How do most of our stories end?
Usually it's a fairy tale ending. Or maybe it ends in chaos, sadness or even disaster. We believe that an ending is crucial for any story. And there is no doubt that endings are needed for stories, but they're almost always irrelevant when you're using a story for an article.
The story is there to make a point, not end with “happily ever after”.
Learn why a fairy tale ending is something you want to avoid almost all the time.
Right click below to save this episode.
Re-release: How To Write The First Line Of An Article (And Instantly Get The Reader's Attention With A Story)
Original: How To Write The First Line Of An Article
Note: (This is an unedited transcript)
Remember the story of Cinderella.
She has to go to this ball with her sisters, but they leave her behind. A fairy godmother comes along. The fairy godmother transforms her into a little princess with a beautiful gown and a coach and coachman and then she goes to the ball, the clock strikes twelve and she runs away and you know the whole story more or less even if you had it a long time ago.
What we tend to do when we are writing stories is we follow this pattern.
We go this happened then that happened then the other thing happened and we end up with happily ever after. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with happily ever after if you're on a dead stage or you're at a wedding and you raising the toast or you just have a dinner and you're telling your story.
That's when happily ever after really matters because people want to know how the story ends, not so without a girl writing. What we tend to think is every story has to end with happily ever after and no, it doesn't. In fact, most of the stories kind of jump off just at the point when you're getting interested.
And in today's episode, we're going to look at why happily ever after is not entirely necessary.
And why you need it to reconnect to the article. If you're telling a story at some event, it's fine. But when you're writing for an article, you have like a thousand words, and you can't have the whole story of a thousand words.
You have to somehow get that story down to 200 words and then jump off. And that's how you jump off. You don't in the story. In fact, let's start out with the story itself, a story from the Mott stage. And this is Boris Timonowski talking about his pen pal.
I was overseas not that long ago on a business trip.
And my last evening there, we all went out and by then everyone was sick and tired of talking about work. So we drank and we talked about other things like kids and families. And this guy of lad says that his nine year old daughter Julie has an assignment in her English class to find a pen pal.
And he asked if my son Joseph would be willing to correspond with her. I said sure, because of course he would. Then I fly back home to New York and I tell Joseph. And Joseph says no. And he wouldn't say why, but I figured it must be because Julie is a girl.
Joseph is 11 and the way they teach him in school is romantic love is not a part of the curriculum yet. But on the other hand, they're already taught about abstinence and how sex leads to pregnancy and pregnancy lead to additional responsibilities.
So if Joseph came to associate girls with additional responsibilities and would last play time as a consequence, like last time for his play station, I can't blame him for that. But what am I going to do. I don't want to break the promise that I don't ready me to have a bad. No, we can't cut off at that point.
Yes, the story can't go on forever, but we're just setting it up.
We have Boris who's just got into the whole thick of things and he's writing to the Spentpal and we can't cut off because even though that seems like a decent enough time to jump out, this is too early. So let's continue the story and then let's find out where we're going to jump.
But what am I going to do. I don't want to break the promise that I don't ready me to Vlad. So I thought, how hard can it be. I'll do it. And I went to Yahoo, and I opened another email account there, and I forwarded it to Vlad. And I wrote to him that, yes, Joseph would be happy to be Julie pen pal.
And I checked with mailbox a few times in the week that followed. And it was empty. And I thought, maybe I was off the hook. And then one night I came home late and I lived by myself. So I checked my magic.com messages first.
And then I went to this email account. And there was an email there from Julie. And I read it. And I thought, yeah, I can do this. Because she wasn't asking me any difficult questions. She wasn't asking what I learned from the past relationships. She wasn't asking what my true intentions are.
She wasn't asking if I'm really divorced or just separate.
“Oh, she wanted to know, was, do I have a pad. What my favorite color is? And who I want to be when I grow up.” But an hour later, I still didn't have an answer 'cause what was it gonna say.
That it would be nice to make senior vice president by the time I'm 40. That the reason I don't have a pad is because I dread the thought of coming home one night and finding it on the floor, that I've just gone over every color of the rainbow only to conclude that each color has some sort of unpleasant memory.
And it was hard to concentrate. It was late. I wasn't fully sober. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my match. That comes screen kept blinking 'cause somebody without a photo wanted to chat. But I, I tried to remember. I tried to remember how would have answered questions years ago.
So I ended up writing to her that my favorite color is blue because it's the color of the ocean and I have a parrot and when I do my homework, my parrot is sitting on my shoulder and when I grow up I want to be a sea captain and my parrot and I will sail around the world.
