How do you tell stories? How do you become a good storyteller?
When you hear someone tell you about their vacation, you try to be interested. All that exotic food, that astounding accommodation—it's all boring.
Yet there's a reason why their story is boring.
We aren't really hearing stories, but instead, we're just getting a sequence of events. The magic to making your story not boring is when you hear the sound of Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump. Yes, like falling downstairs. That's what storytelling is all about.
Storytelling needs the Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump.
Let's find out how to create non boring stories.
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Rerelease: Storytelling: Why Storytelling Needs The Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump
Original: Storytelling: Why Storytelling Needs The Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump
Note: (This is an unedited transcript)
Last Thursday, I went through what I thought would be a mundane exercise.
I have about one terabyte of photos, that's about 20,000 photos, and it's all in the cloud. And while I have multiple backups offline, the offline photos are unedited, and the ones that are edited, tidied up, they're all in the cloud.
As I said, it was a simple exercise of going from one terabyte to two terabytes. Except, at this point, I was given some advice. I was told to go from a business account to an individual account.
Seemed pretty straightforward, nothing too dramatic there as well. But in order to open the personal account, they had to close the business account. And when they closed the business account, they also locked the photos.
All of those 20,000 photos, I could not see them in the personal account.
And that started a drama of gigantic proportions. I'd get on chat and tell them, hey, my photos are missing, I can't see them. And they'd say, no problem, we're here to help you. And they'd be very courteous about it.
But then they'd ask me for the email address. And because you're on the phone, you have to spell out Sean at psychotactics.com. And that's S for Singapore, E for England, A for, and you know what, it goes on and on and on.
And once they access the other account, they go, there's nothing there. You go, yeah, that's exactly what I told you. There is nothing there. And they say, no problem, we'll sort it out. Can you give me control of your computer? And of course, they're a legitimate company, so I say, yes, we'll give you control of my computer.
We log in to all the accounts, they see nothing's there. Obviously, there's nothing there, they've just closed the account. There's nothing to be seen. But in the back end, there is all the data. So the company can see my data at the back end, but none of us, not the help desk nor me, can do anything about it. And so they do what they would do in a comic book, I guess.
“They transfer you to another department. When the person comes on the line, they ask you the same questions. Hi, how can I help you? You tell them the problem. They look through it, they take control of your computer, they can't see it. Oh, it's not our problem, they say.
You have to go to this other department.
The first day took me four hours. The second day, I was up from 3.30 morning to 9 o'clock. I had to get on phone support, I had to get on chat support, and I spoke to dozens of people, all who wanted to do exactly the same thing.
And once they found out that they could see the data, couldn't do a thing. So I was dealing with FUCH soldiers, and I kind of needed a major general. And you'd think, OK, so they deactivated the original account.
Why don't they just reactivate that account and then transfer all the information, and then we're back to normal? And I brought that up, and they go, no, no, no. When we reactivate that account, and this is their version, when we reactivate that account, everything will be wiped out from there.
It will be like a new account, because the old one is gone. Okay, I say to them, how about transferring that one terabyte that you can see from your end? How about putting it into this account?
And they go, yes. We're gonna do that. But for that, we have to escalate the problem. And Thursday turns to Friday, and Friday turns to Saturday, and the weekend passes, and then it's Monday, and then it's Tuesday. And they say, you have to be patient. You have to wait for 24 to 48 hours.
On Tuesday, I'm still desperate.
There's nothing happening. And if you're listening closely, then you're quite desperate to know what happens next as well. And the reason why you're so interested is because I'm using a technique of storytelling. And for want of a better word, I just call it Staircase Storytelling. In today's episode, we'll look at what is Staircase Storytelling.
We'll look at some really good examples. And then we'll finally see what you and I seem to think are stories, but they're not stories at all. They're just sequences.
But let's start with the first one, which is what is Staircase Storytelling?
Storytelling is a bit like falling down a staircase. You are at the top, and then you trip a bit, and then you go thumpty-thump down the staircase. You're bouncing down, and then you might just slow down before you start rolling again.
