Chapter 2
Lessons from Myths and Movies

Incorporate Story

All types of writing, including presentations, fall somewhere in between two extreme poles: reports and stories. Reports inform, while stories entertain. The structural difference between a report and a story is that a report organizes facts by topic, while a story organizes scenes dramatically.1 Presentations fall in the middle and contain both information and story, so they are called explanations.

It’s become the cultural norm to write presentations as reports instead of stories. But presentations are not reports. Many people who create presentations are stuck in the mindset that if they use a presentation application, like PowerPoint, to create a report, the report is a presentation. It is not! Reports should be distributed; presentations should be presented. Documents masquerade as presentations, and these “slideuments”2 have become the lingua franca of many organizations. While documents and reports are very valuable, they do not need to be projected for the purpose of hosting a “read-along.”

So if a report primarily conveys information, then stories produce an experience. Blending the two creates a perfect world for your presentation where facts and stories can be layered like a cake. Navigating between fact, then story, then fact, then story creates interest and a pulse. Mixing report material with story material makes information more digestible. It’s the sugar that helps the medicine go down.

It’s more comfortable and less time consuming to present flat, data-driven static reports, but that approach doesn’t connect people to ideas. The moment you know you need to create a presentation and not a report, shift your mindset from solely transferring information to creating an experience. This is the first step in moving along the spectrum away from a pure report toward a story.

There are plenty of opportunities to use dramatic story structure in presentations. But how do you create a dramatic experience? Creating desire in the audience and then showing how your ideas fill that desire moves people to adopt your perspective. This is the heart of a story.

This chapter will draw insights from the best story methods available today: mythology, literature, and cinema. Once you understand their power, you’ll see why great presentations move away from reports and closer to stories.

Drama Is Everything

Presentations have the potential to hold an audience’s interest just like a good movie. You might be thinking that it takes years to write a successful screenplay, and you have a real job to do. But isn’t part of your “real job” to communicate ideas well, help people understand objectives, and persuade them to change? Building your presentations with some of the attributes from myths and movies will help your ideas resonate with others.

Great stories introduce you to a hero to whom you can relate. The hero is usually a likeable sort who has an acute desire or goal that is threatened in some way. As the story unfolds and trials are met with triumph, you cheer for the hero until the story is resolved and the hero is transformed. As author Robert McKee explains, “Something must be at stake that convinces the audience that a great deal will be lost if the hero doesn’t obtain his goal.”3 If nothing is at risk, then it’s not interesting.

Your communications follow a similar pattern. You have a goal that needs to be reached, but there will be trials and resistance. However, when your desire is realized, the outcome will yield remarkable results.

One of the reasons presentations are dull is because there are no identifiable story patterns. In the next few pages, you’ll review story models actively used in Hollywood that are fundamental to a good screenplay. These forms work! They are not formulas or rigid sets of rules—they address structure and character transformation, yet also leave room for flexibility and creativity. After you review the Hollywood story forms, you’ll be introduced to the presentation form. It’s a similar form, but one that’s tailored to presentations. Applying these methods will help craft your message and unlock the story potential in your presentations.

Story Pattern

The most simplistic way to describe the structure of a story is situation, complication, and resolution. From mythic adventures to recollections shared around the dinner table, all stories follow this pattern.

Story Templates Create Structure

Screenwriters use tools to create strong story stuctures. Syd Field is considered the father of Hollywood’s story template. In his book, Screenplay, Field uses concepts from the three-act structure first proposed by Aristotle to create the Syd Field Paradigm, shown below. Field noticed that in successful movies, the second act was often twice the length of the first and third acts:

• Act 1 sets up the story by introducing characters, creating relationships, and establishing the hero’s unfulfilled desire, which holds the plot in place.
• Act 2 presents dramatic action held together by confrontation. The main character encounters obstacles that keep him or her from achieving his or her desire (dramatic need).
• Act 3 resolves the story. Resolution doesn’t mean ending but rather solution. Did the main character succeed or fail?4

All stories have a beginning, middle, and an end. There’s a defining point in which the beginning turns into the middle and the middle into the end. Field, a leading screenwriting teacher, calls these plot points. A plot point is defined as any incident, episode, or event that spins the story around in another direction. Each plot point sets up the story for a change.

A great presentation is similar to a screenplay in several ways:

• It has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• It has an identifiable, inherent structure.
• The first plot point is an incident that captures the audience’s intrigue and interest. In presentations, we’ll call this a turning point.
• The beginning and end are much shorter than the middle.

This is a form, not a formula. It’s what a screenplay would look like if you could X-ray it and examine its structure. The movie Shawshank Redemptiona is shown below with the acts and plot points annotated.

Field’s model makes sense as a template for scripting movies; however, it is only partially applicable to presentations. Next, we’ll examine an additional story form that will supply some of the missing pieces.

Syd Field’s Paradigm5

aSHAWSHANK REDEMPTION STORY
Andy, a young banker convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, is sentenced to Shawshank Penitentiary. In prison, Andy meets and forms a relationship with Red, another convicted killer, and then becomes an ally and trusted friend of the warden. When his attempts for a retrial fail, he escapes from Shawshank. At the end, Andy makes his way to Mexico, where he and Red are reunited.

The Hero’s Journey Structure

Another story model to consider is The Hero’s Journey, drawn from the psychology of Carl Jung and mythological studies of Joseph Campbell.

The wheel that follows is an overview of The Hero’s Journey that has been slightly simplified by Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey. Vogler spent years as a story analyst for screenplays in Hollywood and uses this as a form for his analyses. Starting at the top of the wheel, move clockwise through the steps. The gray text of the innermost circle walks you through the stages of The Hero’s Journey: (1) Heroes are introduced in the Ordinary World, where (2) they receive the Call to Adventure. (3) They are initially reluctant and might even Refuse the Call but (4) are encouraged by a Mentor to (5) Cross the First Threshold and enter the Special World, where (6) they encounter Tests, Allies, and Enemies. (7) They Approach the Inmost Cave, where (8) they endure the Ordeal. (9) They take possession of their Reward and (10) are pursued on the Road Back to the Ordinary World. (11) They experience a Resurrection and are transformed by the experience. (12) They Return with the Elixir—a boon or treasure to benefit the Ordinary World.6

Heroes endure physical activities (outer journey) but also experience internal transformations to their hearts and minds at each stage. This inner journey is represented by green text in the second ring. Then, the outermost ring uses Star Wars: Episode IV as an example, showing the outer journey in gray text and the inner journey in green.

An important insight emerges when The Hero’s Journey is represented in a circle: It creates a clear division between the ordinary world and the special world (signified by the gray dotted line). There is a moment in every story where the character overcomes reluctance to change, leaves the ordinary world, and crosses the threshold into an adventure in a special world. In the special world, the hero gains skills and insights—and then...