245: The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr

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3. 00:00:11 Okay, a couple of items of follow-up here.
4. 00:00:14 I've got two, which I guess I've been successful with, but start asking the
5. 00:00:23 a question, which is really the "and what else?" I haven't had a whole lot of coaching opportunities in order to implement this,
6. 00:00:30 but it is top of mind, and
7. 00:00:34 I do find myself kind of digging a little bit deeper whenever I have
8. 00:00:38 conversations with
9. 00:00:40 with people. I don't know. It's kind of hard for me to describe the scenario where I've seen this come into play because like I said
10. 00:00:47 It's not a true like one-on-one coaching scenario like we read about in the last book.
11. 00:00:52 But there have been opportunities where like we're talking about things and I just
12. 00:00:58 that's in the back of my mind
13. 00:00:59 And you just kind of kind of keep digging and you figure out what the the actual issues are. The other one, Bandit's a good busy.
14. 00:01:05 That one I've been successful with. That I feel like was pretty low-hanging fruit though.
15. 00:01:10 Yeah, I still hate the fact that I am tempted to say it though.
16. 00:01:17 It's hard to stop. It is hard to stop, and it has been busy.
17. 00:01:24 Part of that is my crazy schedule. I went on vacation, then I went to a conference,
18. 00:01:31 then I was back for basically two weeks, and as we record this I leave again on Sunday supposedly for another conference.
19. 00:01:38 I say supposedly because we haven't had snow like all year here in the Midwest.
20. 00:01:43 But we are forecasted to get 14 to 18 inches on Saturday night through Sunday.
21. 00:01:49 And yeah, great timing. We'll see if I actually get out.
22. 00:01:54 It's a weird time of the year because we've barely gotten any as well in Colorado.
23. 00:02:00 And then we got like I think six or something the other day just like just got dumped on so it's a weird time of the year.
24. 00:02:08 You've got one action item here posting the seven questions somewhere where you'll see them.
25. 00:02:14 Did you do that?
26. 00:02:15 I did. So for those of you who may not have listened to the last episode, the seven questions,
27. 00:02:20 kickstart, awe, focus, foundation, lazy, strategic, and learning, those are the seven questions.
28. 00:02:27 And what I did is I put those in my daily note because that made the most sense.
29. 00:02:34 I was like, well, I could print this out and put it somewhere. I was like, or I could put it in my daily note.
30. 00:02:38 And then I see them in my daily note when I when they come up.
31. 00:02:40 So they're in my daily note. I don't know if they're going to have like a major impact.
32. 00:02:44 I don't know if they are having a major impact or not.
33. 00:02:46 I hopefully by just seeing them over and over again that will help me think about one or some of them more.
34. 00:02:54 So yes, check Big Green Checkmark Gold Star for me.
35. 00:03:01 Nice. We did pretty good on the follow up this time.
36. 00:03:03 I know. I know. We don't do we don't do that great all the time, but this time we nailed it.
37. 00:03:08 Yeah, I am curious why you think this was important enough to put in the daily note.
38. 00:03:15 Like, do you really need to look at this every day as part of your daily note?
39. 00:03:18 The daily note seems like prime real estate.
40. 00:03:21 Yeah, you're probably right. It was the easiest place for me to put it where I knew I would see them.
41. 00:03:28 Yeah, which is fine, but I guess I'm just kind of curious how often you're looking at that
42. 00:03:33 and then how often you have opportunity to use that stuff. I'm sure it's actually pretty frequent.
43. 00:03:39 Yeah, so this actually is and part of it goes into the conversation we had about the book for me.
44. 00:03:47 Whereas I thought about like, okay, coaching yourself as I read that book,
45. 00:03:50 not just coaching other people. So when I think about coaching myself, like for example,
46. 00:03:55 the and what else question helps me. Like when I see that, you know, and I'm thinking about,
47. 00:04:02 okay, I'm developing this talk or this lesson or the design of some, you know, whatever it is,
48. 00:04:09 and what else? Like, what are we not thinking about? Like, what have we not considered here?
49. 00:04:13 So that helps me out. The like another one would be the learning question.
50. 00:04:18 I get students that come in all the time and they'll say something and that helps me
51. 00:04:22 remember to ask them like, well, what was most useful? Like, what did you get out of this kind
52. 00:04:25 of a thing? So should it stay in there all the time? No. Is it the wrong place to put it? I don't
53. 00:04:34 think so. You're right though, like prime real estate is is, you know, that daily note is prime
54. 00:04:41 real estate and I don't like the idea of having to scroll the daily note. Like, I want the daily
55. 00:04:47 note to be like the normal size of not my phone because you can't really, you always have to scroll
56. 00:04:53 your phone. But like on a normal computer screen, I want that daily note to be full, full page. If
57. 00:04:59 that makes sense, I don't have to scroll. So will they get reduced down? Probably. Are they too big
58. 00:05:05 right now? Probably. But that's okay. I'm all right with that right now. So have you heard the good
59. 00:05:09 news, Corey, about collapsible call outs? No. Do you know, you know how to use call outs in obsidian?
60. 00:05:17 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you can have the different types of different colors, that kind of stuff.
61. 00:05:21 The first line of the call out at the end of the end of the bracket, basically. So what you
62. 00:05:30 actually use to determine what type of call out it's going to be outside of the last like right
63. 00:05:35 bracket, you can either do a plus or a minus, which makes that a collapsible call out. The plus
64. 00:05:39 means that it is expanded by default. The minus means it is collapsed by default. So when you
65. 00:05:45 collapse it by default, you've got this colored box with your questions that potentially you could
66. 00:05:49 click the carrot and then see them. If you really wanted to tighten things up, that's the way you do
67. 00:05:54 it. Adding to my omnifocus right now. Look into collapsible call outs. Yeah, collapsible call outs
68. 00:06:03 are great. Call outs in general are great. That's all of the stuff on my daily note now is inside of
69. 00:06:10 those those call outs. So I've got like the daily Bible reading plan. I've got my tasks. I've got
70. 00:06:15 my affirmations that I say every day. I've got my memento mori code snippet. I've got a bases view
71. 00:06:22 of all the other daily notes from that particular day kind of day one style. And they're all inside
72. 00:06:28 of those those call outs. It's very rare that you can that you find something that is not going to
73. 00:06:34 work inside of a call out like even the task queries. The thing is if you're going to have those
74. 00:06:38 multi line code blocks, you got to have the greater than sign and then a space for each line. Okay,
75. 00:06:43 inside the the call out. But if you're just doing, you know, text or bullets, it's really easy.
76. 00:06:49 Perfect. I will have to explore that more. Like it just helped my daily note. Good work.
77. 00:06:55 Give you another action item too. I know you do. We're not putting that in the action items.
78. 00:06:59 We're not putting that in the action items. All right. Cool. Let's talk about today's book,
79. 00:07:05 which is the science of storytelling by Will Store. This is an interesting book. It is based off of
80. 00:07:14 a storytelling class. You've got a physical book in your head. I just wanted to make sure
81. 00:07:21 until you saw that I was going to hold it up there until you saw it. I read a book again.
82. 00:07:25 Okay. It's a little bit shiny. It looks like maybe you got it from the library.
83. 00:07:28 I yeah, I love the library, right? We go to the library like seven times a week. So I just look
84. 00:07:34 and say like is the book at the library and I check it out. And then if it's worth it. So you
85. 00:07:38 have the philosophy of you buy it right away. I have the philosophy. It has to earn its way into
86. 00:07:42 my house, right? Both, both digitally and physically. Like it's got to earn its way. And then I will
87. 00:07:48 buy it. We just have different philosophies on this. Okay, I'm trying to become a library. I think
88. 00:07:53 we've got about eighteen hundred books in our house. Yeah, the the Mike Schmidt's family library.
89. 00:07:58 Like that's like, I mean, it's coming. You're going to donate all these to the Mike Schmidt's
90. 00:08:02 family library. Yep, someday, someday. So yeah, this is a book that is actually based on a
91. 00:08:09 science-based storytelling course. There is an introduction. There's an appendix at the end,
92. 00:08:16 which actually is like a specific sacred flaw approach that they talk about throughout the
93. 00:08:23 the rest of the book. But there are really only four chapters. There's a whole bunch of like
94. 00:08:29 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 sections. But there's a lot of those in each one of the chapters. And there's
95. 00:08:35 not enough in some of those to pull out ideas from every single one of them. That would actually
96. 00:08:40 probably make for like a 12 hour episode. So what we're going to do is we're going to break this
97. 00:08:44 down by chapter. The chapters basically contain all those those points around central themes. So
98. 00:08:51 like chapter one is creating a world. Chapter two is the flawed self. Chapter three is the dramatic
99. 00:08:57 question. And then chapter four is plot sendings and meaning. So they're grouped pretty nicely
100. 00:09:01 together. I guess you could have made these these sections. It's a pretty dense book, I would argue
101. 00:09:08 that covers a lot of ground. It is a lot of information, which if you are a writer is going
102. 00:09:14 to be insanely valuable. I'm kind of curious what your first impressions of this book
103. 00:09:22 were when you when you picked it up. Okay, so the the first question I have is I want to know
104. 00:09:27 your motivation for picking this book because like, okay, and here's and here's the background
105. 00:09:32 context in case anybody's anybody's new. Mike really isn't known as being the fiction guy,
106. 00:09:38 right? We've that is fair. That is worked on him. And we've gotten him to start reading some fiction
107. 00:09:43 books, which he said he's enjoying and we're doing okay on that. But like, this is about writing fiction.
