From the friendly caves of Pixie Hollow.
The lecturer was saying, 'Yes, really...!' when the door swung open.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) stepped through and the class gasped in collective disbelief.
Stone and Parker waved, goofy as always.
Stone went and sat down on a chair. He pointed to the whiteboard.
'Hey we've got one of these. Except our entire wall is one of these.'
Parker had spotted it too. He legged it over to investigate. He picked up the whiteboard markers, showing Stone. 'We've got these exact markers, too!'
Stone to the class:
'Except our whiteboard is as big as this entire wall.'
Parker to the class:
'And this is how we use it...'
Suddenly, they were all peers inside an informal conversation. All gasping idolisation, gone. Focus returned.
Trey Parker went on to tell the class that there's really only one thing they have to know. That it took him years to figure out and he wished that he'd known it many years before. (Stone agreed.) That if they could remember this one piece of advice, it's going to stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.
That advice?
[ This Happened ]
and therefore
[ That Happened ]
which led to
[ This thing ].
The two phrases and therefore and which led to are all you need to know in order to craft an engaging story.
Stone and Parker pointed out that if you watch a film in which the sequence is:
[ This Happened ]
and then
[ This Happened ]
and then
[ This Happened ]
... fairly soon you'll be yawning, throwing popcorn at the screen and loudly exclaiming, why the f** am I even sitting here watching this boring-ass movie?
Every scene has to create, impact, or explain either the next scene or the scene before, because a story is a chain.
You can use this in work or study because the principles apply to literally everything.
Got a thesis? Craft a story in which you're hooking people along from point to point.
Got a presentation? Craft a story in which every piece is an integral, critical-path piece of the presentation.
Got a webinar? Craft a story that makes the entire reason for staying until the end worthwhile!
The video of this event is on the poo-toob if you wanted to go hunting for it.
I don't have anything to sell you today, because I'm not finished polishing the glorious little product that even billionaires like Sharran Srivatsaa think is 'very cool' (truly, his words).
So you'll just have to wait.
Have a sparkling day today!
xx Leticia "Trey Parker and Matt Stone fangirl" Mooney
Please let me know what I can do for you.
Leticia Mooney is a consultant with decades of experience writing with and for people like you. Her company Brutal Pixie casts the the kind of spells your customers love. It consults to businesses in content strategy, content writing, ghostwriting, content operations, communication strategy, audits, investigations, training and coaching. Leticia is also the mother of an intelligent, engaging, and curious boy, who is named after a character created by J.R.R Tolkien. You can learn more about
her at
https://biodagar.com/about, and her business at
https://brutalpixie.com.
Leticia Mooney
PO Box 1190
Pasadena SA 5042
Australia
Phone/Text (Signal/Telegram) +61 421 925 382
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