Storytelling will make you believe in zombies

“Ok, Carla, what have you got for us?”

I’m giving a storytelling workshop, and I asked everyone to share something vulnerable. So far we’ve had big regrets, disappointments and sad tales. 

Plenty of tears as well. 

“Alright, so this happened when I was a teenager,” Carla says. 

“I was at home, hungry, but I was too lazy to learn how to cook. So I decided to bake some frozen cheese muffins. That should be easy enough, right? 

I turned the oven on to pre-heat, and got busy doing something else. Before I knew it, 20 mins had passed already, so I rushed to get the muffins in.”

I’m wondering if she understood the assignment, this doesn’t really sound like a vulnerable story.

Carla continues, 

“But when I walked into the kitchen, I could smell gas everywhere. It was really strong. 

So I looked into the oven, and I could tell the flame wasn’t on. 

I thought about it for a moment but decided to bake the muffins anyway.”

I look around the Zoom call and I can tell some people have moved to the edge of their seats. 

“I wanted to make sure I lit the oven properly this time, so I thought of doing it with the oven door open so I could see the flame.”

Some people have their hands over their mouths now. I’m one of them. 

“But, I’m not sure why, I decided against it.”

You can almost hear the relief around the room. 

“So I kept the door closed and turned the oven on.”

I actually recoil, and from the corner of my eye I notice hands going to heads and horrified faces being pulled. 

“I saw a blue light inside the oven, growing really fast, and I thought, ‘That’s it for me.’”

Some people actually gasp. 

“Then there was a loud bang, the oven jumped half a meter off the floor and fell back down. That’s when I decided that maybe I should stop being so lazy and learn how to do things properly before I try them…”

We’re all looking at each other, baffled. 

But we’re also looking at her. 

We just can’t quite believe she’s still alive. 

The way she’s laughing nervously tells us she can’t either. 

It turns out she understood what story I asked for after all. 

She’s not a zombie

This was a boring everyday story until we thought Carla was going to die. As she talked us through what she did (or almost did), we all became convinced there was a tragedy coming. There seemed to be no way to avoid it.

But here’s the thing: 

• Her skin looks normal

• She has all her limbs 

• She’s obviously not dead

So either she somehow didn’t make her oven explode or whatever happened can’t have been that serious, right? 

And yet, we were still on the edge of our seats, not just worried, but panicked with what she was about to do. Maybe you felt a little like that too. 

The reason is because there’s an information gap. 

Hollywood knew it all along 

It’s the same thing that happens when you watch most movies: 

• You know (pretty much) how the story ends

• You know the good guys win 

• You know the lead characters don’t die

• You know the romantic pair end up together 

But you don’t know how. That’s why we watch. We need to see the steps. We need to understand how it was done. 

Because that’s what stories are: instruction manuals for life. 

“This is how I won, so copy what I did” or “Listen to how I got in trouble so you can avoid it.”

The beginning matters. 

The end matters even more. 

But really… 

The steps are what’s it all about 🤘

-Francisco 

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