![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2014\/09\/soldier.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Every man needs to be able to tell a great story.<\/p>\n
It might be for a presentation you give at work. Or for a paper you need to write.<\/p>\n
Maybe you\u2019re just hanging out with your buddies swapping stories. Or you\u2019re tucking your kids into bed, and a nighttime tale is demanded.<\/p>\n
What do you do? Where do you start?<\/p>\n
I write books for a living\u2014sometimes my own, sometimes in collaboration with high-profile public figures. I\u2019ve studied the art and craft of telling stories, both nonfiction and fiction, and here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n
To tell a great story\u2014any story\u2014wrap it around this tried and true framework:<\/p>\n
We use the word \u201chero\u201d lightly here. A hero is your protagonist, the main character in your story. He must be likeable so your hearers or readers identify with and root for him.<\/p>\n
Describing a massive goal is important. Usually, the bigger and more difficult the goal, the better. The hero must be going somewhere, doing something, and most important\u2014wanting something.<\/p>\n
The stakes must be raised as high as possible. A main character must attempt the impossible, desire the unattainable, resist the forbidden, or overcome the disastrous.<\/p>\n
Ask: what does your hero really want?<\/p>\n
Think of this structure in the movies or books you know.<\/p>\n
In Star Wars<\/em>, the worthy hero is Luke Skywalker. His massive goal is to avenge his father\u2019s death by defeating Darth Vader and saving the universe from the Death Star.<\/p>\n In The Road Warrior,<\/em> the worthy hero is Mad Max. He must drive to safety a repaired big rig filled with gasoline (spoiler alert: is it really gasoline?) to help a settlement survive, while he evades hordes of evil wheeled marauders.<\/p>\n In Catcher in the Rye<\/em>, the worthy hero is an affable yet disaffected high school student, Holden Caulfield. He must battle the forces of insincerity at prep school and in his surrounding adult culture, both of which he interprets as caustic and false.<\/p>\n If I\u2019m telling a story to my kids<\/a> at bedtime, then usually I ask for their input right up front, which makes it more fun for them. Specifically, I ask them to give me a boy\u2019s name, a girl\u2019s name, who the boy and the girl are, and what they want most.<\/p>\n I might end up with Barney and Chloe, a sword swallower and a princess, who want more than anything to take a trip to Disneyland where they need to rescue their father who\u2019s being held hostage at the top of Magic Mountain.<\/p>\n Well done, kids. A great story is about to unfold.<\/p>\n A hero can\u2019t just waltz on over to his goal and claim it without effort. A story wouldn\u2019t hold interest that way. Your hero\u2019s goal must be blocked. He needs to overcome obstacles by wit, intellect, or action.<\/p>\n Along the way, a story must bristle with tension. Readers must continually hope or fear that something vital and necessary will or won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Ask: what obstacles will your hero encounter on the way to his goal?<\/p>\n In Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Pulitzer-winning novel, The Road<\/em>, the unnamed father and his young son want to get to safety in a chaotic post-apocalyptic world. Along the way, they must battle cannibals, their own hunger and thirst, and their own grief at the loss of an important family member.<\/p>\n In the classic movie Jerry Maguire<\/em>, a young sincerity-seeking sports agent must break free from a job that\u2019s sucking the life out of him so he can develop a new life full of purpose, empathy, and genuine love.<\/p>\n In the novel True Grit,<\/em> twice adapted into a movie, the young Mattie Ross sets out on an expedition to shoot the coward Tom Chaney, who has killed her father. Along the way, now traveling with the one-eyed Marshal Rooster Cogburn and the starchy Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, Mattie must fight her way free from shootouts, snakebites, and the misgivings of her traveling partners.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re giving a report at work to your board of directors, it may be helpful to start with an anecdote that shows the goals of your company, the challenges your company faces, and how your company is working skillfully to overcome the obstacles and reach your goals.<\/p>\n By story\u2019s end, tension needs to be released. A hero\u2019s goal must be met, although perhaps in a surprising way.<\/p>\n Basically, we all like happy endings.<\/p>\n Ask: how will your hero reach his goal?<\/p>\n2) Plunge the hero into chaos, force the hero to fight free.<\/h3>\n
3) Show how the hero overcomes.<\/h3>\n