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- You'll never write better stories... until you slice them
You'll never write better stories... until you slice them
“Close your eyes, and tell me what it feels like.”
“I can feel the airplane shaking. Wow, it’s shaking a lot!”
I’m on my way to the Harry Potter Studios in London with Alice, my 8-year old.
“Are we going fast or slow?”
“Hm, still slow I think… wait, we’re speeding up now!”
“What else?”
“We’re going really fast–I just heard a bang! What was that??”
“The airplane pulled the wheels back in. What’s happening now?”
“It’s not shaking anymore, something feels different…”
Then she leans back and a huge smile spreads across her face.
“I’m flying.”
***
“Daddy, everything in London is so pretty!”
“Yeah, this area is called Covent Garden and it’s lovely, I really like the buildings here.”
“It’s not just the buildings, even the trash cans are beautiful!”
***
We’re back at the airport going through security for our flight home.
“It’s a good thing there’s no real magic, otherwise I don’t think they’d let you travel with your new wand.”
“But there is real magic, dad.”
“There is?”
“Of course.”
“What’s real magic then?”
“Love.”
I put my arm around her and we stand there, waiting our turn.
Slice it, dice it, serve it
I’m terrible at writing stories. I tried when I was younger: fantasy adventures, cyberpunk heists, magical realism short fiction. Almost all of it sucked. Back then, I had no idea why.
But these days, when I’m working with experts on a TED-style talk, keynote or presentation, I know exactly why most of their stories don’t work: there’s no life to them, they just don’t feel real.
They are not making stuff up, they are telling stories that actually happened, so why don’t they feel real?
The reason is because they are giving me the whole journey, from beginning to end, usually covering a big stretch of time. That doesn’t work.
Here’s what does work: slices of life. The smallest slice of a real event, taking place over seconds or minutes, with people doing things and talking to each other.
You don’t need to breathe life into it; it’s real, so tell us what happened and the life will already be there.
And, as a bonus, you’ll show whatever you’re trying to show in a much more compelling way, with fewer words: it would only take me a minute or two to say the 192 words in the three stories above, but how much could you tell about my trip to London and my relationship with my daughter from these tiny slices of life?
A lot more than if I gave you an hour-long zoomed-out description of the trip, I bet.
There’s a reason it’s called story-telling, not story-writing.
Find a small slice of life, and tell it.
Then watch your stories take off 🤘
-Francisco
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