108. 00:09:51 Now he does talk about, I think at one point where he's interviewing or writing a, you know,
109. 00:09:56 ghost writing a book for somebody's about about their real life. But this is primarily a book
110. 00:10:00 about writing fiction. So Mike, I'm interested in your motivation for why we're looking at a fiction
111. 00:10:06 writing book. Yeah, well, it's the science of storytelling. I didn't really know it was a fiction
112. 00:10:12 writing book. Okay, there we go. That's a good answer. Storytelling feels like a pretty broad
113. 00:10:19 topic. Yeah. And I think there's there's some stuff that's useful here, even if you're not
114. 00:10:23 trying to write a fiction book. But this is definitely from a fiction perspective. In fact,
115. 00:10:27 in the first section, first chapter that the creating a world, you see a whole bunch of examples,
116. 00:10:34 one right after the other of like famous first lines from different stories to illustrate the
117. 00:10:38 points that the author's making here. So yeah, I kind of thought it would be more along the lines
118. 00:10:45 of like story worthy by Matthew Dix. But I don't think that that's a bad thing that it wasn't
119. 00:10:53 exactly what I expected. Okay, so then you and I came in on the same page. Like when I saw the title
120. 00:10:57 of this book, the science of storytelling, I did not think writing a fiction book. I thought
121. 00:11:03 telling interesting stories. When I went to science, I also didn't think neuroscience,
122. 00:11:10 human psychology, like I didn't think those things either. I thought like, oh, it's a very, very
123. 00:11:17 applied approach, a research approach to telling stories, yada, yada, yada. Like we've looked at
124. 00:11:22 all the stories that have been told. And here are the, which he does some of that. But I did not
125. 00:11:27 think it was going to tie into like human psychology and neuroscience and all of these other things
126. 00:11:32 as much as it did. I don't think that's a negative necessarily. Like I did not come out of this
127. 00:11:38 going like, oh man, guy really missed the mark on adding value, you know, from a storytelling
128. 00:11:43 standpoint. It's just this is one of those books where I don't think the title tells you what's
129. 00:11:51 in the book. You know, like it's not a direct relation. Well, I could see that argument. I think
130. 00:11:58 it actually, I didn't really know what to expect. But I think it's pretty close to,
131. 00:12:06 I don't know, it's a little bit different angle, but it's, I wouldn't say it's, it's
132. 00:12:10 vastly different than than what I, what I anticipated. So the only other science of book that we've
133. 00:12:16 read is the science of scaling. There's way more science in this one. Yeah. And I think that it's
134. 00:12:23 interesting. Like the storytelling aspect here, I don't think it just applies to writers, but that's
135. 00:12:28 obviously the, the context or the perspective that the author's coming from. And I was going
136. 00:12:37 into it hoping that it, okay, so first of all, this book was recommended to me by somebody,
137. 00:12:42 and I can't remember because I have that rule about when someone I respect recommends a book,
138. 00:12:46 you just buy it. So I bought it and it's sitting on the shelf and I'm like, oh, actually that
139. 00:12:50 looks interesting. And didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but was hoping that it
140. 00:12:55 would help me craft better stories and narratives around some of the creative writing projects that
141. 00:13:00 I do, whether that's YouTube scripts, big long newsletters. I do actually want to write a book,
142. 00:13:06 and there should be a story element. I think with that, it's not just an information dump.
143. 00:13:11 So I just figured it would help me become a better internet communicator.
144. 00:13:17 And I think that's true. Like, I don't, I don't think that's wrong after having read the book.
145. 00:13:22 I think, I think it will serve that purpose. I'm intrigued to hear if you thought it served
146. 00:13:26 that purpose when we get to the end, but like, I think it'll serve that purpose. So yeah, I mean,
147. 00:13:31 I, like, it's different than what I expected, but that's okay.
148. 00:13:35 Yep. Well, there's only one way to find out. So let's dive in.
149. 00:13:40 The first chapter or first section of the book is the introduction. This one's pretty short.
150. 00:13:48 And basically the argument for why storytelling is important is made here. It says that story is
151. 00:13:54 what makes us human. There's simply no way to understand the human world without stories,
152. 00:13:58 which is a pretty strong point to make, but I think it's probably accurate.
153. 00:14:03 Talks about how this book is based on that science-based storytelling course and starts to talk about
154. 00:14:10 why plot can never work in isolation. So we should really focus on character instead.
155. 00:14:14 That sort of sets up the first chapter. And there's one other thing which I found useful in this
156. 00:14:19 introduction, which is that knowing why the rules are the rules means we know how to break
157. 00:14:23 them intelligently and successfully. I think that is broadly applicable to just about anything.
158. 00:14:29 That's why you want to know what the rules are so that you can figure out when and where you can
159. 00:14:36 break them. It's interesting because like, when you're just starting out with something,
160. 00:14:41 like, you don't want to maybe struggle with, like, I got to figure all this stuff out before I actually
161. 00:14:46 get started. You don't want to know that. But then once you do just like, put yourself out there
162. 00:14:51 and start making something, that's where the rules then come in handy, I feel like. So it's not,
163. 00:14:57 you know, you got to figure all this stuff out before you would actually sit down and write anything,
164. 00:15:01 start writing things. But then once you start writing things, that's where I feel like this
165. 00:15:05 approach really provides the most value. Do you agree? Yeah. One of the things I thought was really
166. 00:15:10 cool about this book is how I immediately started to think through what I consider good stories
167. 00:15:16 and say like, are they doing this? Are they doing this? Are they doing this? Right? So he makes a
168. 00:15:20 comment in this introduction. The challenge of any of us faces to grab and hold the attention
169. 00:15:24 of people's brains. And I think like, oh man, I totally understand that because the number of
170. 00:15:29 things I start to do or the number of stories I start to be told and I'm like, okay, you lost me,
171. 00:15:34 like, and I'm done. Like, will you ever get me back? Right? Kind of a thing. I like it. The other
172. 00:15:40 one is, and Katie, like, so my wife makes fun of me about this, but it's like, I love stories.
173. 00:15:45 Like, I absolutely love stories. I tell a lot of stories. I like it when people tell me stories.
174. 00:15:53 Like, my chill out downtime is a good story. Whether it's through reading, whether it's through an
175. 00:16:01 audio book, whether it's through watching a movie or a show or whatever it is, like, I like to be
176. 00:16:06 immersed in the story world. And I've always been like that. 100% always been like that. So from a,
177. 00:16:13 does this book check out? And like, am I even engaged in what he's going to start talking about?
178. 00:16:18 Like, he had me from, you know, from the intro. I was like, yeah, okay. Like, this aligns with my
179. 00:16:23 thinking as well. Nice. Yeah, I think you don't have to be a writer or someone who wants to write a
180. 00:16:30 book in order to benefit from that. I'm sure we'll talk about that as we go through. But if you're,
181. 00:16:35 like, kicking the tires on this episode, is this really for me? I would encourage you to stick with
182. 00:16:41 it. And I think actually even read this book, spoiler alert, I guess, I think it's, there's a
183. 00:16:46 lot of stuff in here for people who just want to tell better stories. And that should be just
184. 00:16:51 about everybody, I think. Yep. All right. Chapter one, chapter one, creating a world.
185. 00:16:57 Okay. So chapter one is, as Corey just alluded to, creating a world in the introduction, we got
186. 00:17:05 encouraged to focus on our characters rather than the plot. I feel like there's a couple
187. 00:17:11 spiky points of view throughout the book, that's going to be one of them. And this is actually
188. 00:17:19 kind of tough to figure out what specifically we're going to talk about in each one of these
189. 00:17:24 chapters. So I'm just going to share, I think there's a couple lists of things, like in this one,
190. 00:17:29 it's the four ways to involuntarily induce curiosity in humans. So I'll kind of call out those, but
191. 00:17:34 then I have no idea where the conversation will actually end up going. So with creating a world,
192. 00:17:41 that the big point he makes in the first section of this is that change is fascinating to our
193. 00:17:50 brains and that many stories begin with a moment of unexpected change. And the neuroscience part of
194. 00:17:58 this is kind of interesting because he talks about how when you experience a change, it registers as
195. 00:18:03 a surge of neural activity. So there's a natural inclination by the human brain to resolve these
196. 00:18:11 information gaps, even for questions of no importance. Anytime there's a change, it's like, well,
197. 00:18:16 how is this different? Why is this different? What about all of this? Right? So if you're going to
198. 00:18:21 tell a good story, you should lean into that. And there's four ways to involuntarily induce
199. 00:18:26 curiosity in humans. So this is kind of interesting, because I don't want to get into like the,
200. 00:18:33 I guess, like the the 48 laws of power, and even influenced by Robert Chialdini,
201. 00:18:38 kind of is this area where some people just swear by those books. And I feel like the
202. 00:18:43 information that's in those books is actually really good. But there is a whole nother camp is
203. 00:18:47 like, that's just manipulating humans. And I get where that they're coming from to. So when you read
204. 00:18:56 that, this is sort of what that feels like to me is like involuntarily induced curiosity humans.
205. 00:19:00 What if I don't want to be curious? But I think everybody is curious in some way. So really what
206. 00:19:07 this is, if I were to restate this, it's four ways to create open loops. And then you just let the
207. 00:19:13 brain do the rest. Okay, that maybe makes it a little bit more palatable. So first, you can pose
208. 00:19:16 a question or present a puzzle. Second, you can expose a sequence of events with an anticipated
209. 00:19:21 but unknown resolution. Third, you can violate expectations in a way that triggers a search
210. 00:19:27 for an explanation. Or fourth, you can make it clear that knowledge is possessed by someone else.
211. 00:19:36 I don't know specifically, like, nothing when I read those jumped out to be like, Oh, I totally
212. 00:19:41 gonna apply this the next time I have to write, you know, that. But I think these are actually
213. 00:19:46 pretty useful. And I like the idea of triggering those open loops. I feel like this is broadly
214. 00:19:53 applicable. Like I said, not just if you're trying to write a write a write a book. Like,
215. 00:19:57 occasionally I get asked to preach at my church. And I feel like opening a curiosity, it would be
216. 00:20:04 valuable when you're starting a sermon, you know, just as an example of something that you wouldn't
217. 00:20:09 really think about being being influenced in a positive way by reading something like the science
218. 00:20:16 of storytelling, but is. Yeah, I think this applies to so many different domains, right? And it's
219. 00:20:22 listed as psychology of curiosity. So you think about it in any situation. But I think about the
220. 00:20:28 way I use these in teaching classes, right? Or the way I use these in trying to talk to the boys,
221. 00:20:33 like my kids. And it's like, I can see myself using and applying these all over the place where you
222. 00:20:39 pose a question. And they go, huh? Like, like, okay, guys, how would you start to, you know,
223. 00:20:46 whatever this is? And then they think of it as a puzzle and they think of it as a, as a thing.
224. 00:20:49 So by no means you had mentioned like, you know, the 48 laws of power and those kinds of things.
225. 00:20:54 Like, I got no negatives, you know, like no negative feeling out of this on any level,
226. 00:21:00 because these are just a way for me to engage with somebody else. And where I think this is
227. 00:21:07 different, a little bit, and I'm not putting words in your mouth saying that you said any
228. 00:21:11 different, but it's like, where I think this is different is I often as the receiver of the
229. 00:21:16 conversation or the receiver of the story want to be curious as well. Like, like, it's more fun.
230. 00:21:20 If I'm curious, I don't feel like you're taking advantage of me. I don't feel like you're doing
231. 00:21:24 anything negative. It's like, Oh, no, like, this is it. This is better if you instill curiosity. And
232. 00:21:30 it's for better for both of us. So no, I like these a lot. Like, I thought these were, were good.
