What can you learn from Norm Macdonald’s Twitter tribute to Robin Williams?

Here’s how to serialize your story, how to get the word out in 144 (or 288) characters or less — and when to stop typing.

What to learn from this serial

Here are six tips to take from Macdonald’s tribute:

1. Tell a story.

Heck, tell two stories. Why not make it three?

Macdonald’s 19 tweets compose three stories: the Jewish tailor story, the Chinese order-taker story and overarching the “Funniest man in the world walks into a dressing room” story. Robin Williams was his own secondary character.

2. Serialize your story.

Newspapers have been publishing serial narratives since a young reporter named Charles Dickens wrote the first one for London’s Morning Chronicle in 1836.

Serializing your story is a great way to make your tweets go further. But do it right:

• Break it up. Macdonald sees his story as a series of scenes. That makes it easy for him to break it up into tweets.
• Keep it together. You can repeat the main headline, add Part I and Part II or use words like “therefore,” “continued” and “update” to signal that these tweets have something in common. Macdonald uses the hashtag #RIPRobinWilliams to organize individual tweets into a complete story.
• Post in reverse order so readers see the “first” tweet first in your stream. Macdonald tweeted in order, which means followers must read this Twitter tale backward.

3. Start strong.

The most compelling stories have one strong summary sentence close to the beginning, Catherine Burns, artistic director of the Moth, a New York City-based organization dedicated to storytelling, tells Real Simple.

“‘I fell into the pool in my wedding dress,’ say, or ‘A violent stomachache ruined our first date.’”

Macdonald’s lead strikes the same chord: “It was my first stand-up appearance on Letterman, and I had to follow the funniest man in the world.”

Notice that Macdonald saves the background section for after he gets your attention: “I was a punk kid from rural Ontario and I was in my dressing room, terrified.”

4. Keep it short.

All three of Macdonald’s stories together weigh in at less than 350 words, give or take a few hashtags.

5. But don’t compress the life out of it.

Notice that Macdonald didn’t lose details when he tightened his tale into tweets. Regardless of how tight the space, Macdonald keeps our attention with concrete details like:

• He was a Jewish tailor, taking my measurements.
• He went down on his knees, asked which way I dressed.
• The place was out of Moo Shoo Pork …
• … he ended with a Windsor knot.
• He spoke mostly Yiddish …

6. Know when to quit.

Endings are as important as openings. Macdonald finished his story, though, a tweet before he stopped typing.

Notice the many ways that the final tweet does not work with the rest of this piece:

It adds emotion to observation. Tell the story you’ve observed, then let readers have the emotional response. This rule is also known as, “Make the reader cry; don’t tell the reader you cried.”

“Have you ever noticed,” asks a character in Richard Yates’ Young Hearts Crying, “how your sympathy for someone’s story — anyone’s story — tends to evaporate when they get to the part about how long and hard they cried?”

That’s what happened to me when I read Macdonald’s last tweet.

• It’s long. Most of the words in Macdonald’s tweets are one — maybe two — syllables long. Other than Ontario, though, “unacceptable” is the only word in this Twitter tale that’s four syllables long.
• It’s abstract. As William Carlos Williams counseled, “Turn ideas into things.” Macdonald’s ending does the reverse: In a series of concrete words, this is the rare abstract one.

The true ending of this story is “Until now.”

When you finish your story, stop typing.

Resources on serializing your story

Here are more examples and techniques for breaking your narrative into successive — and successful — parts.

Roy Peter Clark’s serials

The editorial guru of The Poynter Institute is a serial master. Among his serial narratives

• “Three Little Words” appeared in the St. Petersburg Times for 29 consecutive days in 1996. It told the story of a woman, Jane Morse, whose husband died of AIDS.
• “Sadie’s Ring” was published in five newspapers in 1996 and 1997. This 11-part series tells Clark’s personal story of growing up Catholic with a Protestant father and a Jewish grandmother.
• “Ain’t Done Yet” appeared as a millennium special in 25 newspapers. This newspaper novel ran for 29 consecutive days.
• “Her Picture in My Wallet” is a two-part piece about a World War II veteran reunited with his first love after years of separation and regret. It’s told in the voice of the main character, 77-year-old Tommy Carden.

