal.

17. Why AI Scientists Must Study Storytelling

While deep neural networks can perform amazing functions, artificial intelligence has a long way to go to match the robustness of human intelligence. Ron Ploof, suggests that the path to achieve such robustness is found through storytelling.

18. Everything I know about Storytelling I learned from Gilligan’s Island

How do you create a great story that connects across generations? By studying a successful one. Ron analyzes the television show, Gilligan’s Island, using the StoryHow™PitchDeck.

19. Golden Nuggets from UCI’s Center for Storytelling

UCI School of the Humanities introduced its Center for Storytelling through an inaugural event called, Telling Stories that Matter. Here are some notes from that event.

20. The Tyranny of “ish”

An insidious trend that creeps under the auspices of protection is threatening human communication. But what exactly is it protecting us from?

21. Fool Me Once: Learning to Play the Game

Have you ever been taken advantage of? Have you ever been cheated, lied to, or deceived? At some point in our lives, someone uses our trust against us and we’re disappointed, hurt, and left somewhat jaded. Ron returns to his audio storytelling roots tell the story of being scammed and the lessons that he’s learned through the experiences

22. Storytellers Cook. Writers Bake.

It’s common to think of storytelling and writing to be interchangeable. They’re not. Ron examines the fundamental differences between writers and storytellers.

Storytellers Cook. Writers Bake.

by | Dec 7, 2019 | Storytelling

 

Six UC Irvine journalism professors shared their ideas about writing and storytelling at the Center for Storytelling’s inaugural event. At one point, professor Miles Corwin said, “I never met a great storyteller that wasn’t a big reader.” Each panel member then supported his statement by telling anecdotal backstories of their love for reading.

But something about Professor Corwin’s statement bothered me. My storytelling interests began at the knee of a my grandfather–a Boston cab driver with a sixth grade education. I can’t recall a single instance of him reading a book. A newspaper, maybe. A book? Never.

I wrestled with the notion for a couple of weeks before finding an answer in a fifty-year-old memory. “Do you like to cook?” I asked my grandmother as she pulled something wonderful out of the kitchen oven.

She looked at me quizzically. “I’m not a cook. I’m a baker,” she said, before explaining how most people are one or the other, but rarely both. My grade school brain couldn’t comprehend the difference. To me, cooking was the act of applying heat to food, but she told me that cooks use intuition while bakers use knowledge. Bakers rely on details and when they get it right, amazing cakes, cookies, and croissants emerged from their ovens. When they get it wrong, breads don’t rise, cookies crumble, and brownies become bricks.

That memory convinced me. Storytellers are cooks and writers are bakers.

Storytellers cook because they lean on gut instincts to guide their actions. Writers bake because it take years to master the intricacies of grammar, word choice, and building large vocabularies. Writers love language while storytellers don’t even need it, as proven to me once by Park Howell who told a story using only caveman grunts.

“Oh?”
“Uh-oh.”
“Ah!”

If you just laughed it’s because you get it. Park’s story has nothing to do with language and everything to do with the human condition.

Storytellers and writers speak to different parts of the human brain. Storytellers speak to our instinctive systems while writers speak to our cognitive ones. Storytellers communicate with mechanisms that execute below the level of consciousness while writers communicate with the systems above it. Storytellers trigger the fast/reactive parts of the brain while writers trigger the slow/cognitive ones. Storytellers study the human condition, while writers spend years learning ways to represent it linguistically.

So, while I disagree with Professor Corwin about the connection between storytellers and reading, I do think that we agree on something more important. The best communicators are double-threats. They combine storytelling with writing to speak to both parts of the human brain: the instinctive and emotional part AND the cognitive and logical part.

 

Photo Credit: Bain News Service, Publisher. Cooking, Pratt Institute, Misses Kierstead & Hanks. , 1917. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014705268/.

Fool Me Once…

by | Nov 24, 2019 | Storytelling

 

Storytelling is a craft that must be practiced. Before I started teaching storytelling, I was telling stories on Griddlecakes Radio, my fourteen year old podcast. Well, today I go back to my roots and practice my craft in a story about being scammed and learning from the experiences.

Feel free to click on the arrow to stream or the three dots to download Griddlesode S14-002.