233. 00:21:34 And one of the things I think about is, okay, how can I incorporate more of these without being
234. 00:21:41 fake artificial? Yeah, like, that's where I think you go a little too far is when you like,
235. 00:21:45 you force it, if that makes sense, you know, like somebody starts out the presentation and they're
236. 00:21:49 like, here's the stat. That's the most ridiculous stat ever and marginally aligns with the story I
237. 00:21:55 want to tell you. And it's like, come on, like, you really forced that one. Yeah, well, that actually
238. 00:21:59 gets into some of the other stuff at the end of this, the section where he says, don't over explain
239. 00:22:05 things or curiosity will be extinguished and readers will become bored. Yep. So essentially,
240. 00:22:11 like, that's one of the themes that happens throughout the book is you got to figure out
241. 00:22:17 where the line is in terms of sharing and don't overshare. I think that's probably
242. 00:22:25 a trap I fall into fairly frequently because my logical analytical brain
243. 00:22:31 wants to connect all of that. It's like, oh, well, you need to know this and you need to know this
244. 00:22:34 and you need to know this. No, they don't need to know that they need to feel a specific thing.
245. 00:22:39 And almost the more information that you share, it gets in the way. It kind of, you can make
246. 00:22:46 somebody feel something and it can, it can achieve your objective much better that they've had that
247. 00:22:53 feeling. And then, like, when you share information, yes, maybe it's a little bit more accurate now.
248. 00:22:58 They have a little bit more context, but it sort of waters things down to a certain degree. So,
249. 00:23:04 I got to figure out for myself, like, where that line is. Oh, okay. So I think this breaks at some
250. 00:23:09 point, though, right? Yes. And here's what I mean. Have you seen Lost? Did you watch Lost? Yeah.
251. 00:23:15 Okay. So for anybody out there that's listening that didn't watch Lost,
252. 00:23:18 Lost is about a plane crash. These people were on this island. Does he mention that in this book?
253. 00:23:23 He does. Yeah. He references Lost as well. Okay. Because they're on this island,
254. 00:23:26 they don't know why there's this thing they got to keep resetting the timer on. Yeah.
255. 00:23:30 Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to intentionally slow play the next, like, 10 seconds. If you don't
256. 00:23:37 want to hear about Lost, and you don't want me to spoil Lost for you, fast forward, fast forward
257. 00:23:43 right now, please fast forward. Anyhow, Lost ends in a terrible way, in my mind. And it's this idea
258. 00:23:49 of like, we didn't just water it down and give you all the details of like how everything resolved.
259. 00:23:53 And I'm like, no, that's the worst ending ever. So he says it here. He says it later in the book
260. 00:24:00 about like, intentionally withholding things in the story, helps people engage with the story and
261. 00:24:06 like drives them forward. And there is a breaking point in that, like without clearly, in my mind,
262. 00:24:11 there's a breaking point in that like, yes, withholding things for a period of time is valuable.
263. 00:24:17 But then there are certain things. Dag on it. You don't withhold those things, right? Like you need
264. 00:24:21 to tell the audience those things. So I mean, I'm, I'm just, you know, like, I think there's a,
265. 00:24:26 there's a balance here. And that's where this gets to the idea of, I found myself wanting to like,
266. 00:24:34 put myself in the, in the seat of somebody writing, you know, I'm writing a fiction book. And I say,
267. 00:24:39 this is my manual. I'm going to follow this manual to write my fiction book. And I thought to myself,
268. 00:24:44 yeah, but this stuff breaks down. Like, and this is where, you know, we've talked about it before,
269. 00:24:48 writing groups or mastermind groups or whatever it is where people can give you feedback. And I
270. 00:24:53 think that's where like this as a guide, plus experienced and wise other people really come into
271. 00:25:01 play and like become very, very valuable. Because if I just followed this, it's really easy for me
272. 00:25:07 to do things wrong. But if I follow this and Mike, you're an experienced writer who also is thinking
273. 00:25:12 about these things. And you come back to me and you're like, Corey, you took it too far. Like,
274. 00:25:16 it just doesn't work, you know, and an editor and those kinds of things. I think it's a balance. So,
275. 00:25:21 and that is why we have a book that shares everything that's in the course.
276. 00:25:26 Yeah. I mean, this is a, there's a lot of valuable stuff in here. But to your point,
277. 00:25:31 you can't just know that. And then you're done. This is not a, a knowledge problem. It's an
278. 00:25:38 implementation problem. Absolutely. I'm curious of what you thought. So he, he states at one
279. 00:25:43 point here, vividness and immersion require and then you list four things. I'm guessing you outlined
280. 00:25:49 these four as well. But it's not okay. So it's not three section, three specific details about a
281. 00:25:54 thing that you evoke the senses that you name and create things and then that things get unpredictable.
282. 00:26:02 And he said, those are what make vividness and immersion in. And I'm curious at what you think
283. 00:26:09 about like, do any of those stand out to you? We like, I think about vividness. I think about
284. 00:26:14 immersion. Like, and I like the idea of immersion better than, than vividness really. But it's like,
285. 00:26:18 how do I get lost in the story? Is it the details? Is it the senses? Is it the naming and creating?
286. 00:26:24 Or is it the unpredictableness? Do any of those stand out to you when you're reading a fiction?
287. 00:26:28 It's all of the above, I think. Okay. Like one of the examples that he mentions later in terms of
288. 00:26:36 the like getting involved in the the story is you want to feel like you're part of the world,
289. 00:26:43 even if you don't understand all of the things that they're talking about. So for example, in Star Wars,
290. 00:26:49 when Luke sees the Millennium Falcon, he's like, what a piece of junk. And Han Solo is like,
291. 00:26:54 it ran, it made the the Kessel run in 12 parsecs or whatever. Like, what the heck is a parsec?
292. 00:26:59 What the heck is a Kessel run? You don't know. But like, obviously you understand the way that
293. 00:27:06 he's explaining it. Like, no, actually, it's, it's a fast ship. And it did this impressive thing.
294. 00:27:12 So that kind of gets into, I think maybe the idea of metaphor in this first section,
295. 00:27:17 where he actually says metaphor is the dominant way we understand abstract concepts. But then also,
296. 00:27:23 the more familiar the metaphor is the less effective it is. I know that was that was surprising to me.
297. 00:27:28 Yeah. So I thought about that with that Star Wars example, like, yeah, well, if it did it in,
298. 00:27:32 you know, in 23 minutes. Okay, now I have context for how long it actually took. I still have no
299. 00:27:37 idea what it is. And the more details that you put around that, the less impressive it becomes,
300. 00:27:42 because we want to get immersed in that that world, we want to understand what the Kessel run
301. 00:27:47 is. We want to understand what a parsec is or although, you know, monetary terms they use in
302. 00:27:52 Star Wars. And think and think about what this does, right? Like, this creates all of your fan
303. 00:27:57 fiction, your wikis, all of these things. And it's like, if there is no better form of immersion to me,
304. 00:28:04 then when I go, what the heck is a parsec? And then like, go on to, you know, the online and next
305. 00:28:10 thing I know, I've lost an hour and a half of my life trying to like, you know, after I've read
306. 00:28:14 all the debates about what people think a parsec is, right? Like, you know, or what unit of time it is.
307. 00:28:18 And it's explained in this canon, seven books away or whatever it is.
308. 00:28:22 Yeah, I was actually thinking a lot about like the best version of this. And I think probably the
309. 00:28:28 best version that I can possibly think of is something like the Lord of the Rings, right? Where
310. 00:28:33 there are all of these different races, there's all these different languages, like, Toby will,
311. 00:28:42 will probably cringe as he hears me talk about this, because he knows way more about it than I do,
312. 00:28:46 but my understanding, Jarrod Tolkien, like, created these languages for the Lord of the Rings.
313. 00:28:54 And doesn't share all of the details about why the languages are the way that they are. You just
314. 00:29:01 encounter the languages throughout the story. Like, the lore is there, I guess, if you really want to
315. 00:29:08 dig into it, but the effectiveness of the story itself is that he doesn't share all that stuff.
316. 00:29:13 He put in all the work and then doesn't share it. That feels like that would be really hard for me
317. 00:29:20 to do. Yeah. And you end up getting it. So mine is because of my generation and like,
318. 00:29:27 kind of want to grow up, mine's the Harry Potter series. Well, it's the exact same thing, right?
319. 00:29:32 Like, there's so much backstory that isn't expressed in the canonical, you know, books that everybody
320. 00:29:41 thinks about as the Harry Potter series. So what do you do? Then you've got these extra supplemental
321. 00:29:45 books that were made after the fact or, you know, as part of it. And the same thing with Lord of the
322. 00:29:51 Rings, right? Like, I mean, there's these extra maps and these extra atlases and describing these
323. 00:29:56 different things. And Toby has them all. Yep, exactly. Okay, so I'm going to move us to the
324. 00:30:01 to the next point that comes out of this first chapter is this idea cause and effect. And I resonated
325. 00:30:06 with this idea, but basically he says you should show it rather than tell it like and actually help
326. 00:30:13 people see or experience, I guess, if you will, is probably a better word. Experience like this
327. 00:30:19 happened because of this, this happened because of this. So he later on, he's going to describe this,
328. 00:30:23 you know, when he talks about the flawed character, this origin story that causes the flaw. So like,
329. 00:30:29 the effect is the flaw. And then there's this origin story that causes the and if you can show
330. 00:30:33 the reader that thing, but he says, you know, this cause and effect idea is what essentially
331. 00:30:39 will drive the story forward and keep things moving. And I thought that was a really, really good,
332. 00:30:45 good point that I can see when I think through a lot of stories that I've that I've read and
333. 00:30:48 enjoyed. Yeah, and it kind of sets up the next section. So you ready to go there? I am. Yeah.
334. 00:30:54 Okay, so chapter two is the flawed self. And the main point here is that who we are is how we're
335. 00:31:05 broken. Nobody's ever right about everything. So if you're going to have an awesome character
336. 00:31:11 in your story, they have to have some flaws. And to your point, the the origin of those flaws
337. 00:31:21 is is important. Actually, that gets called out in the appendix, the sacred flaw approach,
338. 00:31:28 specifically. What do they call that? The they call that the not the dramatic question.
339. 00:31:37 I forget the damage. Yeah, yeah, that's it. The origin damage.
340. 00:31:43 So when it comes to the flawed self, though, there's five big personality traits, and there's
341. 00:31:50 kind of high and low on each of these. And they give examples of real characters from real stories
342. 00:31:56 that fit all these there's neuroticism, there's extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and
343. 00:32:01 conscientiousness. I this part, honestly, like I've not really done any sort of character development.
344. 00:32:09 The closest I get is like ideal customer profile. Same. Yeah, I'm in the same boat.
345. 00:32:14 I have not developed any characters. But I think this is fascinating. I kind of don't know
346. 00:32:22 how this benefits the work that I do right now, but I'm sure it does.
347. 00:32:30 One of the things that stands out to me from this is the fact that storytellers can show
348. 00:32:35 personality of their characters and almost everything that they do. So if I am using story
349. 00:32:42 in my videos or the book that I'm writing, all that kind of stuff, I have to be
350. 00:32:49 pretty intentional about the details that I'm actually going to share. It can't just be, I did
351. 00:32:54 this or the person did this and then did this and then did this. They actually talked about that
352. 00:33:00 in this first section that your scenes should have a because between them, not an and then.