Creating the Serial Narrative: A Starter Kit

Clark helps the rest of us write successful serials in (I guess it should go without saying) this six-part piece:

• The Power of the Parts: Why serialize stories?
• A 12-Step Program for Writers: Is this the right story for a serial?
• A Story Form with Benefits: What’s the business case for serials?
• How Could You Ask Such a Thing? Readers ask; Roy answers
• Say the Secret Word: A glossary for serials. And for stories.

More serials

• Black Hawk Down: Yup, the movie and best-seller started life as a 29-part serial in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
• The Terrorist Within: A 17-part serial narrative about one man’s holy war against America, published by The Seattle Times.

More serial success secrets

• The Verdict Is in the 112th Paragraph: Tom French goes behind the scenes to explain how — and why — he crafted his serial narrative about the Valessa Robinson case.
• To Be Continued: A Serial Narrative Primer by Chip Scanlan for the Poynter Institute

Soap operas & sagas

• Telenovelas and Soap in Latin America: It’s just one short step from serials to soap operas
• The Holly Wreath Man: A fictional saga, published in The Seattle Times

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Want to write better, easier and faster? Get clicked, read, liked and shared? Otherwise boost your writing skills?

As we plan our upcoming Master Classes, I’ve been creating a lot of new slides. Here’s a sneak peek at some of my favorites.

1. Make messages colorful with concrete details. Fun facts and juicy details might seem like the Cheez Doodles and Cronuts of communication: tempting, for sure, but a little childish and not particularly good for you.

But in fact they boost understanding, increase credibility, help people remember your message and move people to act. Add color to every piece you write with these nutritious elements.

2. Put your effort up top. Most writers spend very little time getting ready to write, more time writing and the most time fixing what they’ve written. But comma-jockeying ain’t writing, and the result is some pretty tepid prose. Write Better, Easier and Faster when you turn the writing process on its head.

3. Stop agonizing over the right length for your blog post. Over-the-counter tools like SEMRush analyze successful posts to let you know what Google will rank for your search term. Get word length, keywords to use, readability levels and more. Plus, find out how many words people really read on social media channels.

4. Lead with the benefits … substantiate with the features. Write about what readers can do with your products, services, programs and ideas — not about the products, services, programs and ideas themselves. The result: You’ll draw readers in and move them to act.

5. Are you addressing your email envelope? Recipients use four elements — the sender, subject line, preheader text and preview pane — to decide whether to open or delete your email or report it as spam. So if you’re just crafting your subject line, you’re ignoring 75% of the elements that readers use to determine whether to open.

To increase open rates, address all four elements of the envelope — not just the subject line.

6. Avoid the worst news release quote clichés. We know your VP is overcome with emotion over your latest Whatzit. But instead of quoting executives about how delighted, pleased, excited and thrilled they are, write how users are benefitting from your product, service, program or idea. The result: sound bites journalists will use and readers will read.

7. Reach readers where they are, not where you wish they were. Most Americans have basic or below-basic reading skills. That means that if you write at the 11th-grade reading level, you’ll miss 97% of Americans. Use readability statistics to make your message easier to read — for all of your audience members.

8. People spend half the time on your webpage when they’re using a smartphone. To get the message across on the small screen, write shorter paragraphs, sentences and words. Are you getting your message across on the mobile web?

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Want to write more readable messages? Increase engagement on your webpages? Otherwise boost your writing skills?

As we plan our upcoming Master Classes, I’ve been creating a lot of new slides. Here’s a sneak peek at some of my favorites.

1. Stop boring them to death. Reach more readers — and sell more products, services, programs and ideas — with storytelling, metaphor and other creative elements. The boss thinks that’s fluff? We’ve got the data to prove it works.

2. Knock out brilliant drafts with less effort. Use a writing process that works with — not against — your brain. Prewrite, write, then rewrite.

3. Engage readers with social posts. “Our readers don’t want to read stories,” writes Brian J. O’Conner, editor of bankrate.com. “What they want is a big button they can push that says, ‘Solve my problem.’ It’s up to us to be that button.”

