Edward Miller Coaching Writing Blog: The Storytelling Model

The Storytelling Model

   All good writing follows a simple model of storytelling. It begins with a setting, then moves to a conflict that adds suspense before seeking a resolution and ending.

   The trouble with this tidy description, however, is that it's too abstract: setting, conflict, resolution, ending. Nor is it immediately evident how to put the four-part model to work. Let's try another version:

   "Once upon a time ..." This set-up for storytelling has been used since ancient Greece to create the scene and circumstances in novels, fables and oratory.
   Homer used the device in The Iliad: "The Greek army is led by Agamemnon. It is besieging Ilium, a town in the region of Troy whose ruler is Priam; it is the tenth year of the war."

   The first line of the Bible begins with the ultimate once upon a time: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."

   Abraham Lincoln used it at Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years ago ..."

   Dickens used it to set the scene for A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

   And Hemingway used it to open The Old Man and the Sea: He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."

   "Once upon a time" and its many siblings say to the reader, "Let me get you started." It works in fiction, nonfiction and all business writing.

"Suddenly!" This is the conflict, the twist that provides purpose and direction. No story can remain stalled in "once upon a time;" there would be no story, and readers would soon flee. They stay because suddenly, something creates interest, suspense, confusion, anxiety, disbelief, and inevitably, questions about why? and what's next?

Eventually, the Old Man at sea hooks a fish. That's "Suddenly!"

Fortunately (or not). In some stories, Superman, moving faster than a speeding bullet, swoops in and sweeps Lois Lane from the ledge. In others, something goes wrong that unfortunately stays wrong, defies fixing and plagues the characters until the end of the story. Either way, there comes a resolution (successful or not) to the conflict of "Suddenly." In Hemingway's little tale, the Old Man catches the fish, but unfortunately, the fates have been cruelly generous. The fish is too big to bring aboard his small boat and is consumed by sharks.

Happily ever after. All written stories end, some well, some badly. In business writing (e-mails, memos, reports) the ending is especially important because it must lead to one of two results -- learning or action.

In business, using the storytelling model to guide the planning that precedes writing is the single most valuable first step toward improvement.

I CAN HELP: If you'd like to learn more about how your company can improve its writing and thereby its overall performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to help in your quest for quality.