[Read of Interest] Why Storytelling Matters

Here is an article I came across a few months back, stored it within my notes ever since then, and just recently did I compile a few spare hours to paring down what info was given, to make this resemble a discussion starter.
Ideally, I'm going for a general and open commons for our story-telling ideas, critiques, insights, experiences, and ultimately, our spoken (transcripted) stories of what happened, what we felt, & how it resolved, there, in that frozen reconstituted moment of a remarkable event in one's life.

Here is the primer to the thread, the actual article; feel free to peruse it, glean what tips the author offers, and whether you feel she is onto something (or selling us a broken rope). I'll follow it with a story of my own to provide an exemplary; then, if necessary, and with enough community participation, I'll offer queried guidelines or topics toward memories that can elicit more stories from within our members' shared experiences and knowledge of trials, tribulations & triumphs.
Let's begin:

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"The Read"

Storytelling cheat sheet:

1. Identify your founder story.
The FIRST thing every founder should do is make sure they know their OWN story. This is the “why did you start X” story. It’s critical to define as it will serve as a template for your product, team, design and marketing. All other stories relating to your company will map back to this story. These stories become like allegories to explain the purpose and meaning behind your product.

2. Define the problem in terms of “Jack and Jill.”
It’s easy to talk about the problem you’re solving in the abstract, but it’s really hard to persuade people to believe it that way. The best tool to communicate the problem your product is trying to solve is to tell it in the form of a story, like “Jack and Jill.” People relate to people more than they do to abstractions, statistics and vague ideas.

3. Show don’t tell
Don’t talk about how great your product is, highlight the people whose lives it has changed and tell their stories. At Vayable, we don’t talk about how we’re helping rebuild community, we tell the story of Milton, the homeless man who is offering his services as a tour guide.

4. Don’t bury the lede
Who are your most compelling users? What are your greatest victories? What are you doing that’s never been done before? Surface THESE stories to the top in your design, messaging and product development. Focus in on your “lede” and let the rest go.

5. Keep it simple
This is the most important one. Be as concise as possible and make sure that every word, character and idea you introduce feeds the story you’re telling. This is a tough, but worthwhile skill to master. As Mark Twain once said, “Forgive me, this is a long letter. I would have written you a short letter, but I didn’t have the time.”

Follow these five steps and you’ll see notable improvements to your product and company.

-- Jaime Wong (Co-Founder and CEO of Vayable.com and Skillshare Teacher) teaches Storytelling in the Peer-to-Peer Space: A Workshop

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Relation and re-telling:

Alright. What is to follow was an experiment just for myself to get into the habit of thinking regularly again, through the exercise of memory recollection and a beginning query. I originally posted this in my blog, but I may now seek to revise my story with more detail, less asides, and much more dramatic effect and flow, as if I were going to perform this particular story in front of a live audience (which I believe is a good tip for any asipiring writer/tale-weaver).


Titling: Thoughts from the back of the bus

There was a time that I was once traveling on the local county bus on some obscure random sunny day, going somewhere outside the city limits for I forget the specific reason at the time, but anyway, there I was. A youth on the bus. As I neared my approaching destination, getting ready to stand, in walks this absolutely gorgeous, vision of brunette perfection, not movie starlet-striking, but so altogether comely, girl-next-door-looking; a very cute student, by the looks of it (university age). Instantly floors me to bend back down to my seat.​

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I was so starstruck by her hidden beauty, it seemed nobody else noticed her but me; or maybe, I just came to key in on her intently that anyone else who happened to be onboard simply just vanished from my peripherary. I missed my stop. I knew this. Realized it a few seconds later, and thought to myself, "If I'm already going to be walking back, what's a few extra miles?" So, I stayed on until the end of the line, where she got off, and I didn't know quite how to proceed in introducing myself, if at all.​

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She promptly exited, exchanged a few words with the driver, assumingly thanking him, but it was in a foreign Eastern European dialect that might have been Greek, Belarusian or something I had no idea of what it was in actuality, and my heart just sank. How could I convey my instant-smittenness to a woman if she is not able to grasp my meaning's intent past the remarking 'Hello'?​

