Subtext: The Story Within the Story

Every story has a subtext–a story within the story. Sometimes there are several, and often subtext reveals more than the story itself. How do we know? The details give us hints and our imaginations fill in the rest.

Want an example? Follow the link and ask yourself–how the good sisters know what they know about which way a penis should point? What other layers of story are implied by this clever bit of advertising?

http://adland.tv/commercials/rubber-cement-nuns-and-statue-1992-090-uk

Must Read Link: Science as Story

OK, this one is so good you have to read the complete post. Every word!

Dr. Kiki

Dr. Kiki Sanford is self-described as PhD scientist (neurophysiology) who escaped the lab to be a science writer. Recently she blogged the fundamentals for good science communication.

In a nutshell: Tell a story.

Word of Warning: I know Dr. Kiki from the Conference on World Affairs as an articulate TKD black belt. Not a person to ignore!

Happy reading: http://www.kirstensanford.com/2009/10/28/communication-basics/

History Repeats; Money Corrupts

The Denver Center just closed The Voysey Inheritance--an excellent production. The play was adapted by David Mamet from one written in 1905. Adapted, not revised. Seemingly nothing changes when it comes to greed, guilt and financial corruption.

Edward, the heir to a trust and estate law firm, discovers that his father has been raiding the accounts. When confronted, his father shrugs. He’ll eventually get it all right, he says. He always does. This is just a reversal–the result of some bad investments. Unfortunately he dies leaving the son the problem. Edward can expose the shortage, ruining his father’s good name, and leaving many penniless. Or he can continue to juggle the books and hope to get things right, or righter than they currently are. Whose interests should he put first–his family’s, close friends, small investors, the law? Even ledger books are never black and white.

Besides money, the play raises the question of why we allow cycles of economic corruption and collapse. Does history inevitably repeat? Or does it repeat because we all keep hoping for an economic advantage, meaning we’re willing to look the other way?

A good story raises those kinds of questions, which is why a good story tells us more than figures in a column, no matter how they add or don’t add up.

Bravo Denver Center. Bravo David Mamet.

Confess? Or Tell a Whopper?

Every four-year-old caught with a stolen chocolate has the right instinct. Go with a whopper.

Given a choice between a contrite confession or a good story, most of us will take the story. Why? Because stories are elastic, creative, and, if inventive enough, we can’t help ourselves. We admire the effort.

The video says it all:

Keepsakes Aren’t Kitsch; Keepsakes Keep Us Healthy

Writing for the Denver Post, a friend, Claire Walter, gathered some wonderful stories about keepsakes and how they keep us healthy. Check out the article; there are medical studies that indicate that keepsakes aren’t just kitsch. Because they mean something (have a story attached), they help us stay balanced, in-touch-with-our-past, and healthy. As an example, Walter lets Hollis Brooks tell the story of her lamp:

“There is a pretty lamp in my life that I inherited from my mother . . .. It was her favorite lamp, and I have recollections of her standing by it, admiring it and saying aloud to me, ‘Oh! This little lamp gives me pleasure every time I look at it.’ “

“It has a porcelain base, painted with a peacock. It is colorful and somewhat distinctive, but not the sort of decorative item that brings the word ‘wow!’ to mind. After my parents died, the lamp came my way, making the journey from Connecticut to Colorado. I have placed it by my bedside, so it’s the last thing I see before I close my eyes to sleep.

“I have moved seven times since my mother’s death, and wherever I live, the lamp is the first item I place in my new nest. What makes the lamp extra-special: there is a tiny scrap of paper nestled in the lamp underside. It reads, in my mom’s distinctive handwriting: ‘For Hol. xx.’ Sometimes when I need my spirits lifted, I sit by the lamp and turn it upside down to read the note. And I always feel my own light go on again.”

After a fire, flood or tornado, there’s a deep reason why we are willing to sift through the rubble looking for the keepsakes. We need them.

Tie Yourself Down

A hundred years ago, there was a legendary “tie yourself down” stretch of railroad along Beaver Canyon, one of the places my great grandmother, Sophia, worked as a cook for the railroad crews laying track. The road was so rough, several men were stationed there with the sole purpose of cleaning up the box cars that weren’t tied down and therefore tipped over and smashed on the rocks below. “Tie yourself down,” meaning prepare for a rough ride, is a phrase I whispered, to give myself courage, long before I knew the term probably originated with my family’s railroad background.

Stories are so powerful we don’t have to remember how or when we heard them only that they work. In this case, the family mantra for courage was just there, often repeated, not explained, until I asked.

What’s your “tie yourself down” story?

Unicorn! Seen One Lately?

My husband met a unicorn last week.

He was impressed enough to take pictures.

He says he doesn’t believe in unicorns. He has a degree in physics, thank you! However, everyone who sees his pictures says “unicorn.” White, blue-eyed–what else could it be? No horn? They hide their horn, except in moonlight. I’m guessing that more people know that than understand what goes on in a particle accelerator.