You slow down again, and you roll. You're not breaking your neck at the end of it, but what you've done is this thumpty-thump, stop, thumpty-thump, stop, thumpty-thump, stop. And maybe another thumpty-thump, stop.
When you tell a story, there are certain segments where there are downs and ups. And what we've gone through, all of that thumpty-thump, those are the downs. Those are the points where your heart rate goes up as a person falling down the stairs, but also as a person reading your story, also as a person listening to this episode.
So the moment I start to put in the anticipation lines and I say, this transfer from 1 terabyte to 2 terabytes should have been a very simple exercise, you know something's coming. We haven't tripped yet, but you know something's coming.
And then as I start to fall, I first discover that once the business account has been closed and the personal account is open, but there's no data, that's when we start to fall down the staircase.
And this is how you write stories.
A story is not just one event, where you run into some kind of problem, but it is a succession of events. And the way you look at staircase storytelling, and that's a kind of course that we're doing right now, what we have is one big problem, and then some minor problems.
And that's how things usually unfold. There's a hole in the roof, there's water coming through, and that's the biggest problem, and then there are some minor problems because of that big hole in the roof. But at other times, it can escalate.
What seems to be a pretty small problem, then gets to a bigger state, and bigger, and suddenly we have a massive issue. What you've got to know is that that tumble has to happen. It has to go thumpty-thump, thumpty-thump, thumpty-thump, thumpty-thump, and then we have a story.
If it just goes thumpty-thump and then everything's well, well, that's a good start, but it's not a story. Because if you go back, way back in time, and you listen to Cinderella, for instance, then she is being mistreated, and you know, that's just the setup.
But then the prince decides to hold a ball, and her stepsisters go to the ball, and Cinderella is left behind. Still not the story. But then the fairy godmother shows up. And here there's no thumpty-thump happening at all. This is all good stuff.
She turns whatever, the mouse into a coachman, and the pumpkins into a carriage, and Cinderella gets this great dress. But then she gets this warning at 12 o'clock. When the clock strikes 12, you have to leave. And it does. It goes bong, bong, bong, bong 12 times. And she's running.
And that's when she starts to fall down the staircase.
Those fancy coachmen turn back to mice. The coach, he becomes a pumpkin once again. And in the process, she leaves one slipper behind. She's just wowed the prince. She's taken all of the attention, and sucked up all the oxygen in the room.
But now it's all gone. And it's one, two, three, usually four things that happen. And if you're writing a story, then you have to think of it like a staircase, where you're going to have one, two, three, and four.
And you will know this to be true, because you've read The Brain Audit, and in The Brain Audit, there is a story of the seven red bags. You know the story of the seven red bags, don't you? Someone, that's you, put the seven red bags on the flight, and then you get off at the other end, and then you're waiting for the red bags.
And the first red bag comes in, and you take it off the conveyor belt, and then the second one, and you do that. And then there's a purple bag, and a green bag, and a polka dot bag, and then after that, you get the third bag and the fourth bag. And then you have other bags, and you wonder, why do so many people have purple bags?
You bought a purple bag because you wanted to be different. Now they all have purple bags. But then you get the fifth and sixth bag, and the seventh bag doesn't show up.
What we have here is a version of Thumpty-Thump. If all of those bags seem out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, well, we don't have a story. We just have this sequence of things coming out, one, two, three, four, five.
Everything is fine. There is nothing wrong with the world. There is no story. And this is the difference between a sequence and a story. And I'll talk to you a little bit more about the sequence at the end. But this is the difference, the Thumpty-Thump down the staircase.
And that is what staircase storytelling is. Well, that's a starting point for staircase storytelling. There's more to a story than that. But, knowing that the Thumpty-Thump is where you've got to go, that gives you a framework for how to tell your stories. Which takes us to the second part, where we'll start to look at some examples.
