Every great story ever told is essentially about a five-second moment in the life of a human being, and the purpose of the story is to bring that moment to the greatest clarity possible. — *location: 1757* ^ref-14429 --- Once you’ve distilled your five-second moment down to its essence, ask yourself: What is the opposite of your five-second moment? Simply put, the beginning of the story should be the opposite of the end. Find the opposite of your transformation, revelation, or realization, and this is where your story should start. This is what creates an arc in your story. This is how a story shows change over time. — *location: 2033* ^ref-58709 --- I fight for my beginnings. I struggle to find the correct entry point to a story, and I believe that every story has a perfect entry point. The ideal place to start. More than half of the time I spend crafting stories is spent searching for the right beginning. Once I’ve found it, the rest of the story often flows easily. The correct beginning makes the rest of the choices seem much more obvious. — *location: 2169* ^ref-30152 --- Every story must have an Elephant. The Elephant is the thing that everyone in the room can see. It is large and obvious. It is a clear statement of the need, the want, the problem, the peril, or the mystery. It signifies where the story is headed, and it makes it clear to your audience that this is in fact a story and not a simple musing on a subject. — *location: 2469* ^ref-11366 --- This is an excellent storytelling strategy: make your audience think they are on one path, and then when they least expect it, show them that they have been on a different path all along. — *location: 2517* ^ref-38470 --- Elephants can also change color. That is, the need, want, problem, peril, or mystery stated in the beginning of the story can change along the way. You may be offered one expectation only to have it pulled away in favor of another. — *location: 2506* ^ref-12631 --- A Backpack is a strategy that increases the stakes of the story by increasing the audience’s anticipation about a coming event. It’s when a storyteller loads up the audience with all the storyteller’s hopes and fears in that moment before moving the story forward. It’s an attempt to do two things: 1.​Make the audience wonder what will happen next. 2.​Make your audience experience the same emotion, or something like the same emotion, that the storyteller experienced in the moment about to be described. — *location: 2570* ^ref-45839 --- Storytellers use Breadcrumbs when we hint at a future event but only reveal enough to keep the audience guessing. — *location: 2609* ^ref-60765 --- There comes a time in many stories when you reached a moment (or the moment) that the audience has been waiting for. Perhaps you have paved the way to the moment with Breadcrumbs and Backpacks, or maybe you’ve used none of these strategies because you’ve got yourself a stake-laden story, and now you’re approaching the payoff. The sentence you’ve been waiting to say. The sentence your audience has been waiting to hear. This is the moment to use an Hourglass. It’s time to slow things down. Grind them to a halt when possible. When you know the audience is hanging on your every word, let them hang. Drag out the wait as long as possible. — *location: 2629* ^ref-14129 --- The Crystal Ball is the easiest of the strategies to deploy, because you already use Crystal Balls in everyday life. A Crystal Ball is a false prediction made by a storyteller to cause the audience to wonder if the prediction will prove to be true. — *location: 2681* ^ref-38375 --- In storytelling, deploy Crystal Balls strategically: Only when your prediction seems possible. Only when your guess is reasonable. And only when your prediction presents an intriguing or exciting possibility. — *location: 2700* ^ref-41296 --- Remember, the best way to ensure that your story has stakes is to choose a story that has stakes. Elephants, Backpacks, Breadcrumbs, Hourglasses, and Crystal Balls will only get you so far. If your story is boring, it will always be boring. But if your story has some potentially boring parts — sections that need to be told but simply aren’t compelling — these strategies will help a lot. — *location: 2703* ^ref-57214 --- A great storyteller creates a movie in the mind of the audience. Listeners should be able to see the story in their mind’s eye at all times. At no point should the story become visually obscured or impossible to see. — *location: 3108* ^ref-18868 --- In order to achieve this lofty goal, storytellers must do one thing, and happily for you, it’s exceedingly simple: Always provide a physical location for every moment of your story. — *location: 3111* ^ref-20212 >I dont agree. A great storyteller but his intros always start with "I'm …" and i find it jarring. I do agree with providing mental imagery rooted in place for much of the story. --- Parker and Stone explained that as they storyboard each scene in their show, they have found that they must be able to connect the scenes (they refer to them as beats) with a but or a therefore for the next scene to work. If the words and then can be placed between any two scenes, Parker says, “You’re fucked.” Matt Stone says it’s this “causation between each scene that makes a story.” This happens, therefore that happens, but then this happens, therefore that happens. — *location: 3376* ^ref-29877 --- For you as a storyteller, this means that you need to build surprise into your stories. There must be moments of unexpectedness so that your audience can experience an emotional response to your story. — *location: 3760* ^ref-62318 --- Avoid giving away the surprise in your story by hiding important information that will pay off later (planting bombs). This is done by: •​Obscuring them in a list of other details or examples. •​Placing them as far away from the surprise as possible. •​When possible, building a laugh around them to further camouflage their importance. — *location: 3910* ^ref-55198 --- If you want your story to linger with your audience (and that should be your goal), you should end in a place that is moving, vulnerable, or revealing, or establishes connection with the audience. Save your laughs for the middle, when you want to keep your audience engaged. Allow them to carry your audience to the end. But end your story with something bigger than a laugh. — *location: 4051* ^ref-40110 --- Instead of memorizing your story word-for-word, memorize three parts to a story: 1.​The first few sentences. Always start strong. 2.​The last few sentences. Always end strong. 3.​The scenes of your story. — *location: 4996* ^ref-33906 --- As the moment of heightened emotion approaches in a story, I press the B button. I shift my perspective from seeing my story through my eyes to seeing my story from above. — *location: 5042* ^ref-12532 --- The world is filled with uninteresting people. I meet them every day. I suspect that in most cases, there is an interesting person lurking beneath their unfortunately uninteresting veneer. These are people who answer, “How was your day?” with an itinerary of the day instead of sharing a meaningful moment. They are folks who tell us about their vacations by offering an adjective-laden time line of the week. They are the people who make meetings feel endless, dinners feel monotonous, and conferences feel disappointing. These are the people who are afraid to talk about embarrassing moments or epic failures. They lack authenticity. Listen poorly. Fear vulnerability. Lack the skills and strategy to craft and tell a good story. They are not the superheroes of our world. Storytellers have a superpower. They can make people feel good and whole and right. They can inspire and inform. They can make people see the world in a new way. They can make people feel better about themselves. — *location: 5189* ^ref-59992 ---