Write posts that solve their problems. Don’t write about us and our stuff.

4. Use the bait your readers like. That’s my grandfather, George Wylie, serving his famous catfish to Doc Severinsen, the band leader for the “Tonight” show. Grandpa said, “If you want to catch a fish, you need to think like a fish. Then you need to use the bait the fish like, not the bait you like.” So what bait are you using on your readers?

5. Go beyond the subject line. Email recipients consider four elements — aka “the envelope” — when deciding whether to open or delete your message. If you’re not writing them, MailChimp is, and not too well. Increase open rates by addressing all four elements of the envelope.

6. Journalists rank PR quotes as the least valuable thing in a release — below the boilerplate and dateline. So how can you transform lame-ass quotes into snappy sound bites? To write quotes that journalists want to run and that readers want to read, take the Wah-wah out.

7. “This is too easy to read.” Said nobody ever. Nobody wants it to be harder. Use free online tools like HemingwayApp to measure, monitor, manage and improve readability. For all of your audiences. Because readability helps everyone.

8. Write better bulleted lists. Web visitors look at 70% of the bulleted lists they encounter … but only if you do a few things right. So show the parts, show the whole and make lists parallel.

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My favorite writing quote? Ever?

“For 40-odd years in this noble profession,
I’ve harbored a guilt and my conscience is smitten.
So here is my slightly embarrassed confession —
I don’t like to write, but I love to have written.”

— Michael Kanin, screenwriter of “Woman of the Year” and other movies

I like it so much, I had it engraved on my iPad.

Here are eight other awesome quotes about writing:

1. People spend, on average, 11 seconds on an email blast. So how long should your email be? Your email newsletter? Your subject line? Your links? Get Ann’s email-writing best practices.

2. The more you say, the less they read. The more you say, the less they buy. The more you say, the worse decisions they make. Stop the data dumping. Don’t tell people everything you know: Tell them exactly what they need to know. Get Ann’s readability best practices.

3. And there’s a great big I in TwItter. Don’t let your social media efforts become one big selfie stick. Instead, focus on your friends, fans and followers. There’s a reason You is the most retweeted word in the English language. Get Ann’s content marketing-writing best practices.

4. Want to grab people’s attention and move them to act? The secret of persuasive writing is to position your information in the readers’ best interest. Instead of yammering on about Us and our stuff, focus on the reader’s needs. Get Ann’s persuasive-writing best practices.

5. Humans are wired for story. Storytelling is “the most powerful form of human communication,” according to Peg C. Neuhauser, author of Corporate Legends and Lore. So … how do your storytelling superpowers stack up? Get Ann’s storytelling best practices.

6. Me, too, Mr. Liebling. What tricks do you have to help you write better, easier and faster? Get Ann’s best practices for the writing process.

7. Journalists rank PR quotes as the least valuable thing in a release — below the boilerplate and dateline. So how can you transform lame-ass quotes into snappy sound bites? Get Ann’s PR-writing best practices.

8. More than half of your visitors look at your web pages on their smartphones, not their laptops. Problem is, it’s 48% harder to understand information on mobile. People read more slowly, spend less time on, and click less often on the small screen. So … how do you get your message across? Get Ann’s best practices for writing for mobile.

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When my grandfather first saw a car, he didn’t think “automobile.” He thought, “That’s a carriage that moves without a horse — it’s a horseless carriage.”

He added to his knowledge by comparing the new concept to something he already understood. In other words, he learned through metaphor.

“Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish — a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language,” write George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By.

“On the contrary … metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”

Metaphor, in other words, is how we think.

Your brain on metaphor

Metaphors work because they compare the concept to something more familiar: cars to horse-drawn carriages, for instance. That helps people understand new, complex or conceptual information — computers, the internet, love — by means of something they already understand.

That makes metaphors shortcuts to understanding.

