My book "Death by Screens: how to present high-stakes digital design work and live to tell the tale" - is here to help designers tell better stories about their work. Get three winning presentation tips from the book by signing up below!
Why Breaking Bad sticks: using story glue to make it flow
Hey folks. Yesterday I got to the final proof of the book. So close!
In preparation I've improved how these articles appear on the web, do take a look and share (if there's anything you've enjoyed reading, that is!).
Anyway, this week... useful lessons from Breaking Bad, Southpark, and what not to do, courtesy of Game of Thrones.
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The showrunner of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, knew that there's a really easy story-telling trap you can fall into. He would begin with a very high-level story in mind for each season (“A chemistry teacher turns to dealing drugs as he battles terminal lung cancer.”). But... he’d deliberately leave the specific plot undefined. Gilligan knew that if he defined those plot points as a first step, he’d have a weaker story. Here’s why. |
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Character and motivation
As the writers room worked together to craft that story, they were obsessed with character and motivation. They would ask: “what would Walt do next?”, not “what happens next?”. The plot comes from characters with clashing motivations interacting with each other.
So many stories are written the other way round; people think of a series of events, and then try to create compelling characters around those events (looking at you, final season of Game of Thrones). Breaking Bad is exceptional because it takes the opposite approach. We’re compelled to watch because the motivations of the characters drive the plot: it’s the glue that holds the entire thing together.
And this brings me to the thing that people often miss when attempting any kind of storytelling. What’s the stuff that holds it together?
Good story, bad story
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, follow a simple rule: bad stories use ‘and then’ between each scene, they are just a sequence of events. Good stories use ‘and therefore’, ‘so’, ‘but’, or ’however’: events build on one another to form a cohesive whole.
That’s the glue. Compare these two examples from the life story of coach and speaker Jeff Gothelf:
Finding your story glue
Crafting a design presentation isn’t really like writing fiction, but it still needs story glue. Imagine the things you’re trying to say in a presentation as a jumble of scrabble tiles. When you pull them out of the bag and try to put them in a sensible order, what guides how you do that?
Here’s an example of story glue, applied to some elements from the book:
- So the user needs dinner on a busy night (SCENARIO)
- But choosing the right food with an allergy is a challenge (PROBLEM)
- Therefore we’ve learned from their previous orders, and prioritised items that match their dietary requirements (SOLUTION)
Next time you're crafting a story: look at the spaces in between the items in your outline, and ask yourself what goes there. With a little bit of thinking and re-ordering, you’ll often find something better to hold it together.
Find the glue to make it flow!
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Death by Screens: the newsletter
My book "Death by Screens: how to present high-stakes digital design work and live to tell the tale" - is here to help designers tell better stories about their work. Get three winning presentation tips from the book by signing up below!
Many successful creatives spend a little less time creating the work, and more time on how to communicate it. About three weeks in to my first startup design leadership job, I had a sudden realisation: I was spending almost no time deliberately and carefully crafting a narrative about my work. Before that role I'd been at the agency Clearleft for a while (20 years old this week!), and then some time freelancing, so I'd been used to spending large amounts of time either justifying my existence...
A little while ago I ran a survey with my mailing list to find out what people were struggling with most, and one comment stuck out in my mind: “A lot of the skills (presenting, storytelling, etc) seem important and connected. If there was a single lens to do a several of these I think that would be fantastic.” Absolutely they’re connected. Writing and speaking are complementary - comedians create a feedback loop between ideas and performance by jumping between the two. So let’s take one...
The secret ambitions of Phillipe Petit...? The Amazon Effect Ever heard of ‘The Amazon Effect’ in usability testing? Picture this: you’re testing an e-commerce website for a client. But right when the participants you’re observing are about to buy something, they open Amazon in a new tab. When asked why, they say: “well I always check prices against Amazon before buying.” I’m not here to tell you about The Amazon Effect, but how one might use the story of The Amazon Effect. What if...