The Best Story Wins - Matthew Luhn

Question 1

What percent of information is retained by someone if you give them stats and data without a story?

Answer 1

An average of 5%

Question 2

How much more likely are facts to be remembered IF part of a story?

Answer 2

Facts are 22 times more likely to be remembered

Question 3

Why did we evolve to tell and retain stories?

Answer 3

Stories are useful to survival. Often stories were told as warnings or guides to our primal ancestors to keep them safe.

Question 4

What physically happens to the human body when it hears or sees people laughing, smiling, or sharing stories of suspense?

Answer 4

Dopamine and endorphins are released.

Question 5

What physically happens to the human body when it hears or sees people sad or somber?

Answer 5

Oxytocin is released.

Question 6

What do you have to do to tell a memorable story that moves people to act?

Answer 6

Take your audience on a roller coaster of emotions. Decisions are triggered by emotions.

Must include both happy and sad to be most powerful.

Question 7

What is the average attention span of a human?

Answer 7

Eight seconds. You have eight seconds to before losing their attention.

Question 8

What are the 4 potential characteristics of a great hook?

What causes hooks to work like magic?

Answer 8

1 - Unusual
2- Unexpected
3 - Action driven
4 - Raises clear conflict.

Hooks that set up an intriguing question work like magic.

Question 9

What are the 4 components of a logline or elevator pitch?

Answer 9

1 - Hero
2- Goal
3- One or more obstacles
4- Transformation

Question 10

How do you effect change on people?

Answer 10

By employing a character or characters in a story that goes through change.

When a story teller and the listener develop a “neural coupling”, the listener has the same experiences as the characters in the story.

Question 11

When stories are done right, what should they do?

Answer 11

Create a powerful dose of empathy. The deeper you take the listener into someone’s life story, the more powerful the empathy.

Question 12

What are the three components of a character arc?

Answer 12

1- Starts on a normal day
2- Character launched into unfamiliar world or obstacles that change them
3- Character returns to where they are started, but are notably changed.

Question 13

What is the time allocation you should give for the A, B, and C components or character arcs in an overall story?

Answer 13

A - 60%
B - 30%
C - 10%

Question 14

What % of people are risk-takers or early adopters?

Answer 14

15%. The rest require motivation to change.

Question 15

What do you do to make sure a story resonates with an audience?

Answer 15

Research the hell out of the audience before crafting the story.

Look, observe, relate.

Research first hand through immersion.

Question 16

What are the six “universal themes” that can be used for any general story?

Answer 16

1- Love and belonging
2- Safety and security
3- Freedom and spontaneity
4- Power and responsibility
5- Fun and playfulness
6- Awareness and understanding

Question 17

How do you bring authenticity into a story?

Answer 17

Be vulnerable and honest. Share obstacles as well as triumphs.

Question 18

How is being vulnerable different than being self depricating?

Answer 18

Self depreciation includes sharing personal shortcomings. Audience doesn’t want this.

Vulnerabilities include sharing how you tried something, failed, and learned.

Question 19

What does directly telling the audience the moral of the story do?

Answer 19

It kills the intent of the message. You need to allow the audience to put together the pieces for themselves, to find the moral on their own.
The storytellers job is to provide clues, but not the full picture.

Question 20

What are the six stages of a story?

Answer 20

1- Exposition
2- Inciting incident
3- Progressive complications
4- Crisis
5- Climax
6- Resolution

Question 21

What is involved in the exposition stage of a story?

Answer 21

Story setup. The who, why, when, and where.

Question 22

What is involved in the inciting incident stage of a story?

Answer 22

Where you learn the one thing that the protagonist is most passionate about and either take it away or give it to them.

This causes empathy for the main character.

Question 23

What is involved in the progressive complication stage of a story?

Answer 23

Trials the protagonist must endure as they try to adapt to the inciting incident. Must happen in stages with severity increasing to keep audiences engaged. Stages of severity going from 1-10.

Question 24

What is involved in the crisis stage of a story?

Answer 24

Where the main character must choose to act on lessons learned in the story, or turn their back on them.

Many times the protagonist is motivated by a mantra.

Question 25

What is involved in the climax stage of a story?

Answer 25

Newly changed character faces and defeats the antagonist or villian. This is the payoff, the most exciting part.

The protagonist must be the one to initiate the final blow after the character investment.

Question 26

What is involved in the resolution stage of a story?

Answer 26

Tying up loose ends, leaving the audience with no questions.

Question 27

What are the 8 components of the “Incomplete Story Spine” used to design a story?

Answer 27

1- Once upon a time…..Exposition
2- And every day…..Exposition
3- Until one day….Inciting incident
4- Because of that…..Progressive complications
5- Because of that…..Progressive complications
6- Because of that…..Progressive complications
7- Until finally….Crisis and Climax
8- And since that day…..Resolution

Question 28

How do you foster creativity in a story?

Answer 28

1) Physical environment - design playful floorplan that promotes interactions
2) Eliminate the fear of failure
3) Deliberately encourage innovation

Question 29

What are the execution steps I should use when writing a story?

Answer 29

1) Create an outline, considering principles of great story telling and something I have intimate experience with
2) Read authors you want to sound like (minimum 2 books all day long)
3) Write the story
4) Iterate multiple times
5) Send to editors (4x cheap ivy league college editors)

Question 30

5 Tips for being a better story teller

Answer 30

1) Write everyday
2) Read all the time
3) Schedule writing time, 10-30 min best
4) Get to action as quickly as possible
5) Use everything to tap into emotion

Question 31

What are 8 tips for how to use your words when storytelling?

Answer 31

1) Use active vs. passive voice
2) Short long short sentences (mix it up)
3) Paragraphs too long exhaust, too short distract
4) Big fancy words are like purfume on a flower
5) Adjectives and adverbs used sparingly
6) Don’t tell readers what to feel, seduce them with your words
7) Cut work in half, see if it improves
8) Good writing is re-writing

Question 32

How do you edit a story?

Answer 32

Edit the….

1) Story - improve flow
2) Brevity - trim prose
3) Clarity - write simply
4) Voice - make consistent, believable, inviting
5) Words - smaller, more direct is better
6) Cliches - use rarely
7) Tenses - consistent tenses
8) Adverbs - do more with less
9) Adjectives - dilute story
10) Structure - every scene builds to next, all build to final