We use metaphor all the time:

• We use 50 metaphors per thousand words when we speak, estimates L. Cameron in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (1980).
• TV presenters use even more: one in every 25 words, according to Brian F. Bowdle, in The Career of Metaphor (2005).
• Over a 60-year life span, hypothesizes S. Glucksberg (“Metaphors in conversation,” 1989), one person uses millions of metaphors and other figures of speech.

As Lakoff and Johnson point out, we compare:

• Arguments to war (Attack your position. Claims are indefensible. Criticisms were right on target. Shoot down arguments.)
• Time to money (spending time, wasting time, saving time, investing time, costing time)
• Computers to offices (desktops, files, folders, documents, notepads)

In our brains, love is a journey, problems are puzzles and the internet is a city.

Compare complex concepts

If metaphor, simile and analogy is how we think, then writers can help people think through metaphor.

“The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius.”

— Aristotle, in the Poetics

That’s the approach Richard Preston used in this extended metaphor in The Demon in the Freezer. The metaphor helps people wrap their brains around the science of smallpox:

Steve Martin used the same approach to bring home a conceptual idea — an art movement — in his novel An Object of Beauty:

“Human thought processes are largely metaphorical,” write Lakoff and Johnson. “The human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. … Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our sense of touch, and as precious.”

Why is a metaphor effective?

Theorists from Aristotle to contemporary academic researchers agree: There is power in metaphor. Metaphor makes messages more:

• Understandable. Our conceptual system is metaphorical, say researchers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. That means we can help people think — we can clarify complex concepts — through analogy.
• Persuasive. Study after study shows that metaphoric language is more persuasive than literal language.
• Believable. Ads with metaphors were 21% more credible than ads without them, according to a study by Mark F. Toncar and James M. Munch.
• Important. Participants in the Toncar study saw ads with metaphors as 26% more important than ads with literal claims.
• Memorable. Ads with metaphors were remembered almost twice as well as ads with literal descriptions in a study by Edward F. McQuarrie and David G. Mick.
• Readable. An archival study of 854 ads showed that Starch Read Most scores — the percentage of people who read most of the ad — were higher for ads with a metaphor in the headline than with a literal headline. Audience members also may spend more time processing metaphors than just plain facts.
• Likeable. Speakers and other communicators who use metaphors are deemed more appealing than those who do not. They’re seen to be more competent and dynamic and to have better character. And readers like metaphors because it feels good to figure them out.

Tip: Use this list next time one of your approvers wants to strip the metaphors out of your copy.

Bottom line: If you’re communicating technical, scientific or complicated information, use metaphor.

____

Sources: Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Random House, 2007

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980

Edward F. McQuarrie and David G. Mick, “Visual and Verbal Rhetorical Figures under Directed Processing versus Incidental Exposure to Advertising,” Journal of Consumer Research, March 2003

Edward F. McQuarrie, ” The development, change, and transformation of rhetorical style in magazine advertisements 1954-1999,” Journal of Advertising, Dec. 22, 2002

David L. Mothersbaugh, Bruce A. Huhmann, George R. Franke, “Combinatory and Separative Effects of Rhetorical Figures on Consumers’ Efforts and Focus in Ad Processing,” Journal of Consumer Research, March 2002

Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer, Random House, October 2002

Pradeep Sopory and James P. Dillard, “The Persuasive Effects of Metaphor: A Meta-Analysis,” Human Communication Research, July 2002

Mark F. Toncar and James M. Munch, “The Influence of Simple and Complex Tropes on Believability, Importance and Memory,” Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Dec. 31, 2003

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When you read this passage, can you feel your brain lighting up?

When you read these opening lines of The Tower Treasure, a Hardy Boys novel first published in 1927, different parts of your brain activate to supply different elements of the story:

Your brain lights up when reading stories.

• One group of neurons lights up to provide the story’s sense of space and movement (the careening car on a narrow road).
• Motor neurons flash when the characters clutch the grips or otherwise grasp objects.
• Neurons involved in eye movement activate when characters navigate their world.
• Yet another group of neurons ramps up when you read about the characters’ goals (climbing to safety).