353. 00:33:05 So I think that's the big takeaway for me is all those details that you're going to share.
354. 00:33:09 There should be like a through line and you should be able to see looking back why those
355. 00:33:15 details were shared that way. And then also, I think with this, a big point is that there's a
356. 00:33:25 difference between Western culture and Eastern culture in terms of what the character is supposed
357. 00:33:32 to do by the end of the story. Our brain is trying to figure out what comes next and it does that
358. 00:33:43 by building these mental models. At some point, our brain goes from a model builder to a model
359. 00:33:50 defender and that's where the cultural stuff comes in. So like the Western culture, we've got this
360. 00:33:54 individualist propaganda, the rugged, you know, American individualism. I can do it on my own,
361. 00:34:01 you know, rags to riches, all that kind of stuff. But in Eastern tales, they don't actually give
362. 00:34:04 you an answer at the end of the story. He is at the kind of decide what happens from there
363. 00:34:08 by yourself, which I can I can totally see how that makes that would make me just based on the
364. 00:34:14 culture that I live in a little bit uncomfortable. So yeah, we make up our minds about whether this
365. 00:34:23 is right or wrong. We make up memories of events that never happened. We've got this hero maker
366. 00:34:29 bias, they talk about where we try to justify everything. And then meaning is created by the
367. 00:34:38 right change event happening to the right person at the right moment. It's interesting, you know,
368. 00:34:44 just from from the starting to move in this direction in this section, but it's really not
369. 00:34:49 the focus where like talks later on in the book about meaning and purpose and all that kind of
370. 00:34:56 stuff. And obviously, that's like a big thing with what I do with the life theme stuff,
371. 00:35:01 your personal mission statement, personal core values, stuff like that. I've actually encountered
372. 00:35:05 a lot of material lately, read some books where it's kind of pushing back against that idea,
373. 00:35:10 sort of like everything is meaningless. And he's basically saying like, no, actually,
374. 00:35:13 it's it's really important, which I kind of like, even if it is from a fictional storytelling
375. 00:35:19 perspective, the fact that these are the the narratives that we tell. And he makes the point
376. 00:35:23 that we're all fictional fictional characters, the world that we live in is made up. The pain
377. 00:35:29 that we experience, it's not actually pain, it's just our brain telling us it's pain, the colors
378. 00:35:33 that we see like nothing has color in the essence of the atom. That's just how our brain interprets
379. 00:35:38 it. So I don't know kind of kind of interesting, but also no big solid, like this is what I'm
380. 00:35:44 gonna do with this. This is this chapter. There's a couple different ways where he and I diverge
381. 00:35:53 in our, in our thinking. So first you described it at some level. I'm not thinking in terms of,
382. 00:36:01 you know, novel fiction novel writing. So therefore the idea of like, okay, this person's got a flaw,
383. 00:36:08 and then we're going to develop that flaw and we're going to wrestle around with that flaw for the
384. 00:36:11 next, you know, couple hundred pages. I'm thinking more of like, okay, this story is going to last
385. 00:36:18 a max of like three minutes, and I'm going to use it for some other utility, right? Like it's not
386. 00:36:24 just entertainment. It's like to communicate a message, teach a point, sell a product, you know,
387. 00:36:30 whatever it might be, like that's where my brain's at. So I had to go, okay, hold on, this flawed
388. 00:36:35 self thing, like I think of it mostly as like a pain point. Like, like the flaw is you're trying
389. 00:36:41 to do a thing, but you're doing it the wrong way. Like there's this flaw. Now the other one that
390. 00:36:46 came out of this to me and this, it's here and in the, in the appendix is my inherent gut reaction
391. 00:36:52 goes to it's a moral flaw within the character. And he calls out no, it does not have to be a moral
392. 00:36:59 flaw within the character. It is a flaw in the character's thinking or a moral flaw, right? Like
393. 00:37:06 so it's like, it's kind of this don't think it has to be this one thing, but my brain immediately
394. 00:37:11 goes to it's a moral flaw in the character. And then here, here's the second part. So I said that
395. 00:37:16 the form of the story is very different between him and me. All of his examples are like
396. 00:37:22 heady academic English and British literature and like, you know, all this stuff. And here I am
397. 00:37:29 thinking like Marvel super hero, you know, this type of thing, this type of thing. So it's like,
398. 00:37:34 I'm seeing all the same things he is, but I'm using none of the like Lawrence of Arabia example
399. 00:37:40 or citizen Kane or all this stuff. Like this guy is operating at a significantly different
400. 00:37:45 level of literature than I would even think about operating it. So I think that's points.
401. 00:37:51 Points could be the same though, right? Oh, they're absolutely the same. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
402. 00:37:55 Yeah. Think about every, think about every Marvel super hero. Like they've got some flaw
403. 00:37:59 either in their thinking or in their person. And therefore we develop an entire story around that.
404. 00:38:05 I mean, Iron Man, like my goodness, like the entire Iron Man saga is, you know, Tony Stark
405. 00:38:11 trying to get out of his own way, you know, as this flawed, this flawed genius or whatever,
406. 00:38:15 we're trying to understand his backstory. So, so I think that's really, really cool.
407. 00:38:19 But then I think he hit some points here that are like incredibly, incredibly spot on from the
408. 00:38:26 psychology and like science and sociology literature. This idea of like play and storytelling are
409. 00:38:32 essential to our culture. I mean, I've got young kids right now, Mike, you do too, right? Like most
410. 00:38:37 of what they do and the way they understand the world is through play and storytelling. So like,
411. 00:38:41 they'll start to play. And really what they're looking for is like, is this character that I'm
412. 00:38:47 playing right now doing things the right way? Like, you know, daddy, would you create, would you
413. 00:38:52 correct this character? Would you like give this character any feedback or like so and so was so
414. 00:38:57 and so and they jumped out of a plane, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Oh, you wouldn't want to do that
415. 00:39:01 because blah, blah, blah. And they're learning about culture that way. Like they're learning
416. 00:39:04 about how to interact with the world that way. And I just think that's like spot on. And I think
417. 00:39:09 we still are doing that. Like, I think no matter how old we get, we just do it where we try to do
418. 00:39:15 it. Like I should say in more sophisticated forms. So instead of us creating an imaginary
419. 00:39:20 character that's going to go do all these other things, we read books and we try to analyze the
420. 00:39:24 fiction books. We watch movies and we try to analyze those things. The last one I'll say and then I'll
421. 00:39:30 I'll stop. I'll get off my soapbox. But it's like the last one is this theory of control.
422. 00:39:33 The idea of theory of control. I can't remember if he if he introduced it in the last chapter or
423. 00:39:37 this chapter, but he talks about it here again. And it's basically like, what level of control
424. 00:39:44 do I have? What level of control do I want? What level of control do I expect? And then how is my
425. 00:39:50 flawed thinking or my flawed moral character impacting that level of control? And then how am I
426. 00:39:57 being pushed and not pushed and challenged and not challenged? And I just think this idea of like
427. 00:40:03 control within characters and yourself and all these other things. I think it's a really like
428. 00:40:09 cool idea that drives a story, drives a story forward, whether it's a big story or a small story.
429. 00:40:16 I don't really care on that level. Like it can be a 100 page story or a two minute video. And I
430. 00:40:21 think that's a that's a cool idea. Yeah. So the thing that you're you're hitting it there with
431. 00:40:26 the element of of control, essentially a good story. You mentioned this at the beginning of this
432. 00:40:31 section is where you identify and accept your flaws, then you change who you are, meaning the
433. 00:40:37 the protagonist or the character. But to do that means breaking down the very structure of our
434. 00:40:42 reality before rebuilding it. So that can be really scary. And when you have no idea how it's
435. 00:40:47 going to turn out, but those are also the the best stories. The other thing that really
436. 00:40:53 stood out to me from this section, and it sort of clicked as you were you were talking through
437. 00:40:58 things, is that the events don't matter if there isn't a character attached to them.
438. 00:41:03 And that one, I feel like has immediate application for me. When I read that just now,
439. 00:41:10 I was thinking about the book I read not too long ago, Ghost Town Living by Brent Underwood,
440. 00:41:15 literally a guy who bought this ghost town and is trying to to fix it up, essentially make it like
441. 00:41:23 a tourist place. Like it had this old historic hotel. But the thing that makes that book interesting
442. 00:41:29 is not that he is rehabbing this ghost town. It's that he tells all of these stories about
443. 00:41:36 these interactions that he had with people who were local to the area, who didn't trust them
444. 00:41:41 at the beginning. And he had to show up, get up early, work late, do the work. They had to believe
445. 00:41:47 that he was really interested in improving that town, even though there's nobody that that lives
446. 00:41:53 there. And he's not gonna just like blow everything up and all there goes the neighborhood, you know,
447. 00:41:59 because they've lived there and their families for hundreds of years and they want everything
448. 00:42:03 preserved the way it was. So the situations that he gets into and the conversations that he has with
449. 00:42:09 these these crazy people who live on the land, you know, that's what made that book fascinating.
450. 00:42:16 You take him out of that, you take those stories out of that, and it's just the the lessons he's
451. 00:42:21 trying to communicate or historically, you know, this, the hotel, which is the reason why he bought
452. 00:42:27 the town burned down, you know, shortly after he he bought it and then he rebuilt it. Like that's
453. 00:42:32 boring. But when he tells the details about how he's aching from the previous day's work, and then
454. 00:42:37 he wakes up early to the the smell of smoke and he like heart jumps up in his chest and he runs
455. 00:42:44 out there. And yeah, like that is what makes that book. And that's where I feel like I can I can
456. 00:42:51 benefit from taking this approach. I don't know how you necessarily translate because there is like
457. 00:42:56 the long arc emphasis in a lot of this stuff. The Niax section, or maybe it's the last section
458. 00:43:02 talks about like the standard five act structure. You know, you you can't do that when you've got
459. 00:43:08 three minutes to tell the story. Maybe you can. Maybe he'd push back on that. I don't know. But
460. 00:43:12 well, I think it does take a different approach. And there's probably a better book for that.
461. 00:43:17 Or at least there's probably a better course or book or or something for for that one. But
462. 00:43:21 if you're ready, I'm ready to go to chapter three. Yep.
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475. 00:44:33 All right, so chapter three is the dramatic question. Do you remember what the dramatic question is?
476. 00:44:40 Who am I? I think is what it is. Exactly. Who am I? Which again, this just reinforces his whole
477. 00:44:47 point about the character is the thing that matters, not the plot. But once he says that,
478. 00:44:52 that really does make it click and you start to think about all of the good stories that
479. 00:44:58 you've heard and the movies that you liked and the books that you've read, that was this character
480. 00:45:02 trying to figure out and break the social norms and all that kind of stuff. Okay, play along.