And when I woke up the next morning I turned on my computer and this is usually when I check my match that come messages again. But this time I was more interested in what Julie had to say about that whole seek-aptant thing.
Then in a message that I had waiting for me from my adult female open minded, easy-going, down to earth, out-going, and adventurous, panpels that were written in response to the very adult messages that I sent to them. At this point in the original audio, Boris goes off on a tangent, and he talks about his grandmother and grandfather in a whole bunch of things, and he's really waiting for Julie to write back.
So let's go straight to Julie.
And so I kept waiting for Julie's message, and nothing was coming from her. And about a week later, Vlad Cole would some more questions, and then he said that he was really, really sorry. But Julie didn't want to be Joseph penpal anymore.
And I said, “Why.” And he said, “He didn't know why.” And I thought, “Maybe it's because he didn't ask her any questions.” And, and Vlad asked me if I read Joseph's mail. And I said, “No.” So he read it to me over the phone.
And then he said that Joseph would probably very upset if he didn't hear from Julie again. And I don't know what made me said that, say that, “Yes, he probably would be.” And Vlad said that if Julia wasn't going to write the Joseph, then he wouldn't.
And I know you're going to hear the end of the story, but that's not good enough for articulating. That's good for the dead stage. That's good when Boris talks about it on the Mount stage, but no.
If you're writing an article, this is the point.
This is the point where everyone knows that there is intense drama in your story, and this is the point where you're going to jump off. Now, if you're in a podcast, you might choose to reveal it later in the podcast itself. You're writing a book, maybe later on, it comes back.
But no, you have created the drama, you have created the point where everyone realizes, “Oh, this is so juicy, what happens next.” And if they were asking what happens next, that's the stuck moment. But it's also the point where you can make a jump.
So let's do a little recap of the story.
Boris Timmonowski goes off on a business trip, they get sick of talking about business. They start talking about their kids. The kids are Joseph and Julie and they're supposed to be pen pals, but none of them will write to each other. And so in a complete comedy of errors, we have the two fathers lining up becoming pen pals.
And it's at this point that we have to leap into the article. We can't tell the whole story it's too long and you've lost the drama anyway when you end up at happily ever after. And it's at this point that you have to connect to your article.
Maybe it's an article about headlines, maybe it's an article about gardening, maybe it's about sound control. It doesn't matter what the article is, you have to connect. And the point is how do you end. The word that you use right at the end, like maybe use the word stuck. Well, that becomes the jumping point. That becomes your springboard into the article.
So let's say we have the story.
And you know, this is the natural stock story. And the name of the last podcast was about storytelling and how to detect the stuck moment. So what we're going to do is we're going to tell that story and then we're going to go at this point both of the fathers were stuck.
And this is how we tend to be when we're writing stories, when we're writing articles, we get stuck. And so what we've got here is this transition between a story about pen pals that has no relevance to article writing or storytelling or anything to do with anything and we've connected.
We've ended with the thought that we wanted which is stuck and then we've moved to the rest of the article with the stock moment. And you think, oh, that was easy. It was already an article about getting stuck. But what if it were another article. What if it wasn't about stuck. What will we do then. Let's find out.
And let's take the articles that have come in sequence like the article before this and the one before that.
So they're not cheating in any way. What's the article right before this. What's the podcast right before this. It was about storytelling and how to create the Thumpti Thump. That podcast was about how you need to write a story which is about falling down the stage.
You fall down the stairs a bit and then you recover and then you fall down the stairs again and then you recover. So what we have are ups and downs in. So we go back to Barstema and Ofsky's story and in that the ending can't be stuck in aids to be ups and downs and so that's what we do.
So suddenly these two fathers that meant really well for their kids are facing an unsetting number of ups and downs in their communication. And that's what happens with stories telling as well. We don't realize it, but we need to have ups and downs.
We need to have ups and downs in that communication, so that's interesting for the reader. Still easy, it still ups and downs, it still stuck, let's try another article. This article was how to write a sales pitch in two minutes and to get your customers involved.
We go back to a barrage-stimmonovsky story. These two parents or two fathers and they have these kids and now they end up being pen pals and if I end with the term pen pals then I've taken you as a listener or as a reader in a completely different direction because you're not going to be able to link to involved and that's a whole point. I have to finish with involved.
I have to finish with that thought that meaning and so I have to go okay there are these two parents these two fathers that kids Julian Joseph, I suppose, are right to each other, but in this classic problem, it's the parents, the fathers that get involved.
And when you write a sales page, this is the kind of involvement that you want, this intense involvement from your customers, but you don't know how to get it. So how do we get this point where both people are communicating with each other.