Or so say Jeffrey Zacks and his team of psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis. They used a brain scanner to see which regions lit up as participants read different parts of a story.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

— Mark Twain

“If you pick up a can of soda, your brain goes through a whole cascade of processes having to do with the motor commands to your arms,” Zacks says. “What it looks like to grab the soda can, what it feels like in your hand and arms. …

“And what we found is that as people are lying in the scanner reading about picking up a can of soda …, their brain processes differ in ways that are similar to the differences that we see in responses to real experiences.”

Why is storytelling important? Because stories:

1. Grab and keep audience attention.

Each day, Americans face the data equivalent of 174 newspapers, ads included.

In this environment, communicators must work hard to grab and keep our audience members’ attention. One way to do that is through storytelling.

Consider NPR’s “driveway moments” — stories that are so interesting, they compel their listeners’ rapt attention, no matter what else is competing for their time. The ice cream may be melting, the babysitter may be waiting … but NPR has your attention until the very end of the piece.

Plus, stories transport readers.

2. Make messages easier to understand.

Stories are concrete. They transform abstract concepts — such as the benefits of your products or services — into real-life, human examples that readers can wrap their minds around. That makes stories easier to understand than piles of facts.

When people are confused by information, they turn to stories. When readers face complicated financial data, for instance, they often make up scenarios to help them “see” the topic in action, according to a study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University. That helps readers understand the facts.

In another study, participants who were given a story got the highest scores ever recorded on the Wason Selection Test, one of the most famous tests of detective reasoning. Fewer than 10% of people pass the test. But when the researcher turned the test into a mystery story and transformed participants into amateur detectives, or characters within the story, 70% to 90% of participants passed the test.

3. Increase credibility.

It’s counterintuitive but true: People believe information more readily if it’s delivered in a story rather than through statistics, according to Peg C. Neuhauser’s Corporate Legends and Lore.

Why?

• Readers connect with the people in stories. Call it the Peer Principle of Persuasion: People believe that if something worked for someone else, it will work for them, too.
• Readers are cynical about numbers. Audience members know that organizations can twist numbers to say whatever the organization wants them to say.

But that doesn’t mean it never makes sense to use statistics. In fact, one very credible combination is to:

• Lead with an anecdote that illustrates your point.
• Follow up with a statistic that demonstrates the scope of the issue.

Stories told with statistics make both more powerful.

4. Engage readers.

Readers are far from passive consumers of stories. Indeed, when the story is vivid enough, our brains behave more like they’re acting than reading. That makes reading a dramatic narrative more like imagining a vivid event — or even remembering a real-life experience.

“When they’re reading the story, they’re building simulations in their head of events that are described by the story,” Zacks says. “And so, there’s an important sense that as they build that simulation that it’s significantly like being there.

“We’re used to thinking that virtual reality is something that involves fancy computers and helmets and gadgets. But what these kind of data suggest is that language itself is a powerful form of virtual reality, that there’s an important sense in which when we tell each other stories that we can control the perceptional processes that are happening in each other’s brains.”

No wonder readers understand vivid stories faster and remember them longer.

5. Makes messages more memorable.

Storytelling makes readers more likely to:

• Remember what they’ve read
• Act on the information
• Make good decisions based on the information

That’s according to research by University of Oregon professors Judith Hibbard and Ellen Peters. They found that narrative was more effective than:

• Charts
• Tables
• Graphs
• Simple assertions

And negative stories outperform positive ones, according to the study.

6. Goes viral.

Want readers to spread the word about your story? Awe-inspiring stories and narratives are more likely to get shared.

7. Move people to act.

Storytelling changes jurors’ minds, helps people decide and moves people to give to charity, according to the research.

Why storytelling?

Storytelling is “the most powerful form of human communication,” according to Neuhauser.

Are you crafting stories that get your audience members to pay attention, understand, remember and act on your messages?

___

Sources: “Reading Creates ‘Simulations’ In Minds,” NPR, Jan. 31, 2009

Roger Dooley, “Your Brain on Stories,” Neuromarketing, Jan. 21, 2010

Wray Herbert, “The Narrative in the Neurons,” We’re Only Human, Association for Psychological Science, July 14, 2009

Judith H. Hibbard and Ellen Peters, “Supporting Informed Consumer Health Care Decisions: Data Presentation Approaches that Facilitate the Use of Information in Choice,” Annual Review of Public Health, vol. 24, 2003

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“Funny Girl” starts with Barbara Streisand wishing to be a star.