481. 00:45:06 What's the first one? When you say like the who am I and you think about it in the story,
482. 00:45:09 what's the first story you think of where you're like somebody's asking who am I?
483. 00:45:13 I'm putting on a spot. Well, okay, so the one that stood out to me but it's recency bias,
484. 00:45:17 I'm reading red rising, right? Okay. Or I read red rising. I'm now on the
485. 00:45:22 about to start second one. I think it's golden sun. But red rising is about this character who's
486. 00:45:27 like the lowest of the low in the caste system and they believe that they're gonna, he's gonna
487. 00:45:31 be the one, you know, turn everything around sort of like Neo with the matrix.
488. 00:45:36 The whole story is them figuring out where their limits are. And that's fascinating.
489. 00:45:45 My mind, I told you this before, like the Harry Potter series, right? Like I love the Harry Potter
490. 00:45:50 series and that's what he's trying to do. Like Harry Potter's trying to figure who is he?
491. 00:45:54 Like who am I? Like I and he's got this flawed origin story and all this stuff. Like,
492. 00:45:59 it's directly related to the way he's describing all of the stuff. And it's just fun. Like it's
493. 00:46:07 interesting to see how spot on he was in a lot of ways. Yeah. And this section about this dramatic
494. 00:46:15 question, really the point is that the narrator is supposed to help people figure this stuff out,
495. 00:46:20 right? And you're telling these stories. One of the things that mentions is facts while nice are
496. 00:46:27 optional for the telling of the story. I'm not sure I feel about that because I tend to want all
497. 00:46:34 the facts, but it makes sense. Plot develops as characters try to control things and can't and
498. 00:46:41 as models fracture and breakdown, previous repressed wills become more dominant. So there's a whole
499. 00:46:46 bunch of like drama that's created here by the struggle for the control that that you were you're
500. 00:46:53 talking about. It talks about the two wired inhibitions that people have to get along with
501. 00:46:58 people and to get ahead of people and how sometimes those can be at odds. And that specifically when
502. 00:47:06 I read this, I thought of red rising because the whole idea behind red rising spoiling alert,
503. 00:47:11 spoiler alert, I guess this guy, you know, gets thrown into this academy for the elites where
504. 00:47:17 it's basically Hunger Games. And they break up into these tribes and they're trying to survive.
505. 00:47:23 And like, who's the leader of this tribe? But also your tribe has to battle all the other tribes.
506. 00:47:30 So who's going to actually win? Yeah, I'll stop there. But I remember reading the sections like,
507. 00:47:39 they just followed the formula. Yeah, exactly. But it worked. And when he addresses that later,
508. 00:47:46 like, you can't just follow the formula. But then I'm reading this book thinking about all of the
509. 00:47:51 stories that I know of that have just followed this formula. Like they are true. They seem or
510. 00:47:55 they seemingly have just followed this formula. So I'm kind of torn on that. Like if I'm being
511. 00:48:00 real honest with you, I was like, well, does the formula work? I don't know. Like, how much in the
512. 00:48:03 background did they like, did they mess with the formula? I don't really know kind of how that works.
513. 00:48:09 I think there's probably some confirmation bias because there's a lot of points that are in here,
514. 00:48:13 which when you hear them and you're thinking about a specific story, you can be like, oh,
515. 00:48:16 yeah, I see how they did that. Like, one of the things that they mentioned is that nothing is
516. 00:48:22 likely to make a person more mad than the removal of their status. So again, red rising as the example.
517. 00:48:28 I'm the leader. I'm no longer the leader. Who's with me? Yadda yadda yadda.
518. 00:48:33 And like, you can cherry pick examples and be like, oh, I see how they applied this. But when
519. 00:48:37 you're starting from scratch, I think I think of it more as like a paint palette. You've got these
520. 00:48:41 different things that you can you can use. And yeah, you're not going to use all of them. You may
521. 00:48:47 use most of them. You may combine them in different and interesting ways. But yeah, the end of a
522. 00:48:55 perfect story, he says, a hero or a heroine must represent the coming together of four virtues,
523. 00:49:00 strength, order, feeling, and understanding. What do you think about that?
524. 00:49:05 This one didn't stand out to me. So like, as you say this, I was like, I don't really remember
525. 00:49:09 that section. So we say it again, as a the hero must do what has to the the at the end of a perfect
526. 00:49:15 story. The hero, the hero's transformation must represent a coming together of four virtues,
527. 00:49:21 strength, order, feeling, and understanding. But there's also, you know, mentioned the eastern
528. 00:49:26 tales that don't give you the answer. So I don't know exactly if this is from a Western perspective
529. 00:49:32 that we want these four virtues to come together. Or maybe there's a I think I think I can see how
530. 00:49:38 this would get applied in other cultures as well. But I don't think, you know, it has to be, I am
531. 00:49:44 the strongest things are now under my control. I feel good about things and I completely understand
532. 00:49:49 things. It's just those questions about how strong am I? Yeah. What's the order of things? That's
533. 00:49:55 actually what gets answered by the. So that actually makes a lot more sense to me. Like before that
534. 00:49:59 didn't really resonate with me. When you said at the very end, is like, if I tie it to the most
535. 00:50:03 essential question, like the who am I? Well, who am I from a strength standpoint? Who am I from a
536. 00:50:07 what's the order of the world and where do I stand in it status standpoint? Like that all makes sense
537. 00:50:12 to me is like the the character, which he would say drives the entire story, is trying to figure
538. 00:50:19 those things out where I would go. And and I kind of do that just off the off the cuff is are those
539. 00:50:25 the only four? Or are there other ones that could swap in and out and still make a really, really
540. 00:50:31 good story? I think my gut would say there are there are others that could swap in and out that
541. 00:50:37 could make a good story, but not that those four are bad. It's just that I think there are others
542. 00:50:42 that probably could those might be the most common. Maybe I but I don't remember that that
543. 00:50:45 section at all. So that's that didn't stand out to me when I was reading. I think those four virtues
544. 00:50:51 are probably accurate. Maybe there are some other ones that you can insert in there, but I don't
545. 00:50:59 know that feels right to me that those are the ones that you should be thinking about if you're
546. 00:51:02 trying to wrap up your your story. You have to kind of have an idea of what that transformation
547. 00:51:08 is going to look like by the end. Yeah, I got I got one for us in the chapter. Go for it. So he
548. 00:51:16 refers to Brian Little who's a who's a professor and psychologist and he says all individuals are
549. 00:51:21 essentially scientists erecting and testing their hypothesis about the world and revising them in
550. 00:51:26 light of experience of their experience. And I think about this and I think about it in relation
551. 00:51:31 to storytelling. Like those are that like that makes sense. Like this is what we're trying to do
552. 00:51:36 is like I'm making hypothesis about the way the world works and then I'm going to test that and
553. 00:51:40 then I'm going to revise and this is where we get into mental models and we get into like so many
554. 00:51:45 other concepts that we've we've talked about is like I'm constantly developing a mental model,
555. 00:51:51 testing the mental model, revising the mental model, right? And and he describes it, you know,
556. 00:51:55 as hypotheses. Well, I think throw in mental model in there. But then like the stories that
557. 00:52:01 I think I resonate the most with, I bet you if I went back and looked at them, the same thing is
558. 00:52:05 happening. The character has a mental model. They test that mental model and then they figure out
559. 00:52:11 whether or not that's true. So whether it's a love story where they're testing like, I have a
560. 00:52:15 mental model that like this person feels the same way about me as I do about that. Yeah, they test
561. 00:52:19 that and weren't like, you know, like it either goes well or it doesn't. Or I have the mental model
562. 00:52:25 that I'm the best runner in the high school. And then I go and I test that model and I find out
563. 00:52:30 that I either am or I'm not, you know, like I think that really checks out in terms of
564. 00:52:36 the reason why those stories work so well and that concept works so well is because
565. 00:52:41 that's really what we're trying to do all the time as humans. Like we're trying to test those
566. 00:52:45 mental models and we're trying to get to and I'm putting in air quotes for anybody that's not
567. 00:52:49 watching. We're trying to get to the best mental model. And it's like, is there one or is or the
568. 00:52:55 mental model is just going to evolve until we die. And that's okay. Like that's what they're
569. 00:52:59 supposed to do. They're supposed to continually just adapt and adapt and adapt and get closer to,
570. 00:53:05 you know, a true understanding of reality or truth or whatever. You're like, I just really like
571. 00:53:10 that part of this chapter. Yeah, to that point, there is a phrase that he uses here in life,
572. 00:53:17 the dramatic question of who we are never has a final and fulfilling answer. But that is the
573. 00:53:22 journey for as long as you are on this earth. What do you think about? What do you think about
574. 00:53:27 dialogue? So he talks about meaningful words and he talks about dialogue between the characters.
575. 00:53:33 Do you think I'm going to give it as a binary, but you don't have to answer it as a binary. Do you
576. 00:53:37 think like dialogue really drives a story forward for you or does dialogue just something that happens?
577. 00:53:45 Like, how do you think about dialogue? Great question. I think it generally drives the story
578. 00:53:52 forward. However, the example that comes to mind for me is Wally, where like the first 50 minutes
579. 00:54:00 of the movie, there's not a word that is spoken. Yeah, essentially, the boys wanted nothing to do
580. 00:54:06 with that because there wasn't a word spoken for the first long time of the movie. Yeah, exactly.
581. 00:54:11 Our young kids are the same way. Now they all love it. And yeah, I think that's really a fascinating
582. 00:54:18 approach to telling the story. So I think the point maybe they were making with Wally is that
583. 00:54:25 you don't need to rely on that. Maybe in some ways, people rely on it too much and it ends up
584. 00:54:29 being a little bit of a crutch that you can lean on. It's like, well, we've got an insert dialogue
585. 00:54:34 here. I think, I don't know, I think my general approach, my general takeaway from this would be
586. 00:54:45 use dialogue when absolutely necessary, but look to communicate things other ways, whether it's
587. 00:54:50 internal, like this is what I'm thinking through the character. When they talked about dialogue,
588. 00:54:56 and you mentioned the words the character speaks to both sound true and rise with meaning.
589. 00:55:01 So every word that comes out of a character's mouth, not just the protagonist, I feel like
590. 00:55:05 really has to mean something. And then he talks about gossip and that being society's way of
591. 00:55:12 a policing people morally, even when there isn't a police force to do that kind of thing.
592. 00:55:18 I don't know. Maybe it's just the types of stories that I tell where there's not a whole
593. 00:55:23 lot of dialogue that happens there. So maybe I just kind of skipped over that part a little bit.
