Most of my articles relate somehow to gambling. This one doesn’t. Today is a rave review of a book I’ve recently read that has affected me deeply. I haven’t given up on writing about gambling. Just not today.
I’m a fan of storytelling in the spirit of those told at The Moth, a storytelling group that originated in New York and now may be found in venues across the country. If you go to www.themoth.org, you’ll find an audio library that contains more than 1,000 of their best stories.
These true stories are told by old and young, male and female, native American (with all sorts of regional accents), non-native (from all over the world), with a huge variety of subjects. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you cry. Some just may get you to look at the world a little differently.
In the spirit of The Moth, Richard Munchkin, my GWAE co-host, and I have been hosting the Las Vegas StorySlam, which is a monthly get-together for the purpose of telling true stories. Our venue is changing because where we used to meet went out of business. We’re in negotiation with another theater in Las Vegas and hope to resume soon. I’ll write about it here when that happens.
Richard and I, along with many others, tell stories every month. Many of my stories relate to gambling, of course, because that’s been a large part of my life. But I’ve also told stories about a date gone wrong, a weight loss bet, a revenge story, and a college football game I attended. As a listener of stories, some of my favorites have been told by Richard – who has shared many of them on our podcast.
With this in mind, somebody recently suggested I pick up the book Storyworthy, by Matthew Dicks. At the time the book was published in 2018, Dicks had won Moth competitions some 36 times. He still competes and so that number has grown.
Clearly this is a guy who knows something about storytelling. In addition, along with his wife, he teaches storytelling workshops in Connecticut. Teaching others is a cauldron that tends to clarify your message. I looked forward to reading what Dicks had to say.
And I was blown away.
I already knew quite a bit about storytelling. I was already experienced and had received very positive feedback from others. When I practice my stories at my local Toastmasters Club, I win the “Best Speaker” ribbon more often than not. I had learned from Las Vegas’ best storytelling workshop taught by Al Jensen and George Gilbert (www.nextstagecommunications.com). I thought I was pretty knowledgeable.
I was – but I also had a lot to learn. And I had stumbled upon a good teacher.
The most valuable part of the book to me was the homework! Really! Dicks outlines an exercise he calls Homework for Life, where every day you spend five minutes and enter into an Excel spreadsheet the most interesting thing that happened to you that day. Just a line or two. But do it every day. (I confess. In the two months I’ve been doing this, I’ve skipped two days accidentally. Sometimes I’ll make more than one entry.)
What this gives you is a goldmine of possible stories! If you’re doing it honestly, your best true stories are related to what you’ve experienced in your life. This exercise records a line or two about these experiences as you go. Over time, you’ll see a snippet of an idea that you recorded in March can be combined with something that happened in July, and you’ll find a “habit” in your life that you didn’t know you had.
As I’ve modified this exercise for myself, I’ve been adding stories to the list from long ago. There were a lot of stories in my Million Dollar Video Poker. Many of those can be honed for telling in front of a live audience. The most recent story I’ve been working on happened 25 years ago with my brother. I had totally forgotten about this incident until I started writing down ideas on a regular basis. Something I did in early August of this year reminded me of what I did long ago.
Another exercise is “First Last Best Worst,” which is a brain-storming activity where you start with any subject (say drinking lemonade — or riding a bike — or cramming for a test at school — blind dates — and a whole bunch of others) and you write down whatever comes to mind as the best incidence of this, the last, the best, and the worst.
Sometimes you’ll draw a complete blank about a subject. Sometimes you’ll have two or more “best” memories about a subject. All okay. Write down what you have. On that page will be several topics for a story. Do this regularly with different starting points. You’ll have a library of possible story subjects pretty soon.
I’m not going to go through it here, but in addition to the “How do you figure out what to tell a story about?” exercises, there are a ton of how-to points for the story itself.
I know most of you won’t be into competitive storytelling. But most of us tell stories to our friends. Some have been told their stories are boring. Or pointless. Or rambling. If so, this book will enable you to improve your storytelling. And improve your life.
If you want a flavor of how this guy tells a story, go to www.youtube.com and search for “Storytelling Matthew Dicks”. In that section, listen to his “This is going to suck” story. And in the book, he dissects how he crafted that story. The story is true, but there are many ways to tell it. Why and where he added humor. Why he intentionally sped up at times and sometimes went slow. Why he “hid in plain sight” a key element to the eventual punch line. Things like that. Once you understand these things, your stories will be better.