Top Animator, Murder Club Bestseller Author & Biggest Daytime DJ on Storytelling
Recently I've heard a trio of luminaries touch on storytelling tips.
Kicking off with the starkest. A resurfaced clip from Trey Stone. Of South Park and Team America World Police fame.
When recounting a tale, never hear yourself saying, "and then...".
In context;
"We can take these beats which are basically the beats of your outline.
And if the words 'and then' belong between those beats, you've basically got something pretty boring.
What should happen between every beat that you've written down is either the word 'therefore or 'but'.
...
So what I'm saying is that you come up with an idea and it's like, OK,
'This happens... And then this happens'.
No, no, no!
It should be;
'This happens and therefore this happens, but this happens, therefore, this happens' ...
And literally sometimes we'll write it out to make sure we're doing it, we'll have our beats and we'll say, OK, this happened, but then this happens and that affects this and that does to that.
And that's why you get a show that feels like OK, this to that, to this, to that."
In a PR softball radio interview one morning, I heard holiday-read crime writer Richard Osman say this;
"[I've learned to avoid] there being too many subplots ...
Just everything has to come from truth.
Everything has to come from character.
And if you ever try and artificially put something in there because you go, Oh, this is a fun scene ...
It always comes out, like always has to come out.
So just letting the story tell itself a bit.
You know, the key as a writer is absolutely get out of the way of your characters. So you should never hear your own voice at any point.
If you're laughing, you're laughing because of something the character said, rather than something the author has said,
Uh, and if you're shocked you're shocked because of something someone did rather than something the author wrote.
That's the way I always think about it.
Absolutely get yourself out, out, out of the way of the book."
Remarkably similar for when delivering a story when we're pitching.
I was intrigued to hear Britain's most listened to music radio host, yes a mid-morning 'easy listening' (ish, albeit one ad-free benefitting from being tax- as opposed to ad-funded) DJ, recently revealed a philosophy behind his 'links'.
“To give of yourself but don’t make it about yourself”.
With added punch to follow,
“I think some younger people in broadcasting, less experienced people, can say, ‘They want to hear me talk about myself.’ And that’s not necessarily true. It’s not about what you say, it’s what you don’t say on radio. You don’t have to talk a lot to make an impression. You can do that in three words or a sentence. You don’t have to talk for four minutes about what you were doing or what you thought was funny.”
I equate this in some ways to overselling. A disaster. I cry when I hear it. you needn't bring on those tears now, right?