594. 00:55:32 Did you ever watch the West Wing? I did not know. So this is the one that pops into my head where
595. 00:55:37 normally dialogue is not the most important thing. I know that it's telling me stuff about the story
596. 00:55:45 and it's people, but I don't call it out. It might just because it's so natural. I don't call it
597. 00:55:50 out as like, oh, that dialogue was incredible. But there have been a few shows where the show is
598. 00:55:58 all about the dialogue. The story is all about the dialogue. And that's 100% of the driver of the
599. 00:56:04 show. The West Wing is a show about the White House. And I forget when it came in the early 2000s,
600. 00:56:09 something like that. I can't remember when it was. But the way it was written and the dialogue
601. 00:56:14 between the characters was so fast and sharp and back and forth that it just completely drove the
602. 00:56:20 show. And he talks about this idea of time compression. And you see that in that storytelling
603. 00:56:26 to where it's like, you kind of just forgot where you are. And everybody's talking so fast and
604. 00:56:30 making these points and they're going so hard at it that you're just like, oh my gosh, what just
605. 00:56:35 happened? Holy cow, what just happened? So that was the example that popped into my brain of a time
606. 00:56:40 when I remember dialogue being super, super valuable into a story. But then to get to your
607. 00:56:48 gossip point, I completely agree with his point that that is a large driver of why we will or won't
608. 00:56:57 do certain things. And for better or worse, they think about high school. You know, like, oh man,
609. 00:57:03 like, why aren't you going to do that thing? Because everybody's going to talk about it on
610. 00:57:06 Monday. And I don't want them to talk about that thing on Monday. So therefore, and it's like,
611. 00:57:11 that's just the, that's a way that we control, you know, like people. And that's a way that we
612. 00:57:19 control the culture, if you will. So I've got a follow up question for you on that. But actually,
613. 00:57:25 I need the next chapter as context. So if you're ready, let's go to chapter four.
614. 00:57:30 All right. So chapter four is plots, endings, and meaning. And this is where
615. 00:57:37 we find out about the standard five act structure. Act one, this is me and it isn't working. Act
616. 00:57:42 two is there another way? Act three, there is I have transformed act four, but I can handle.
617. 00:57:47 But can I handle the pain of change and act five is who am I going to be? So that's kind of like
618. 00:57:54 the structure that a good story would follow. And to your point about dialogue moving things
619. 00:58:00 forward and it being effective. The example that came to mind. So as I was reading these last two
620. 00:58:06 sections is the Disney cartoon Finneas and Ferb, which is fascinating to me. I'm not
621. 00:58:12 sure if you've ever seen this. Have you seen the show? I know of it. I got a picture of the
622. 00:58:16 characters in my head, but I've never watched a full episode. Okay. So here's the thing that's
623. 00:58:19 interesting about Finneas and Ferb. It's, I don't know, hundreds of episodes. Okay.
624. 00:58:26 The premise of the show is exactly the same every single time. Okay. They like use specific things
625. 00:58:35 over and over and over again. So the, the, you know, it's a hundred, there's a hundred and some days
626. 00:58:40 a summer vacation. And basically every episode is like, what are we going to do today? And then
627. 00:58:47 there are certain plot elements that happen every single episode. They decide they're going to
628. 00:58:52 do something. And then the Perry, the platypus is no longer there. So there's a line in every
629. 00:58:57 episode. Hey, where's Perry? You know, and then there's a character Isabelle who shows up and he's
630. 00:59:01 like, what you do? And there's a bad guy, Dr. Dufen Schmerz, like the, the plot is exactly the same.
631. 00:59:10 They build some crazy contraption. The older sister tries to bust them. Dr. Dufen Schmerz tries
632. 00:59:16 to take over the tri-state area. Perry, the platypus, saves the day, comes back. You know,
633. 00:59:21 everything gets reset to normal basically at the end. And it's like one of the best cartoons that
634. 00:59:29 I've ever seen. Like it's consistently, if you look at, you know, and these are obviously subjective
635. 00:59:35 ratings. But if you look at like lists of top cartoons, Dufenis and Ferb is up there. And I
636. 00:59:40 think one of the things that makes it so appealing to people is the fact that it kind of like pushes
637. 00:59:47 back against all this structural stuff. So going back to the beginning, like when to break the rules,
638. 00:59:51 they've literally built a show about breaking all of the rules. And then think about two, like,
639. 00:59:57 the sitcoms and stuff where, like, okay, the procedural dramas, there we go. Like, I was trying
640. 01:00:03 to figure out what the phrase was, but like the CSI, whatever, or, you know, the law and orders,
641. 01:00:08 or whatever. Sure. They are the exact same, like they're the adult version of Finneas and Ferb.
642. 01:00:12 Like, the only thing you're describing to me is like the adult version of that. What's going to
643. 01:00:15 happen? We're going to start off with some shocking thing. That's true. We're going to investigate it
644. 01:00:19 for 23 minutes. And then in 20, minute 24, we're going to have the big reveal. But then even,
645. 01:00:26 like, action movies, they're the exact same way. Like, so I don't know what, I don't know what my
646. 01:00:31 main point is here. But my main point is we are incredibly like, predictable people who want the
647. 01:00:39 same thing over and over and over again. And we've proven it with our attention and our time and
648. 01:00:44 our dollars. Like, like, we've proven this to people. Yeah. I guess the thing that makes,
649. 01:00:50 again, Finneas and Ferb is the one that stands out to me. But the archetypal ending that they
650. 01:00:55 talk about in this section. Basically, the perfect archetypal ending reassures us that despite all
651. 01:01:00 the chaos and sadness and struggle that fill our lives, there is control. And on one sense,
652. 01:01:07 it's there isn't control because there's certain, quote unquote, main characters that, you know,
653. 01:01:14 never are able to get what they want. But in the middle of the episode, the thing that I think
654. 01:01:19 makes it work is there's so much going on and there is just so much chaos. And then it all gets
655. 01:01:26 resolved by the end. And that's sort of what makes these 20 minute episodes so fascinating is like,
656. 01:01:33 okay, they went some crazy directions. How in the world is this going to be reset to normal?
657. 01:01:43 I don't know. It's interesting, though, like the plots endings and meanings, that's the whole
658. 01:01:47 last section. I think that's kind of interesting that the whole, you know, 25% of this book is really
659. 01:01:53 about like, how do you tie all this stuff together? But then, you know, they give you some structures
660. 01:01:57 and things like that. But essentially, I don't, I think this is the one where maybe there's there's
661. 01:02:02 the least amount of formula possible. Yeah, this book does a, oh, it's got me in a confused place.
662. 01:02:11 I don't have confused as the right word, but like, I'm mixed up not being somebody who writes
663. 01:02:17 long form stories, you know, and has practiced this art or whatever. Because he's throwing things
664. 01:02:22 out there almost like, this is the formula, follow the formula. This is the formula, follow the
665. 01:02:26 formula. But then on the other side, he's like, he's going, but it's not just a formula. So therefore,
666. 01:02:32 like, you can't just follow the formula. Like there are tweaks and there are things and it's like,
667. 01:02:37 it really goes with the idea of there is there are the people who can just write a story.
668. 01:02:42 Then there are the people who write the, like, you know, lightning in a bottle, just absolutely,
669. 01:02:48 like, take the world by storm story. And that's the difference between the novice and the master.
670. 01:02:54 And it's the difference between the people who like, figure out the way to take the formula stuff
671. 01:02:58 and like tweak it in the right ways and accentuate this piece. And then part of that's probably culture,
672. 01:03:05 part of that's probably timing, part of that's probably luck. But like, I think about, you know,
673. 01:03:08 the five act story. Okay, cool. We got that, we get that as a formulaic thing. I think about crisis
674. 01:03:13 struggle resolution. You know, we've got that as like a formulaic kind of a thing. Like, there's
675. 01:03:17 all these like formulaic pieces that he's throwing out there. And then I look at those and I think,
676. 01:03:22 yeah, but if I'm going to write a fiction story, I can't just follow the formula. Like, I mean,
677. 01:03:26 I know I could for like a rough outline of the story, but it's like, then it's got to get good.
678. 01:03:32 Like, then it's got to, you know, you got to do something to it. And that's where he's probably
679. 01:03:36 like, come take my class, right? Like, and that's what I'll do is like, is like, come take my class,
680. 01:03:40 which I, which I totally get. One of the concepts that came out of, at a chapter four that I thought
681. 01:03:45 was, was cool is, and I'm probably going to say it wrong, eutomonia. I'm going to say eutomonia.
682. 01:03:50 I'm familiar with that, right?
683. 01:03:52 Striving after a noble goal, living in a way that fulfills our purpose, and then the hero's
684. 01:03:56 journey or the hero's quest is the way I captured that last, that last bullet point.
685. 01:04:01 But it's this idea of like, I like stories that give us a purpose, that give us a goal, that like,
686. 01:04:09 it's clear to see like, this is the task that we're going to do. And I can probably forgive a lot
687. 01:04:17 of chaos in the middle there, knowing that there's a goal at the end that we're going to think about.
688. 01:04:21 So you get back into your Phineas and Ferb thing, right? Like, I can go through that entire chaotic,
689. 01:04:26 like, what on earth is happening? Oh my gosh, this is crazy. And then boom, there's going to be a
690. 01:04:31 resolution. And I know there's going to be a resolution. I don't like stories. And I get so
691. 01:04:36 bothered by the ones where it's like chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos. And then we kind of just drift away,
692. 01:04:42 like chaotic. And like, we never reached the goal and like, nothing ever happened.
693. 01:04:46 And I don't know what that says about my personality. But like, this first section really,
694. 01:04:51 really hit home with me with this eutomonia thing where it's like, yeah.
695. 01:04:55 And that's, you do accomplish that goal. That's the thing with Phineas and Ferb is like,
696. 01:05:00 things are crazy. And then the minute that Candice like gets her mom, like,
697. 01:05:03 mom, mom, come see, you know, Phineas and Ferb are doing by the time they get to the backyard,
698. 01:05:08 everything is normal. Everything's normal. Yeah.
699. 01:05:13 I also like, I guess I have another one. I also like this idea of transportation and like,
700. 01:05:21 being lost in the world. When we're transported, our beliefs, attitudes and intentions are vulnerable
701. 01:05:26 to being altered, right? Like this idea of essentially escape. But like, I don't mean it in the negative
702. 01:05:32 way. Like a lot of times we talk about like escaping into the story as like a way to get out of reality.
703. 01:05:37 And I don't mean it in that way. I mean, it is in like getting immersed, getting captured,
704. 01:05:40 getting transported into this world. And this is like something along the lines of, you know,
705. 01:05:45 it's not this big novel type story that he's describing here. It's much more of like a Dungeons
706. 01:05:51 and Dragons campaign. Like I totally understand how people play Dungeons and Dragons. I totally
707. 01:05:58 understand how people get lost in video games that have these immersive worlds that you're telling
708. 01:06:02 the story and you've got this goal and you're, you're essentially transported into that world.