In this part, comedian Tom Greeson talks about Frank Sinatra and how at the end of Frank's career, it seemed like he was going to stop at any point. But let Tom Greeson continue the story. It's quarter to three. The first time I heard that voice, I was eight years old. I was shining shoes in a bar on the south side of Chicago. In the end, I was a pallbearer at his funeral.
He was like a father to me. At age 78, we were all wondering when is he going to lay it down, when is he going to quit? He would have hit and miss nights, but crowds loved him. They couldn't get enough of him.
And they came, they were really coming to say goodbye to him. In every city we went to, they were coming to say goodbye. And one night in the Mark Auditorium, there's like 20,000 people in the arena.
And I did my show and there was a good audience and everything. He went out, he did three songs, he was rolling. He got to the fourth song and he totally blanked on the lyrics.
And the orchestra was down in the pit and they kept playing, not knowing that he was lost. And he started whispering into the microphone, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Now when I saw that happening, I went, oh, this is it.
We were always wondering when he's going to lay it down, but this is the night. He's whispering to the orchestra, started to realize that he wasn't with them and they started to wind their instruments down one at a time to an eerie silence in this huge arena. And now he's whispering, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry.
By that time, I was stage left, and I thought, OK, this is it. He's going to come off stage, and I'm going to say, let's go home, Mr. S. It's been a great career, but it's time to go home. And he turned around, and it was dead silence, and he had tears in his eyes.
And he looked like he was going to come and lay the microphone down. And the guy way up in top of the audience stood up by himself, and he hollered out, That's all right, Frank!
It's all right! We love you, Frank! It's all right, because we love you! And he started to applaud. And the guy next to him started to applaud, and the couple of them pretty soon… I'm getting chills. I'm getting chills. Keep going. Hundreds of people started to applaud, then thousands, and pretty soon the whole arena was cheering, cheering and cheering.
He got to the edge of the stage, and I thought he was going to go home.
And he turned around, and he went back to center stage, and they wouldn't stop cheering. And finally, they calmed down, and he went into the next number, which was Mack the Knife, and he absolutely drilled that song. He hit every nuance and every lyric. He was like he was 19 years old again. Now, when he finished that song, the people wouldn't stop cheering.
And he was ready to go into the next number, when he quieted him down, and he started to sing, and he stopped, and he pointed up to the guy, and he said, I love you too, pal. And he sang for two years after that. Two years. That guy doesn't know that fan brought him from the ashes that night.
I know it's very hard to listen to a story and think of the Thumpty-Thums, because you're so engaged with the story that you don't recognize it.
I mean, you know it's happening, but you can't seem to counter that point in time, because you're listening to the story for the first time, which is probably why it's a good idea to go back and listen to this entire episode for the second, and probably the third time, and then you realize, Frank starts to forget the lyrics, and then he goes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry.
And then we have the situation where the orchestra, they don't realize that he stopped singing, and so they start to wind down bit by bit, and bit by bit, and it's excruciating.
What we have here is the Thumpty-Thump down the stairs.
And it's the reason why you're listening to the story, it's the reason why you like the story, and it's the reason why you can tell that story in the future, because at all of those Thumpty-Thumps, your brain had a little spike. It went all the way up, and then came back, and it says, how does this reconcile itself?
Well, that was one story. Here's a second one. And this one is by the BBC.
And admittedly, it's visual, you have to see it, and it's heart-stopping. I show this at events when I speak, and I'm talking about storytelling, and everybody just freezes in the room. You can see it on YouTube.
And right at the start, you'll hear this music. And what's happening is that a gosling, a baby goose is just ready to jump off a cliff. A very, very high cliff.
And all of that poof, poof sound that you hear, that's the gosling hitting the side of the cliff. That's where the thumpty-thump happens. So let's hear the story from David Attenborough.
And it's unusual because this is visual, and you're listening to it, but you'll have more time to listen for those sounds, because the music changes accordingly, and you know, some things are foot. A perfect launch. And a controlled drop. This is as good a descent as it's possible to make.