“My Fair Lady” opens with Julie Andrews wishing for a room somewhere. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” begins with Quasimodo wishing he could belong “Out There.” “Into the Woods” begins with six characters declaring their wishes.

Call it the “I wish” song.

“Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, novelist

Every Disney musical — not to mention many other film and stage musicals — starts with an “I wish” song, reports Ira Glass in a recent episode of “This American Life.” It’s the first song the main character sings.

That motivation launches the story’s action. Overcoming the obstacles that get in the way of your character’s wish drives the action of a good story.

Whether you’re writing social media or content marketing or anything in between, great stories start with your protagonist’s wish.

I wish, I wish, I wish.

So what does your protagonist want?

• I wish I were human. In “The Little Mermaid,” Ariel sings, “When’s it my turn? Wouldn’t I love? Love to explore that shore up above, Out of the sea, wish I could be, Part of that world.”
• I wish I had the perfect husband. In “Fiddler on the Roof,” the daughters sing, “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a match, Find me a find, catch me a catch. Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Look through your book, And make me a perfect match.”
• I wish I were somewhere more exciting than Kansas. In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy sings, “Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly, Birds fly over the rainbow, Why then oh why can’t I?”

I wish, I wish, I wish.

The main character’s motivation drives every story:

• In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby wants Daisy to love him. This dream motivates him to overcome the obstacle of poverty to become fabulously wealthy by distributing illegal alcohol, trading in stolen securities and otherwise participating in organized crime.
• In “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy wants to get home — and to help her friends get a brain, a heart and some courage. This objective moves her to overcome the obstacles of talking trees, flying monkeys and wicked witches to visit the wizard and do away with the witch.
• In The Princess Bride, Westley wants to save Buttercup. Humperdinck wants to kill Westley. Vizzini wants money for kidnapping Buttercup. Inigo wants to kill the six-fingered man.

What do your characters wish?

The best corporate stories start with a wish, too:

• Nike’s story begins with founder Bill Bowerman wishing he could create a shoe sole that would give runners more traction.
• Hallmark Cards started with entrepreneur J.C. Hall wishing to get out of Nebraska and become a postcard salesman.
• Post-it Notes began with 3M scientist Art Fry wishing for a bookmark that would stay put in his church hymnal.

Hear Ira Glass sing his “I wish” song.

What’s your main character’s “I wish” song?

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Beginning, middle, end: A chronological approach is the best way to organize most nonfiction narratives.

That’s the formula Ira Glass uses for the popular National Public Radio program “This American Life.”

“Narrative is basically a sequence of events,” Glass says. “Something happens, then something else, then something else. Human instinct compels us to stick around to see what happens next.”

Avoid ‘and then, and then, and then.’

But chronological structure doesn’t mean that you’ll start at the beginning — say, in the maternity ward of a certain suburban Tulsa hospital in 1959 — then hash out every grunt and groan that follows. (Ever sit through a chronological recitation of someone’s vacation? “Then we had breakfast. …” Hard pass!)

“On the most basic level, readers read to find out what will happen next. It’s like making a person scratch long and hard; before she’ll do that, she needs to feel an itch. Uncertainty is the itch.”

— Nancy Kress, novelist and short story writer

“You can make an interesting story less interesting by putting it all into one strand: ‘and then, and then, and then,’” says author and journalist Adam Hochschild.

Instead, he suggests, look for suspense points, where the reader is wondering what will come next. Then instead of simply listing a series of events in chronological order, find the narrative arc. Move the reader from the inciting incident to rising action to the resolution and, finally, the denouement.

“When you get lost, focus on the chronology. There’s a sign above my computer that says, ‘It’s the chronology, stupid.’”

— Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, on storytelling

Author and writer Steven James agrees.

“The beginning isn’t simply the first in a series of events, but the originating event of all that follows,” he says. “The middle isn’t just the next event, but the story’s central struggle. And the ending isn’t just the last event, but the culminating event.”