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So, in the end of this tale, I just stood there while she walked off into the distance carrying her books, meanwhile I was still nervously contemplating whether to run after her or not. It was agonizing to admit defeat to yourself, just because you think you know you can't get through to the person on the other side. I've since learned, and hold to this day, you always gotta try, man; by God and by mind, if you have your heart set on something, you have get to reach out and go get it.​

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Resolution:

Stories to live by - those that grab ahold of you and will not let go - those that can rock a house and plant those seats - do you have one? care to share?
If you don't, please try (or not) to incorporate what you know about storytelling, the art of keeping your audience both captivated and involved through your imagined words and spoken senses, and step up to the post (a pun!). I would like your great stories of romance, tragedy, & inadvertent success submitted here, and have them stop people from typing their pointless announcements for a good few minutes to enjoy the effect of hearing another fellow's life's experiences as if they, too, were there with you, in the moment.

 

“The interesting questions about stories, which have, as they say, excited the interests of readers for millennia, are not about what makes a taste for them universal, but what makes the good ones so different from the dull ones, and whether the good ones really make us better people, or just make us people who happen to have heard a good story.”

—On The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik critiques The Storytelling Animal.​

+ bonus


[exp.lore.]
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Thank you for your thoughts and recommendations, rogue49.

I don't mainly advocate just using words to illustrate a re-telling of an experience; (or an imagining of an original fiction) though, I do believe it is an invaluable asset for one to possess a way with words that can captivate an audience at any instant in, and more importantly throughout, time. To be able to effectively convey a story or a stance, whether it be through three short sentences, or expanding it into an entire night's scope of an epic ordeal, it can shape the way you recall your memories, and how others gain confidence in you, from the words and sentiments you care enough to include.

I'm sure it takes mountains of work to make it even worth a damn, but it can meld and move into any aspect of one's life, whether it be through business, relationships, or meetings & greetings of a kind stranger. I don't have any set guideline in my mental arsenal, (yet) but I do identify with what you were so gracious to provide to the discussion:

I'll re-visit this topic and try to touch on the style element you brought into play: what sorts of style are identifiable, how to develop your own style (your "voice") through trial, error & repetition, and what kind of venues one can seek out to perform their craft in spinning yarns.

 

— The New York Times’ Ben Yagoda, on mastering the art of the comma.​

 

The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again…
You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that
although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t.

— Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things​

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Request for sharing: Does any one have a story accredited to themselves, and heard / spoken through their (yours, respectively) social circles, which is actually requested to be re-told on varying occasions, because of how well received the actual story is conveyed? (even if you are a terrible weaver, the unbelievable-yet-factual recounting of a good story can just as well be received.)

 

“The first problem of style is how to make dead things come alive. By dead things, I mean words,
which neither move, nor breathe, nor weep, nor lust, nor love. Writing well means raising the dead.”

—Douglas Glover, “The Drama of Grammar”​

 

Any stories whatsoever?
(I'm working my eaten-away memory to the maximum trying to relate my own stories, but none come to mind - help me, help you,by sharing)

Alright. Filler and exempli gratia to follow:

Dear HONY,

My name is Riley and I’m from Honolulu. Me and my girlfriend went to the same high school, but I go to school in Chicago and she goes to school in New York. We’ve been together 5 months total, but we’ve only spent 2 weeks together in person. It sucks horribly.

As if this wasn’t difficult enough, she’s interning in NYC. I’m spending most of my money to come up to NYC to visit her for a few days, it’s going to be the only time I get to see her until the winter.

The problem is that she’s staying in an all women’s dorm and I didn’t have enough money to book a hotel for the entire time I’m in New York… So we’re going to try sneak me into her dorm in a suitcase. Nobody believes that I can/will actually do this so I’d love it if you could take a picture of the attempt, at least to prove that it actually happened.

-Riley​