Unicorns have been part of mythology since 400 BC when Ctesias describes them as living in India. Aristotle disputed his description and added his own. Although unicorns were never part of Greek mythology, they were included in Greek books of natural history. They are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible–repeatedly. Marco Polo claims to have seen one. The King of Scotland, James I, supposed brought one with him when he assumed the English throne. It has remained a part of the royal coat of arms ever since. The Simpsons televisions show includes an episode with a unicorn. My granddaughter has adopted a stuffed one that she sleeps with, pink sparkles and all.

Who cares?

Evidently everyone from Ctesias to my granddaughter.

More to the point, this is a blog about the power of stories, and without stories, we wouldn’t have unicorns!

Want Job–Tell A Story

job interview

Liz Ryan writes a column in the Daily Camera, my local newspaper, about keeping your career on track. On August 24, 2009 it was all about the power of story, especially in a job interview.

She writes:

A story answer to an interview question has three benefits over a stock “Yes, I’ve done {x} in spades” answer:

job interview

1. It’s more memorable to the interviewer.

2. It brings out more of you–not just your skills. It shows the interviewer how you think or how you handle situations.

3. It puts a picture in the interviewers mind . . .

Her example is someone who learned Adobe Illustrator over the weekend using “Illustrator for Dummies” in order to meet an unexpected set of circumstances. That person could have said, “Yes, I know Illustrator” and missed the opportunity to fill-in how she learned it on the fly, solved a crisis, etc

Ryan tells her readers that stories are the essential edge to getting the job.

job interview

We need a story about a time when we surmounted an obstacle, and a story about a time when we had to change our plans on a dime. We need a difficult-customer or difficult-coworker story and another story about learning from a mistake. I teach people to tell these stories on interviews, and even (in a very condensed) fashion in resumes and cover letters.

A Good Slogan Is A Story

What makes a good slogan, like “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand,” memorable?

It suggests a story. By the time we’re four, every one of us knows how good things can turn messy. M&Ms promises us chocolate without the anxiety.

Sears launched their Christmas 2008 campaign with “Don’t just give a gift. Grant a wish.” Then they linked that slogan with real stories of Ty Pennington receiving his first toolbox and LL Cool J getting a turntable from his grandfather.

When Best Buy started using “You, happier,” they wanted their customers to see themselves leaving the store satisfied. Like the M&Ms slogan, “You, happier” plays off the idea that in other times and other places we haven’t felt confident about our purchases. Don’t repeat those bad experiences, Best Buy tells us. Shop here. They don’t have to fill in the story. We know.

What stories come to mind with these famous slogans?

“Reach out and touch someone,” AT&T
“He keeps going and going and going . . .” Energizer batteries

“We’re #2. We try harder,” Avis

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” United Negro College Fund

Why pay attention to slogans? Because they’re little stories and stories sell, especially when they’re clever enough to touch on our own experiences.

Stories Used To Be An Event! Still are?

Native American Storyteller

Some Native American cultures saved storytelling for the winter months when people had time to gather together, repeat myths, share histories and create a common cultural bond. It was an event; something to look forward to. In my town, the only thing that comes close is when children gather for Story Hour at the public library or when Irish storyteller, Liz Weir, makes her annual appearance in Boulder.

Aditi Worcester, a video biographer, makes a similar observation about photographs in her blog http://savetheirstory.blogspot.com.

“My favorite picture is of my mother in Kashmir. It’s black and white… though everything looks rather white because of the snow. She’s wearing an oversized, black trenchcoat sort of thing… and smiling, well, half-smiling into the camera. Or rather at my father, who was taking the picture. It had been so cold that day that the guide who was taking my parents on a tour of the city offered his jacket to my mother to keep her warm. This demonstrated two things to me.
A). Locals don’t feel cold. And
B). Chivalry wasn’t dead 25 years ago.

But it’s my favorite picture. Whether it’s because of the story behind it, or because it was taken in a place I haven’t been to, or because it was a snapshot of my parents, young and in love… I don’t know.

My parents tell me that when they were growing up, taking pictures was an event. One you made appointments for, dressed up, and posed for, with your eyes deliberately looking elsewhere… for the effect of seriousness perhaps? Or gravity?”

Do we take too many photos today?  I took seven hundred photos on a recent week vacation.  These days, that’s not hard to do. The problem is editing them into something meaningful. That’s also the problem with video. My phone will capture the action, but, with rare exceptions, that’s not enough. The action needs to be shaped into something worthwhile–the work Aditi Worcester has taken on with her video biography project.

Stories need a storyteller.

And when we meet a master, we pause, we listen, we make it an event. Try Scott Hicks understated documentary, Glass: A Portrait in Twelve Parts