I’ve got an embarrassing confession to make.
Last year after months of planning, my wife and I celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary in a room with all of our friends.
We had been planning the logistics for months, and I was so excited to have all of our people in one room and share some of our favorite stories.
Thirty minutes before the event, we were in the hotel room, and I started to panic. I wasn't prepared.
And that evening, with everyone important to me in this world in one room, I was handed the microphone… and I blew it.
My hooks weren’t thought out, my stories were not crisp, and I failed to give real meaning to them that people could resonate with.
But I’m grateful.
Because it started a quest for me to learn how to tell better stories and to learn a framework I’m going to break down step by step that you can use too.
I wish I had known this earlier. They have helped me tell better stories and generally just write better.
It's three parts - a hook, some substance to build tension, and a payoff that delivers meaning.
Why you need to read this
If you tell stories, you have an obligation to entertain your audience.
Many people get this wrong, thinking the goal of the story is to create laughs.
But not all stories are meant to be funny. In reality, the goal of a story is to move hearts.
You do that by giving stories meaning that people can apply to their lives.
Have you ever told a story that started strong, but as you were telling it you lost where you were at?
Then after a few painful sentences, you finish with “I guess you just had to be there.”
Ouch… that hurts.
We’ve all been there. I was unfortunately there during my anniversary speech. Several times.
The problem?
These are stories without the MEANING that people can take into their lives or a call to action to do something.
Everybody has stories. I’m sorry to say your stories don’t matter (mine don’t either).
What matters is the ability for you to give a story meaning which people can apply to their own life.
That’s where the magic happens.
And this happens in ‘change’. I was [before state], then this happened, and now I am [after state].
The last bit is what people can take into their lives.
But be warned.
It’s not easy. It's actually insanely difficult. That's why storytelling is such a gift.
I’m not a naturally gifted speaker, and it’s something I’ve worked to improve on, over and over again.
If you're someone like me who struggles to put these together, I found a way that works.
Because it's not just stories online. It's stories that you craft in your work, in your personal life, and to yourself.
The ending (start here)
So, if you know the goal of a story is to share meaning and reflect change.
We can start there - nailing the meaning.
Let's build a real one from the ground up.
When I was 26 years old, I got arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. It was scary but eventually, I was let go.
That's a story, but it's missing a number of things.
It's not that relatable, lacks depth, and it's missing a meaning that people can take that into their lives.
This next part is very important.
The real meaning beyond the story was that ‘shared trauma can strengthen bonds and relationships’.
Stories without meaning at the ones that end in ‘...had to be there’.
But what happens if you have a story with no meaning?
There must be something in there. Often by just telling the story to yourself it can help uncover it. Failing that, tell someone else and ask them what they picked up.
Once you have the meaning of the story, everything else in the story is there to bring that to life.
Let's work backwards through the middle.
The middle (raise tension)
Good stories entertain and build tension.
From the beginning, you want to keep the pressure going up and up to the middle until ultimately the resolution arrives.
At the end, you tie it down with that meaning or call to action we discussed earlier.
There was a book I read which really shaped my thinking on how to do this.
"Storyworthy" by Matthew Dicks. The book gives you the tools to raise tension.
He has many, but let me share three that stuck with me.
#1. The elephant
The elephant is the big, scary thing that needs to be overcome by the characters in your story.
You want to introduce the elephant as soon as possible to keep them engaged.
This opens the loop and keeps the audience hooked on the elephant.
If the elephant is not in the room within the first couple of sentences, you're going to lose people.
#2. The backpack
The second one is to give the audience a backpack. Something that they carry into the story and keeps them engaged.
This ensures the audience is invested in the plan and its success.
#3. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs hint at future events and keep the audience guessing as to why these things were stumbled upon or mentioned.
By including elephants, backpacks and breadcrumbs - you’ll be able to raise tension through the beats of the story.
So back to our jailbreak story - how can we apply these methods?
My wife and I signed up for a boat tour from Colombia to Panama.
We didn’t think that we’d end the day in handcuffs [Elephant].
The plan was to get up early at the hostel, eat a light breakfast, and then take the ferry to start the five-day tour [Backpack].
We dropped our room key off at reception and thought it was strange the money safe was open [Breadcrumb]. As soon as we took off on the ferry, we knew something was wrong.
There are a few loops opened there which can keep the audience engaged.
- Why did we end up in handcuffs?
- What was this five-day tour that we were going on?
- Why was the money safe open?
So we have the meaning we want to deliver and have built some tension into the story.
The last part to craft is the beginning.
The beginning (momentum)
A good beginning to a story is to take the ending and flip it.
So for our one on jailbreak and shared experiences, I'd open the story about how we were lonely and lacking community.
But there is a fatal mistake people can make - the “boomer pause”.
It's when you see someone opening a story with a short inhale before announcing “Hi everyone. My name is Andy Crebar and I'm here to tell you about…”
You’ve lost me.
Probably everyone else too.
Your story is going to die a sad, cold death in obscurity.
Humans have an 8-second attention span—less than that of a goldfish—and it's getting shorter.
You need to get right into the action.
This is commonly referred to as a hook, but what it is really about is forward momentum.
You want to get the story moving quickly so people feel like they should have their seatbelt on.
Think about the opener of Star Wars.
There's a Rebel Spaceship trying to escape from a Star Destroyer shooting lasers at it.
It's not Darth Vader introducing himself.
Putting it all together
For the jailbreak story, a small tweak to the first line gives the story progress, and we can bring it all together.
We waved goodbye to the hostel around 6am [Momentum].
And we didn’t think that we’d be in handcuffs later that morning [Elephant].
We had just finished a month of travel by ourselves and were a bit nervous about joining a large group.
Would we be able to make friends? What would we even talk about? [The before state].
The plan was to get up early at the hostel, eat a light breakfast, and then take the ferry to the start of the five-day tour [Giving the audience a backpack].
We dropped our room key off at reception and thought it was strange the money safe was open [Breadcrumb]. As soon as we took off on the ferry, we knew something was wrong.
The engines were cut, and the loudspeaker blared.
“We have camera footage of two people stealing from the safe. We need everyone's passports, and the police will be waiting at the port."
Everyone was scared.
We were all foreigners, now without passports, trapped on a boat.
As we approached the dock, the loudspeaker blared out again.
“Who was in Room #1?”
That was us. They spared Lexy, but I was handcuffed as we were dragged away.
Sitting on the ground of a small cell that morning, we pleaded for hours that it wasn’t we.
Eventually, he asked, "How much money do you have in your backpack?"
I knew because I had counted the night before.
“Eight thousand, two hundred and thirty-six pesos”.
“That’s exactly the amount that was stolen.”
I sighed a breath of relief as it clicked.
There was no safe or money stolen - we were just getting swindled!
We just needed to ‘return the money’ (bribe the racket) and move on.
When we got back to the group, the shock from the ferry had passed, and everyone had decided to chip in and pay the bribe together.
It could have been anyone, and this shared experience brought us together to start the five-day trip and gave us a lot to talk about and reminisce.
We were closer from the event than if it never happened!
And what I learnt was how shared trauma can strengthen bonds and relationships.
You got this
If you're reading this and thinking ‘That sounds like a lot of work. Can’t I just tell good stories off the cuff?’
Maybe. I know I can’t.
So if you're a broken storyteller like me and need a framework - give this a shot.
- Write the ending
- Map out the story beats
- Write the beginning
The more I’ve looked into it, the more I’ve realized that the greatest stories take time.
I made this mistake during the anniversary speech and didn’t give myself enough time to do it.
