Hey you Greenblasters!!

I’m reading my favourite non-fiction book of the last year (if not of all time, though that might be recency bias).

I keep recommending it so I thought I’d share the love here, plus break down my 3 favourite takeaways from:

A Swim In A Pond In The Rain: In which four Russians give a master class on writing, reading, and life.

… by professor and short-story writer George Saunders.

It’s an absolute BANGER.

Please read it, but if you don’t then at least read this list, and apply the storytelling lessons to your:

• public speaking

• copywriting

• podcast stories

• or even conversational anecdotes!

Let’s do this:

1. Expectation & Response

George Saunders, writer and professor of Russian short stories, says:

“The fundamental unit of storytelling is a two-part move:

First, the writer creates an expectation…

Then, the writer responds to that expectation.”

So, what does that mean?

Every time a writer introduces a detail (a place, a character, an object, a plot point) the audience now expects that information to be used in some way, i.e. have it be important later in the story.

The most famous example of this is Chekhov’s Gun, a storytelling principal which comes from something he wrote:

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

For our storytelling purposes, the lesson here is:

“Only mention things that will later be important in the story.”

Don’t mention things just because they’re interesting (a quirky colleague, a crazy conversation you had, a delicious burrito, etc.) if they’re not relevant to the story. 

Next up:

2. “Causality” makes it a story

In a bad story, Saunders says, things happen, and then other things happen.

In a good story:

Things happen, which then cause other things to happen, and so on.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker - writers of South Park, Book of Mormon etc - have a brilliantly simple explanation of this on YouTube:

The problem I see often, especially with entrepreneurs, coaches, or sales reps telling their Origin Story 

(I.e. the answer to “How did you get into this line of work?”):

"Well, I went to Stanford, and then I got my MBA, and then I worked for Google, and then I left to Apple…”

Pretty impressive resume! But boring as f*ck story.

A better version:

“I went to Stanford because my parents wanted me to. But I wanted to be an executive not an engineer, so I decided to get my MBA, and there I met my first boss at Google. Because of that job, I was able to get a higher position at Apple…”

All of a sudden, we have an interesting story! It has CAUSALITY, and to use one of Saunder’s fave phrases: it “escalates”.

(BTW, the exact words “and therefore” are not necessary in the actual TELLING of the story, just the “writing” of it, if that makes sense.)

And finally:

3. Writing is rewriting

The above quote is usually credited to Hemingway, but Saunders says in this book:

“We can reduce all of writing to this:

We read a line (which we wrote), have a reaction to it, accept (trust) that reaction, and do something in response (i.e. edit, throw away, or leave it)” {My italics}

He also challenges the reader later: “How long are you willing to work on something?”

The lesson here is:

Write your story. Then edit it. (OR: Tell a story to an audience. Then tell it again another time.)

Then do that OVER AND OVER AGAIN, until “every bit of it gets infused with some trace of your radical preference.” (i.e. your “voice” “brand” or “personality”)

Stories I’ve told recently are SO MUCH BETTER than the first time I told them 8 years ago when I started, because they’ve been “re-written” so many times.

So, to recap:

1. An EXPECTATION needs a RESPONSE (don’t include useless details)

2. CAUSALITY is what makes a story interesting (instead of “First A, then B”; make it “First A, and because of that, B”

3. Writing is REWRITING. (Edit, say it again, try it different ways, cut words, add sections, and don’t expect it to be good until you’ve done that many times!)

That’s it for this week!

Please get a copy of “A Swim”, it’s so awesome, but if not I really hope you enjoyed this and it helped you tell better stories.

Until next week, Greenblast… OUT 🚀

P.S. When you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Let me help you get onstage with a Speaking Strategy call

2. Join my community Speaking Heroes to for 2 hrs/week of group coaching to accelerate your speaking career

3. Or book an availability call for me to speak at your company