Sound complicated? It’s not.

Suddenly, luckily …

“In the first act you get your hero up a tree. The second act, you throw rocks at him. For the third act you let him down.”

— George Abbott, American theater producer and director

In fact, Roz Chast summarizes the narrative arc beautifully in a New Yorker cartoon. Called “Story Template,” it includes four panels:

• Once upon a time
• Suddenly
• Luckily
• Happily ever after

In a business context, you might translate Chast’s template to:

• Introduction (“Once upon a time”)
• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

Using this story structure, you can develop a narrative lead, a case study or testimonial, or a short story to illustrate your point.

Move the problem to the top.

Only I’d change one element: Start with the problem.

“When I speak to children about writing, I tell them, ‘You don’t have a story until something goes wrong.’”

— Steven James, author of Never the Same

The conflict or inciting incident is the essence of a story. So start in the middle of things, at the most dramatic part of the story.

Because you don’t have a story until you have a problem. So start with the turning point: The day the tax bill came. The day the bank called your loan. The day you learned the company had shipped its $60,000 circuit board with a fatal flaw.

But if you start with the Suddenly, where do you put the Once upon a time?

You have two options:

1. Sandwich the introduction. That gives us:

• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Introduction (“Once upon a time”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

2. Blow up the introduction. You can also explode the introduction, weaving the information parenthetically throughout the piece, for this structure:

• Problem (“Suddenly”)
• Solution (“Luckily”)
• Results (“Happily ever after”)

The story template in action

“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.”

— Jean Luc Godard, film director, screenwriter and film critic

That’s the structure PR Manager Robert Kelley used in this piece for Verizon’s employee e-zine:

• Problem: A Montana motorist found himself at the front sales counter at the Verizon Wireless store in Missoula. Big problem: The store does not have drive-up service.
• Background (if necessary): Store Manager Heather Barnhart reported that the wayward driver fell asleep at the wheel in the wee hours of the morning and crashed through the front of her store. Fortunately, there were no injuries.
• Solution: Barnhart’s team along with Senior Analyst-Facilities Jeff Sams worked ’round-the-clock …
• Results: … to have the store open for business by the following morning.

Keep it short.

Your piece doesn’t have to be long to be good.

“I like a good story well told. That’s the reason I’m sometimes forced to tell them myself.”

— Mark Twain, American writer and wit

Chast’s simple structure is a good reminder that a great narrative can also be as short as three sentences. Give one sentence each to the problem, the solution and the result, and you have a mini parable that can help you make your point.

Anecdotes can be as long as your market, message and medium demand.

Luckily.

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Metaphor is more persuasive than literal language: It’s been proven in the lab.

Make that 41 labs over more than 50 years.

Or so say Pradeep Sopory and James Price Dillard. The two researchers reviewed 41 data-based studies on the persuasiveness of metaphor published between 1952 and 2006. Then they analyzed the studies to determine what made metaphors more or less persuasive.

Bottom line: Metaphors are more persuasive than literal messages, Sopory and Dillard found.

But why?

Six theories of metaphor’s persuasive power

For more than 30 years, scientists have been trying to figure out what makes metaphor more persuasive. Sopory and Dillard outline six perspectives on metaphor and persuasion in roughly chronological order:

1. Pleasure or relief

Metaphors compare two things that seem at first to be totally dissimilar. In The Emperor of All Maladies, for instance, Siddhartha Mukherjee writes:

That makes metaphors a linguistic puzzle. When readers encounter the metaphor “Some cancer cell mutations are passengers; others are drivers,” they go through three stages:

• Perception of error. Readers realize the literal meaning doesn’t make sense.
• Conflict or tension. Readers seek the metaphorical meaning.
• Resolution. Readers find the metaphorical meaning.

Depending on which linguist you’re talking to, that resolution causes readers either pleasure or relief. And that pleasure or relief reinforces not only the metaphorical meaning, but also the position your metaphor illustrates.

2. Communicator credibility

Communicators who use metaphor, this theory goes, are more credible than those who use literal language.