There's no comedy, there's no confusion, but they want to know more from you. They want to get your message in their inbox. And so what we've done so far is we've heard a story, we've heard how to end the story and we've realized that there is some magic going on here and you're not quite sure what is happening and let me just go over to the second part because that's what we're going to find out. We're going to find out what exactly is happening.
Why is the ending so important and how does it help us reconnect.
If you pick up a copy of the brain audit, the first story there and that's the signature story is where someone puts seven red bags on the flight and then they get off at their destination and they take off the first red bag from the conveyor belt and the second one and the third one Then you get an orange bag and a green bag and a purple bag.
Then you get the fourth bag, the fourth red bag, the fifth red bag, and maybe some other black bags. But eventually you get the sixth red bag. So you put on seven red bags in the flight, you get six of them. The question is, when do you leave the airport. Now notice there is no happily ever after.
We are at this point of extreme confusion, extreme chaos, and we have jumped. But that's how we've picked the story. Then we have to end the story. It is when you leave the airport. It is not a question that needs to be answered.
We don't leave the airport until we get all our similar red bags. And that is precisely what happens in the brain of the customer when you're selling them something. You might make those six points and then you leave out the seven point and then they have to think about it.
So what we have here in this story, in this seven-red bag story is precisely that. We have the story rolling. We have a point where there is this extreme chaos, confusion, frustration, whatever it is, but it's at a height, it's at an intense moment.
And then we're ending with something which then we reconnect.
So what do you've got to understand is you have to work backwards to this. You can take any story. The story doesn't matter. What matters is what are you truly trying to say in your article.
And in the brain audit story, what are you trying to say is something is missing. And when you work backwards, you go something is missing. That's what your article is about. The ending has to be missing and then any story fits.
How do we know?
Because we can go to a barris timinovsky story and we can do backwards. So we go, okay, the article is about missing and then the last word needs to be or the last idea needs to be missing and then the story is about two fathers.
They want the best for their kids, Julie and Joseph but the kids won't communicate with each other. And now what happens is that the fathers have to step in, but it's not the same thing as two kids.
Something is missing. And that's precisely what happens with your customers as well. You're trying to communicate with them, but there are all of these comedy-of-airers, something else steps in, and you might as well sit and hit them out and something is missing.
And if you've been wondering how we are writing stories and creating articles and connecting crazy stuff to crazy stuff that's really not connected, this is what's really happening. Storytelling is a whole bunch of events.
First we have to go, okay, This can be just the sequence, it has to be a company dump. You have to fall down the stairs, recover, fall down the stairs. So there's this ups and downs. You have to have that. Then you have to have this whole point where there is some sort of ending.
But to find out the ending, we have to go to the next section. We have to go, what is this article about. Is it about something missing. Is it about contradiction. Is it about stuck. Is it about practice. Because when you know what the next part is all about, that's when you can backtrack to the ending and that's when you can fit almost any story to it.
You can't fit every story, but you can fit probably eight or nine out of ten stories.
These are not just personal stories, these are analogies, these are stories of, I don't know, Alexander the Great about the discovery of Pennesle and you can go and you can find the story, drop it down because you can't tell the whole story and then at that intense point you jump over and you start backwards.
And I know this is confusing. Storytelling isn't easy, but if you go back and listen to several of the episodes, you'll find that, oh wait, that's precisely what's happening. If you read more of the articles on the psychotactic site, you'll realize, oh this is what's happening.
So let me just summarize what's really happening on this podcast.
We started out this podcast with happily ever after and that most stories end up with happily ever after. And if you want to connect your article, then you can't go to happily ever after. You have to go at the point of intensity and then chop it off, not too early.
But once the story has been established, you chop it off. So that's part one. You've got an interesting story. You've chopped it off at the point of intensity. Now you have to go to your article. What is your article about.
It could be about anything, but you're going to pick a word. And if the word is intensity, then we go back to the ending and it has to end with intensity. So we have the story now about these two fathers and they are about to communicate and the whole communication is extremely intense.
And you see just like that, when we go story, what is the article, what is the ending. We can put these three seemingly weird things together and we can get a connection. And that's kind of what you need to do when you're listening to all of these podcasts.
Just go back and listen to a few and see how they got reconnected. Go to the psychotactic site and read some of that stuff and see how it got reconnected. But open a copy of the brain audit if you have one, which you should.
And then look at how it's reconnected. And this is how storytelling gets drama. I mean, there are thousands and millions of podcasts and articles on the internet, they just do these steps one two three four five six.
They're boring because they don't have this story element. There is no drama. They don't know how to put this drama and now you know how to put that drama. So that brings us to the end of this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this storytelling series.
Leave a Reply