709. 01:06:08 And then I can totally even see how people get lost in those worlds, right? And they lose this
710. 01:06:14 sense of reality. And you know, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, you talked about reading
711. 01:06:19 Ready Player One. Like that is actually a scary thing in my mind if we get too immersive,
712. 01:06:27 that like, I think we are naturally prone to want to be transported into these worlds,
713. 01:06:31 want to be lost in these worlds. And if we get too immersive, like in Ready Player One,
714. 01:06:36 I think there's a really good chance that like reality becomes less interesting than the immersive
715. 01:06:43 world and we kind of check out of reality. So it's like, I mean, not to get too like heady or too
716. 01:06:48 philosophical, but like that, that's what comes out of all this, you know, this, this kind of last
717. 01:06:54 meaning, you know, plot and meaning part of it for me is we got to be careful about what we do,
718. 01:06:59 but it's so powerful. Like we have the ability to be so powerful in this.
719. 01:07:02 Well, the thing for me with this is like applying this to your everyday life, because it mentions
720. 01:07:10 that what we see and feel at any given moment depends on what we're trying to get. The hero
721. 01:07:15 making brain wants to feel like we're constantly moving towards something better. And goal direction
722. 01:07:22 is what gives story much of its tension and thrill. So as it pertains to like the life-themed
723. 01:07:27 stuff that we're doing, which I guess I should have mentioned at the beginning, we've got a
724. 01:07:32 life-themed cohort that is going to be kicking off in April. So I'll put the link to that in the
725. 01:07:39 the show notes if it's available by the time this this goes live. But that's basically about
726. 01:07:47 crafting the story that you want to be told about your life. So I think a lot of the principles
727. 01:07:53 are the same. It's really just how are they being applied? I think it's actually, I don't know,
728. 01:08:03 on the one hand, to compare your real life with a fictional story feels like you're devaluing it.
729. 01:08:11 But also on the other hand, I feel like it actually can do a lot of good to think about it that way,
730. 01:08:17 and in some ways it enriches it. You know, when you talk about the meaning that you apply to things
731. 01:08:25 being subjective, I guess, that can make you feel a little bit uncomfortable if you've seen things
732. 01:08:33 as black and white forever. And you feel like your perspective is the single source of truth in the
733. 01:08:40 world. But going back to the liminal thinking model presented by Dave Gray back in the day where
734. 01:08:50 you've got your experience, which is a fraction of reality. And on top of that, your focused
735. 01:08:55 attention is what you build all your judgments, beliefs, and opinions on top of. And then you
736. 01:09:00 surround yourself with people who look like you talk like you think like you create this bubble
737. 01:09:07 of belief that just reinforces these preconceived notions. When you think about that, like you have
738. 01:09:15 the ability and the power to change that at any point, that's kind of exciting and a pretty powerful
739. 01:09:21 idea. All right, go to the appendix. Let's do it. Which is really not an appendix. Like we typically
740. 01:09:30 think of appendices. It's the approach. It's the sacred flaw approach. I can kind of understand
741. 01:09:39 why he called it an appendix, but I don't think he did himself justice calling it an appendix.
742. 01:09:44 He should have named it something different because it's really like a primer. It's like the sacred
743. 01:09:49 flaw primer, if you will. I mean, it's not a hill to die on, but at the same time, I think you did
744. 01:09:57 itself a disservice a little bit calling an appendix. Well, I get why it's there, I think,
745. 01:10:01 because everything in the chapters one through four fits very neatly into these different buckets.
746. 01:10:07 There's an alternate world where those first four chapters, which is really most of the book,
747. 01:10:12 that is part one. And part two is here's how you tie all this together using my system. And that
748. 01:10:21 really does need to be there for a book, I feel. So I think it's pretty clear that didn't want to
749. 01:10:29 do that, wanted to keep it tight. And so just packaged it all into an appendix. He walks through
750. 01:10:36 the different steps and he references different points in the other chapters without going into
751. 01:10:41 all the crazy detail in the appendix, which I think is actually kind of cool. So basically,
752. 01:10:46 you go through everything and then this is sort of like a review session before you would actually
753. 01:10:51 try to implement that, but there's still some good stuff in here. And it's not like he didn't
754. 01:10:56 have enough content in the first four chapters, right? I mean, he's got 200 pages of what I think
755. 01:11:01 is good content in the first four chapters. So I, your point is well made in terms of this,
756. 01:11:06 this sits as an appendix. I do agree with you though, that like, if you didn't have this in here,
757. 01:11:11 I think the book is significantly different. Like I think the book is lacking. I think this
758. 01:11:16 really rounds out that book. And I really like the way you just described it, the way you're like,
759. 01:11:21 this is the next thing before you go off and launch into doing this and using all the stuff
760. 01:11:27 we've talked about over the last 200 plus pages. Yeah. And you know, if you're wanting a resource,
761. 01:11:34 which just talks you through the approach that's taught in the class, you can point to this specific
762. 01:11:39 section of the book and it contains everything. So it's, it's effective that way. There's still
763. 01:11:45 some good stuff in here though. So like, essentially it's walking through the different steps. There
764. 01:11:50 isn't a very clear like, these are the 12 steps sort of a thing. I don't know how to try and
765. 01:11:56 summarize this. Really, it's figuring out what the dramatic question is for your character,
766. 01:12:02 figuring out what that origin damage story is, you identify their personality traits, you identify
767. 01:12:10 their hero maker moment, you identify their point of view, you figure out how their flaw
768. 01:12:14 influences their world, the story event and the plot, you kind of like work backwards from that
769. 01:12:19 character and the flaw that they have. So that's like, I guess how you summarize it. But one of the
770. 01:12:24 things that I thought was interesting here was how has their flaw influenced the world? That was
771. 01:12:28 something that stood out to me that I didn't really catch in the content of the chapters itself,
772. 01:12:33 because there's a whole bunch of questions which I think can actually work pretty effectively as a
773. 01:12:38 checklist for this sort of a thing. Like how has their flaw led to material or career gains?
774. 01:12:43 How do they get a sense of status from this flaw? How does it make them feel superior?
775. 01:12:50 What small moments of joy does it bring them? How has a sacred flaw brought them?
776. 01:12:55 Closeness with friends, colleagues, or lovers, what life goals has it generated,
777. 01:13:00 what achievement in the external world, all these kinds of things, which I don't know about you,
778. 01:13:04 but generally I think if I were to craft a character for a story, I might not go that deep. I think
779. 01:13:10 these are great questions to help provide some context there. And he does address in this section,
780. 01:13:17 by the way, the difference between like a dead average character and like a really effective
781. 01:13:23 character. And he says that the moment that you know you've got a character is when they like
782. 01:13:29 lurch to life. Is that what I said? Oh, you'll know you have a character or when you feel your
783. 01:13:36 character lurch alive, which that is a very descriptive way of putting it. It's not like,
784. 01:13:42 well, I'm starting to understand them a little bit better. It's like, no, they were dead and
785. 01:13:46 lifeless previous to this. Now I've got something. So that feels like a very significant moment,
786. 01:13:52 but you have to kind of put in all of this work into the details in order to get that payoff,
787. 01:13:57 I think. Yeah, I think I would tell people if they're wanting to be a fiction writer and they're
788. 01:14:04 thinking about, you know, what's a guide for helping me think through some things. I think
789. 01:14:09 I'd point them to this book for sure. I don't say like, Hey, look at this. Maybe start with the
790. 01:14:14 appendix. See if that resonates with you, but like, don't negate the first four chapters,
791. 01:14:21 because like those are very, very valuable. But you may like figure out whether you like it or not,
792. 01:14:26 or whether it resonates with you by looking at that appendix first, right, like in kind of
793. 01:14:30 working through that first. The other one that's interesting to me is, and I don't know if this
794. 01:14:34 is me wearing my teacher hat too strongly, but like the first four chapters read like a book,
795. 01:14:43 you know, like I'm telling you, you know, information like a book. This appendix reads like
796. 01:14:51 a lesson plan or a series of lesson plans that I would use to teach my class. And the reason the
797. 01:14:58 big driver for me on that one is because with a couple different prompts strategically placed in
798. 01:15:05 here, I'm now having the students go and do the thing. Like, okay, like we reviewed this thing,
799. 01:15:11 go do this thing. And then oh, by the way, here's some examples of where it's been done before,
800. 01:15:16 right? Like in, and it's a natural lesson plan. So it's like, I, I would wonder, and he kind of says
801. 01:15:22 it, but it's like, I would wonder if this, what's in this appendix section is almost directly taking
802. 01:15:28 from his notes from class, like this is like lesson plan one lesson plan two lesson plan three,
803. 01:15:33 and then I just put like a, a little bit of a spin on it in the way it's worded. That way,
804. 01:15:39 it reads a little bit more like a store or like a, like a chapter of a book and a little bit less
805. 01:15:43 like a lesson plan. But like that's, I mean, it jumped out at me in terms of, in terms of that,
806. 01:15:49 that style. 100% agree with that. Yeah, this is the academic portion of the book.
807. 01:15:56 Yeah. But I liked it a lot. Like I thought it, I thought it added a lot of value to,
808. 01:16:00 to the overall book. Cool. All right. I think that's the end of the book then, right? There is no,
809. 01:16:09 like official conclusion. That's, that's basically it. It ends with the appendix and then go write
810. 01:16:13 your story, I guess. Yep. Yep. All right. So action items, I don't think I have any.
811. 01:16:23 Yeah, I, I don't think it's possible to, to have one from this other than go write a story.
812. 01:16:32 There is so much in here though, that is going to be applicable when you do that. But there's,
813. 01:16:37 there's, I don't know, it's, it's a little bit different in terms of the, the type of book that
814. 01:16:41 it is. It's, it's not real. I was going to say practical, but that's not true. I think tactical is
815. 01:16:48 the, yeah, the best way to describe it. Yeah. Like I, I, I feel, I think, right, that I am better off
816. 01:16:57 having read this book. Like I think that there is value in me having read this book. But to your point,
817. 01:17:03 I don't think there's anything that I need to go do. Like there's nothing that it sparks, sparks
818. 01:17:07 me to go do. Now if I was trying to actually publish a fiction book, okay, like there's 50 things
819. 01:17:13 that are going to come out of this book that I need to go think about and I need to go do.
820. 01:17:17 But like my biggest one, like if I was forcing an action item on this book, it would be go look
821. 01:17:22 up the 36 dramatic situations and like just, but it's just because like I'm just interested in like
822. 01:17:27 what are the 36 dramatic situations that he references that are like really good ways to
823. 01:17:31 build a story. And I'm like, oh, that actually seems kind of kind of interesting. But like it
824. 01:17:36 doesn't help me out in really any other area of life. It would only help me out if I was actually
825. 01:17:39 trying to write a, write a book. So no action items here. All right. So then it is style and
826. 01:17:47 rating. And my book, I'll go first. I liked this book much more than I thought I would.