Why?

• Metaphor makes you look smart. “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor,” Aristotle wrote in the Poetics. “It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius.”
• Metaphor makes them feel good. Metaphor points out previously unknown similarities between things. That’s a source of interest or pleasure to the reader. Impressed by the source of this newfound information, the reader sees the communicator as more credible.

3. Reduced counterarguments

In this view, figuring out the metaphor takes up so many cognitive resources, the reader doesn’t have enough brainpower left to figure out a counterargument.

4. Resource matching

A more sophisticated view of the cognitive resources theory, this theory states that all the thinking we do to figure out a metaphor makes us understand the argument better and remember it longer.

BUT — and as PeeWee Herman says, there’s always a big but — that only works if our cognitive resources match the metaphor.

Can’t understand the message? Less likely to be persuaded.

Understand the message all too well, because the metaphor is a cliché, maybe? Less likely to be persuaded again.

Think of resource matching as the Goldilocks of these theories: For it to work, it must be just right.

5. Stimulated elaboration

The math of metaphor works like this:

A (target) is B (base).

Thee (target) is a summer day (base).

Figuring out metaphors stimulates more thinking about the relationship between the target and base. And that evokes a richer set of ideas than literal language. When those ideas are in agreement with the argument, readers are more persuaded.

6. Superior organization

This view claims that metaphor helps us structure and organize our arguments better than literal language. Plus, the metaphor helps readers link and process our arguments.

The result: Our arguments are more coherent, so people understand them better, and that leads to increased persuasion.

And the winner is …

Superior organization, the researchers say. Metaphor helps us highlight and organize our thoughts. And that makes it easier for people to understand and agree with our positions.

But whatever the reason, the bottom line remains the same: Metaphor is more persuasive.

Why not make a metaphor today?

___

Source: Pradeep Sopory and James Price Dillard, “The Persuasive Effects of Metaphor: A Meta‐Analysis,” Human Communication Research, January 2006

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The punch line of a story is like the punch line of a joke — the place where you surprise your audience and make your point.

Hallmark’s late, great Gordon MacKenzie used this technique in his parable about the baby and the artist’s canvas in Orbiting the Giant Hairball, his delightful tome on corporate creativity. He writes:

Punch out your punch line.

To make the most of this powerful element, really punch out your punch line:

1. Tighten your setup.

Two straight lines followed by the punch line is the rule of thumb on the comedy circuit. Here, four fascinating paragraphs with longish sentences lull us into an expected rhythm, which MacKenzie breaks with the punch line.

2. Create a pause before the punch line.

Why slow the story down before you reach the end?

For the same reason stand-up comics pause and pan before delivering the punch line. The comedians are building tension in their audience members — tension that can be broken only by laughing. In comedy clubs, the greater the tension, the bigger the laugh. In storytelling, the greater the tension, the bigger the emotional payoff.

Whereas comedians can pause and pan, writers can create a slight pause before the punch line with the three P’s:

• Phrasing
• Punctuation
• Paragraphing

Notice how MacKenzie punches out his punch line through paragraphing. He builds the tension by making the last line a separate paragraph.

3. Put the punch line at the end.

Put the most powerful phrase at the end of the sentence, the end of the paragraph, the end of the anecdote.

We all have friends who tell jokes by starting with the punch line. Then they say, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, it was two ducks and the Pope in a bar.” And you’re thinking, “You know, nothing you say now is going to make this funny.”

The same is true of an anecdote. If you don’t withhold the important point until the end, the anecdote loses its power.

For those of us raised on the inverted pyramid, it takes a lot of discipline to withhold the revealing point until the end. But that’s the challenge of mastering new skills. Occasionally we have to temporarily put aside some of the techniques that brought us here in the first place.

Meanwhile, back at the masterpiece …

Fair disclosure: I was friends with MacKenzie and had the honor of editing his wonderful book. (An easier and more pleasant project there has never been.)

As a fan of MacKenzie — and as a fan of you! — I’ll share the end of his “masterpiece” story. Check out how he handles the punch line here:

See another example of punching out your punch line.

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