Seven Things I Learned from Andrew Stanton’s TED Talk: The Clues to a Great Story

 “We all love stories. We are born for them. Stories affirm who we are. We all want affirmations that our lives have meaning. And nothing does a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories.” — Andrew Stanton

Andrew Stanton (A Bug’s Life, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, WALL-E) is an animator, storyboard artist, film director, and screenwriter. I recently watched his 2012 TED Talk, The Clues to a Great Story. I haven’t watched that many TED Talks, but the ones that I have watched have all been informative. One of the things that I find interesting about them is that speakers are limited to a maximum of eighteen minutes. 

Although he talks about writing screenplays, his advice applies to writing stories in general. Here are seven things I learned from Andrew Stanton’s presentation. 

 

One: “Storytelling is joke telling.”

He opens his talk with a joke, gets a laugh from the audience, and then says, “Storytelling is joke telling.” After listening to his explanation, I have to agree. 

“It’s knowing your punchline, your ending, knowing that everything you’re saying, from the first sentence to the last, is leading to a singular goal…” 

 

I think that’s why when it comes to writing stories, rewriting and editing is so important, to make sure that everything leads to your goal. That’s challenging at first. You may not be sure of your goal when you begin writing or what you think is the goal changes as you make new discoveries as you write. 

Two: “Make me care” is the greatest story commandment. 

Another good point. If the audience doesn’t care, they'll lose interest in the story. But how to make the audience care? First, he points out the importance of the opening of a story. He explains that the opening of a story should make a promise that the story will lead somewhere worth the audience’s time. But then how to keep the audience engaged? 

 

Three: Make your audience work for their meal.

“…the audience actually wants to work for their meal. They just don't want to know that they’re doing that. That’s your job as a storyteller, is to hide the fact that you’re making them work for their meal.”

He calls it the Unifying Theory of 2 + 2. He says don’t give your audience four, give them two plus two.

“The elements you provide and the order that you plan them in is crucial to whether you succeed or fail to engage the audience.”

He adds that this isn’t a magic formula and that there are many ways to accomplish this. I realize that all my favorite books and movies do this in one way or another. 

Four: “Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.”

This is a quote by British playwright William Archer that Mr. Stanton came across. Mr. Stanton explains that in a good story the audience not only wants to know what will happen next in the short term, but also how the story will conclude in the long term. This can be done by creating honest conflict that creates doubt in the audience’s mind about the outcome. 

Mr. Stanton came across the quote as he was researching screenwriting. This was after he had already written Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. I was impressed with the fact that even after writing two successful screenplays he was still motivated to learn more about writing. He says “...I wanted to become much better at it and learn anything I could.”

Five: "The best stories infuse wonder."

I agreed with this right away but also wondered how writers can infuse wonder in their stories. I think part of the answer lies in this next part.

Six: “Use what you know.”

I’ve come across this advice many times as “write what you know.” I think Mr. Stanton has the best explanation of what that actually means:

“Use what you know. Draw from it. It doesn’t always mean plot or fact. It means capturing a truth from your experiencing it, expressing values you personally feel, deep down in your core.”

Seven: “Storytelling has guidelines, not hard and fast rules.”

I really agree with this. Just learning or memorizing rules isn’t enough. As in learning a language, learning about rules is important, but it's just the first step. Next is writing regularly so you can practice, experiment, and discover what works and what doesn’t. His presentation motivated me to keep doing that.

In Conclusion 

There are a few other lessons in his presentation, but these are the ones that stood out to me. He covers a lot of ground in his eighteen minutes, and he does it in an entertaining way. If you're interested in storytelling, it’s really worth watch. Here's a link to the presentation.

Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story | TED Talk