It's parents are there to meet it. A little dazed, perhaps, but all in one piece. One gossling, at least, hasn't made it. And this chick appears to be in a bad way. At last, it responds to its mother's calls. The resilience of a barnacle goose chick is extraordinary. But there are still chicks unaccounted for, somewhere amongst the rubble.
The parents can't risk searching because they need to lead their two survivors away quickly before predators arrive. The third one has made it. But it needs to catch up. They re-united. Three out of five chicks have made it. Without such a dramatic start in life, it's unlikely any of them would have even got this far.
So there we have it, we have two different stories, one of Frank Sinatra and the other of Arthur Gosling. And essentially, what's happening is Thumpty-Thump. One, two, three, four. Thumpty-Thumps. That's what's making your heart go Thumpty-Thump as well. Which brings us to the end of the second part.
In the first part, we looked at what was staircase storytelling, and we learned about Thumpty-Thump, and then we went through a couple of examples. But the third part is the opposite of what we've been doing so far, which is a sequence.
Let's take a sequence.
Let's say you go to the airport, you check in, then you go through customs, you go through immigration, you get to the beer bar, you have a couple of drinks, you get on the flight, you find your seat, and you see what's happening here. This is boring.
This is the same thing that happens at every party, by the way. People are telling you, oh, I went to Italy, and then we had this wonderful room and such a great view of the canal, and the food was absolutely astounding and exotic. And wait a second, you're not telling me a story.
You're just talking and talking and talking. And this is why we find it so boring, because they're not telling you a story, because there's no thumpty-thump. They're not missing any trains.
There's no roof falling on the head. They didn't fall into the canal. That's why it's not a story. And you think, wait, do all stories have to be that way? No, they don't. I can tell you a story of when we got to New Zealand. Well, I got to New Zealand because Renuka was still back in India for at least a month. And my friend Wayne, I didn't know him. I had never met him before.
In fact, I didn't know anybody from New Zealand. But anyway, he was the friend I had through the internet. We were on a cartoonist forum. And he comes and picks me up from the airport. And then he drives me home and I can stay at his house for a week. He's gotten me a mobile phone with my number so I could print my business cards while I was still back in India.
He also has got a rental for me. And the landlord, Barry, is such a cool guy because he comes to the house and he says, do you need anything? And I go, well, I pretty much need everything. And he says, come over, pop over to my place and take whatever you want. And I just decide to go for a walk instead. And Barry brings a bucket load of stuff.
I mean, he brings forks and spoons and knives and even an ironing board, and he leaves it outside the door so that when I come back from my walk, I have everything, all the cutlery, everything. Now, this story goes on to other good stuff, but is it a story? Yes, it's a story, and it has only the ups. There is no bumpity-bump, tumpity-thump, nothing's happening.
However, if you really want to hold the attention of your audience, if you want to hold the attention of your reader, you've got to have that tumpity-thump somewhere. And if you pick your copy of The Brain Audit and open up the very first chapter, you'll find the Seven Red Bags story. Then you'll find the Dog Poo story.
You'll find the red and blue flashing lights of the cop car. And on and on it goes. And those are all thumpty-thump moments. That's how you put it in your book. That's how you put it in your article. That's how you have it on a podcast. That's how you have it on a video. The storytellers know this. And the people at your party, they don't know it. They keep talking about boring, sequential stuff.
And that brings us to the end of this article. What did we learn?
Well, there's nothing much to remember here. It's thumpty-thump all the way. And the opposite of it is, well, just boring. I checked in, I went through immigration, I did this, I did that. That's boring. So that's a sequence.
And what's the one thing you can do today? Well, for one, listen to this podcast for a second time. And a few episodes before this, there was already a storytelling episode. Go and listen to that again, because now you're listening for The Thumpty-Thumps. Why?
Because you've already heard that story. You know what the story is about. So you're not going to pay attention to the story, but instead you're going to pay attention to The Thumpty-Thumps. And that's the starting point for you becoming a really good storyteller.
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