827. 01:17:56 It wasn't exactly what I expected as we mentioned, but I think it was very, very
828. 01:18:03 applicable to, to my life anyways, even though we have no action items. So it's a little bit,
829. 01:18:09 a little bit weird in that sense. I don't think the, you know, I think the most practical action
830. 01:18:15 item is I've read this because I want to write a story. Now I can go write my story. But the way
831. 01:18:20 that it influences your writing, I feel like you just can't put a finger on, I was doing it this
832. 01:18:25 way. Now I'm doing it that way. There's a whole bunch of little things in here that are going to
833. 01:18:28 sort of nudge you towards better storytelling, I feel. So that's what I'm hoping happens from this.
834. 01:18:35 I will say it's 255 pages, I think. It's like the tightest 255 pages I've ever read.
835. 01:18:43 There's a lot in this book, but it's a book, which is an entire course. And I feel like
836. 01:18:51 the examples that are shared here, there's zero fluff in those. And the way that he writes
837. 01:18:56 is very direct. It's very emotional. It's very engaging. I mean, I guess to be expected when
838. 01:19:05 you recognize this as a book about a class about writing. So he's got the research that's gone
839. 01:19:12 into it. He's got the neuroscience aspect that he can talk about. There's a whole bunch of studies
840. 01:19:17 that he references, which I felt like that was a good blend of stuff I was a little bit familiar
841. 01:19:23 with and new stuff. It doesn't get bogged down in the details of those studies and setting everything
842. 01:19:29 up. It's just like, this is the big takeaway. I don't know. I don't consider myself interested
843. 01:19:34 in writing a fiction story. I feel like that's kind of what I got was how to write a fiction story.
844. 01:19:39 But I still really enjoyed reading this. And I think a lot of people in the Bookworm audience
845. 01:19:45 would enjoy reading this and probably get a lot out of it, even if it's not going to be
846. 01:19:50 explicit how that actually influences your day to day work in life, if that makes sense.
847. 01:19:57 So I guess I'm kind of broadly recommending this. Just because, to his point earlier,
848. 01:20:04 I feel like getting better at telling stories is a very valuable skill that will benefit your
849. 01:20:10 life in many unexpected, unintended and surprising ways. I think I'm going to rate it four stars.
850. 01:20:21 I'm struggling between four and five, to be honest, because I think it's really good.
851. 01:20:26 And I think it's better than I thought it was going to be, even though it wasn't what I was
852. 01:20:31 anticipating. I'm really glad that I read this. I feel like this is going to be one of those books
853. 01:20:36 that I can point back to later on in my life and say that had a really big impact.
854. 01:20:42 Maybe not in terms of I was doing this prior and now I'm doing this. And so this was kind of like
855. 01:20:47 the tipping point in terms of change. But the scenario I see is five years from now,
856. 01:20:54 someone walks up to me and they're like, "Man, you're a really good storyteller. How did you get good at
857. 01:20:58 this?" This is probably one of the books that's at the top of the list. But I guess I'm projecting
858. 01:21:05 out when I say that. So maybe it was just a fun read and I don't do anything with it. I don't know.
859. 01:21:13 It's an interesting package though. It's a science-based course about writing better stories. I mean,
860. 01:21:20 that in and of itself is kind of fascinating to me. And if it's interesting at all to you,
861. 01:21:25 I feel like this is one that you should probably pick up.
862. 01:21:28 Yeah, I kind of said it when I was doing action items. I think this book is mainly meant
863. 01:21:37 for the person who is interested in actually writing, right? And interested in storytelling.
864. 01:21:42 I don't think that the general reader is really going to get a lot of actionable things out of
865. 01:21:49 this. That said, I agree with what your last statement was, whereas if somebody comes up to
866. 01:21:55 me in 10 years and is like, "Man, how did you get so good at storytelling?" I'm going to be
867. 01:22:00 hard-pressed to probably say, "Well, I read this book for Bookworm." And it really changed the way
868. 01:22:05 I thought about story. And it changed the way I thought about constructing a story and telling
869. 01:22:09 a story and all of those things. One of the boons for a book for me is if it makes me want to do a
870. 01:22:19 thing that prior to that, I didn't really have a lot of interest in. And I read this book and I go,
871. 01:22:27 I wonder what it would be like to write a fiction story. It would be kind of fun to wrestle around
872. 01:22:32 with some of this stuff and develop the character and see how the character exists in this plot line.
873. 01:22:38 And what are the story events and all that stuff? Not because I inherently have ever wanted to
874. 01:22:44 write a long form. I've wanted to write a children's book before. I've talked about that. But not
875. 01:22:49 that I've ever wanted to write a long form fiction story. But this book actually makes me go, "That
876. 01:22:55 would be cool. I could see the value in that. I could see how that would be a fun and crazy
877. 01:23:01 and stressful process." But this book pushes me towards that even though I didn't really have a
878. 01:23:07 lot of that to begin with. So that is a boon for me when it comes to a book. This might be
879. 01:23:15 something that you think less of me for and that you may even shun me. And I might get an email or
880. 01:23:22 a text in like a day or two that says, "Kori, I can't believe you said that on live and on the
881. 01:23:28 recording." I think this is one of those books that if you're like kind of interested in it,
882. 01:23:36 you may want to do one of the like short form summary things for it before you dive deep into
883. 01:23:42 the whole 250. Not that the 250 isn't of value, but I just think it's like the scope of it is so
884. 01:23:49 narrow that like where you really get the value out of the 250 pages is if you're in that narrow
885. 01:23:55 scope of audience. And I think the rest of us can get 80% of what we could get out of this book
886. 01:24:02 from the shorter form of this. So forgive me. I know that's not the goal is to recommend.
887. 01:24:09 But like and that's not a knock on the value of what's in here. It's a matter of the scope of
888. 01:24:14 I think what the target audience is for this book. I think that's more of what it is than anything.
889. 01:24:20 So here's my rating. I think I agree with you. I think this is a four star book. Like I come out
890. 01:24:26 of this book going, man, I'm kind of glad I read that book. Like I'm not going to real write a fiction
891. 01:24:31 book. That's not an interest of mine. I'm not going to go develop characters and build plots
892. 01:24:35 and do all that stuff, right? Like that's not interesting. But it's one of those ones that like
893. 01:24:41 I feel as though I'm better off having read it. And I don't exactly know why. Like I don't I
894. 01:24:47 can't put a finger on why I'm better off on it. That said, I don't think I would have needed to
895. 01:24:52 read the entire thing if I wasn't doing a podcast for it. Yeah, that's fair. So that's why it's a
896. 01:24:58 four and out of five for me. All right. To your point about the short form, I generally disagree.
897. 01:25:06 I think if you could grab the appendix, that short form, that would be okay. That I would
898. 01:25:12 agree with. Okay. The content itself, I feel like it's already condensed. And if you're just like
899. 01:25:17 pick specific spots out of the course, I'm not sure how that that actually works. But I do agree
900. 01:25:22 with you. There's a shorter version of this, which is the appendix. If you could just read that first,
901. 01:25:27 that would be yeah, this is for me or no, this isn't. And that's the mass audience version of this
902. 01:25:31 book. Yeah. And then for anybody who's interested in actually writing fiction and writing stories,
903. 01:25:37 it's the full book, like without a doubt, full book and probably full book plus course
904. 01:25:42 plus plus because I think he's got more in his head that he just couldn't fit into a
905. 01:25:46 Oh, for sure. For sure. Shortish book, you know. All right. Let's put the science of storytelling
906. 01:25:52 on the shelf. What's next, Corey? All righty. So my book is next. It's the six types of working
907. 01:25:57 genius. The full title is six types of working genius, a better way to understand your gifts,
908. 01:26:03 your frustrations and your team. This book is from 2022 by Patrick Lencioni. I have not read
909. 01:26:11 any Patrick Lencioni books, but I've heard about Patrick Lencioni books. And I've heard that they
910. 01:26:17 tend to be pretty reliable and pretty good. And he's a pretty good author. For those of you who
911. 01:26:21 are going to pick this one up and read it with us, it is a fable style book. So it's going to tell us,
912. 01:26:27 you know, his principle, his model, if you will, in forms of a fable, which I sometimes like that
913. 01:26:34 sometimes don't. So I'm intrigued to see how well Lencioni does it. But one of the last little
914. 01:26:41 caveat I'll give to it is basically they touted as how fast you can learn and apply
915. 01:26:48 this model. And that that's one of the benefits of not only this model itself, but the book is like
916. 01:26:54 it communicates it quickly and effectively to where you can apply it pretty quick. So if you're
917. 01:26:59 reading along with us, pick up the six types of working genius by Patrick Lencioni. What's after
918. 01:27:05 that? After that, we'll cover the way of excellence by Brad Stolberg. I have heard him talk about
919. 01:27:13 this on Kel Newport's podcast and feels like the perfect type of book for bookworm, how to be
920. 01:27:20 excellent at stuff. It's kind of why we're here, right? We want to get better. Thanks. All right,
921. 01:27:26 got any gap books? I do not have any gap books other than the books that I have to read for other
922. 01:27:32 things. So, okay, like I've said them all before, I'm behind on those books. So I'm trying to get
923. 01:27:36 caught up on those books, but no, no fun gap books, no interesting gap books. All right. Well, I mentioned
924. 01:27:41 the second red rising book, which is Golden Sun by Pierce Brown. So I am actually going to start
925. 01:27:47 on that one. I've got some travel coming up. Hopefully this big snowstorm doesn't hit.
926. 01:27:54 So I'm going to probably read that one on the plane. Nice. All right. Thank you for listening.
927. 01:28:01 If you want to support the show, we would love to have you do that. We have a bookworm pro membership,
928. 01:28:09 which you can find out more at bookworm.fm/pro@7 dollars a month gets you access to a longer
929. 01:28:15 ad-free show where there's a bonus segment today. We talked about max stock and my crazy session
930. 01:28:22 idea that I am going to teach people how to create YouTube channels in 90 minutes.
931. 01:28:29 We've got a bootleg version of the podcast, which is the live stream version, essentially,
932. 01:28:34 that gets published right after we record. So technically you get those episodes usually about
933. 01:28:39 two weeks in advance. There's a 4k wallpaper access to my reading master class that I did a
934. 01:28:44 while back and helps us keep the lights on here at bookworm. So if you want to support the show,
935. 01:28:49 we'd love to have you do that $7 a month bookworm.fm/pro. Thanks to everybody who
936. 01:28:56 joined us live. If you're reading along with us, you can pick up the six types of working genius
937. 01:29:01 by Patrick Oncioni. And we'll talk to you next time.