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Writer's pictureLars Christensen

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks


I finished this book in September 2024. I recommend this book 2/10.


Why you should read this book:

If you want to stand on a stage and tell stories to an audience, this is a good book. But if your goal is to improve your storytelling skills in a professional setting, there might be better books out there. Matthew Dicks shares personal stories filled with drama and emotional endings, which are excellent for storytelling but may not be great in a boardroom environment.


Get your copy here.


🚀 The book in three sentences

  1. Look for the important 5-second moment

  2. Be strategic about how you bring your audience on your journey

  3. The drama is not the story, just a vehicle


📝 My notes and thoughts

  • P58. I give this to you: Homework for Life. Five minutes a day is all I'm asking. At the end of every day, take a moment and sit down. Reflect upon your day. Find your most storyworthy moment, even if it doesn't feel very storyworthy. Write it down. Not the whole story, but a few sentences at most. Something that will keep you moving and make it feel doable. That will allow you to do it the next day. If you have commitment and faith, you will find stories. So many stories.

  • P76. Consider 10-minute Crash & Burn writing sessions, where you don't stop writing or stop to ponder but just write whatever appears on the paper.

  • P90. I've given you three tools to find stories. Do all three with regularity and fidelity, and you will find yourself drowning in stories before long. Your list of potential stories will grow beyond your ability to tell them all. What a wonderful problem to have.

    • Homework for Life

    • Crash & Burn

    • First Last Best Worst

  • P112. Look for the 5-second moment in the story. Next time you watch a movie, what is the 5-second moment? (Watched John Wick: They killed his dog, with whom he was supposed to grieve his wife.)

  • P134. If you are telling a story about a five-second moment of your life—a moment of transformation, realization, or revelation—you're doing well. If you've also found the right place to begin your story—a place that represents the opposite of your five-second moment and one as close to the ending as possible—you've established a clear frame and are in your story. You've identified the direction your story is headed in, and you and your audience probably have a good sense of where that may be. You are already going to be well received by audiences, big and small. If you've been careful about choosing that opening scene—not simply choosing the first thing that comes to mind but instead asking yourself what the opening scene needs—and you open your story and not any form of unnecessary or qualifying introduction, you are going to grab your audience's attention right off the bat.

  • P135. Thirteen rules for an effective commencement address.

  • P159. Things to build your story (You don't have to use them all.)

    • Address the elephant (Can change color)

    • Provide the audience with "backpacks."

    • Lay breadcrumbs (Edge of their seats)

    • Use the Hourglass (Slow down time)

    • Use a Crystal Ball (Predict the worn future)

  • P186. Storytellers must do one thing, and happily, for you, it's exceedingly simple: Always provide a physical location for every moment of your story. That's it. If the audience knows where you are at all times within your story, the move is running in their minds. The film cycles from reel to reel. If your audience can picture the location of the action at all times, you have created a movie in the minds of your listeners. Hopefully a good one.

  • P194. Make sure that every moment in your story has a location attached. Every moment should be a scene, and every scene needs a setting. It's the simplest, most bang-for-your-buck strategy that I have to offer.

  • P205. Don't use "and" in stories. Use "but" and "therefore" instead.

  • P220. Short, small stories are easier to relate to.

  • P233. If you can't hide critical details and preserve the surprise, the audience sees it coming a mile away. In that case, you may as well not even tell your story.

  • P237. The review, the strategies for preserving and enhancing surprise in a story:

    • Avoid thesis statements in storytelling

    • Heighten the contrast between the surprise and the moment just before the surprise

    • Use stakes to increase the surprise

    • Avoid giving away the surprise in your story by hiding important information that will pay off later (planting bombs) This is done by:

      • Obscuring them in a list of other details or examples

      • Placing them as far away from the surprises as possible

      • When possible, building a laugh around them to further camouflage their importance

  • P253. Put a surprise word in the end to make it stand out—that can make it funny.

  • P264. Ask "why" we do things to find the meaning of your story

  • P278. Switch between present + past tense in your story.

  • P288. Use drama to make life change. (Chocking on chicken to tell how I realized my wife will always be along by my side.)

  • P296. Keep the audience in a time travel capsule. Don't break that journey with probs or unnecessary comments.

  • P308. Watch your language and change the names.

  • P316. Instead of memorizing your story word-for-word, memorize three parts to a story:

    • The first few sentences. Always start strong.

    • The last few sentences. Always end strong.

    • The scenes of your story.

  • P317. I try not to have more than seven scenes in a story. The phone company uses seven digits in our phone numbers because they determined that seven bits of information is the most that the average person can retain at one time. Seven feels right to me. I have some stories that only have three scenes—even better. I have a story composed of just one scene. But seven is my max.

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