On Bouncing Narrative Arcs

From "Oh crap" to "I rule" and back again

"The most powerful three words in the world are 'What happens next?'" — Neil Gaiman

I used to suffer with tinnitus. Too many loud gigs, too loud a walkman, whatever the cause the outcome was the same: A low-pitched, constant, warm humming sound like someone had left an amp in maximum volume with nothing connected.

The explanation I was given at the time for this ever-present swarm of bees was that my brain was operating like a pre-amplifier. The normal signal coming back from my ear was too weak, as far as my noise acclimatised brain was concerned, and my brain was helpfully turning the volume of the send signal way up, until I was getting this annoying hum.

The result: Droning tinnitus that had the useful property of being both boring and distracting all at the same time.

Don't let your talk be like tinnitus

Your talks could be like my tinnitus, i.e. droning and, ultimately, boring. It's actually very easy to achieve, simply follow this easy, three-step plan:

1. Make sure that your talk has only one beginning, middle, and end, and make your middle as single threaded as possible.

2. Ignore any tips on making your talks memorable¹.

3. Blast your audience, repeatedly, with your highly-important points. Relentlessly and constantly.

Et voila! In just 10 minutes or less you'll have droned your audience to death and entirely lost the wrestling match for their attention. Their brain's crap filters will be doing a victory lap before you've even hit the middle of your race.

My talks are not like this. They are not the equivalent of pitching one large stone into a lake. They're more like skipping stones.

Let me try and explain.

My talks are not, usually, just one story. Each talk is built up of a series of beats, each one like a stone skipping over a pond. Every time a stone hits the water is an opportunity to deliver a memorable point and every skip is another arc or story within the story of the whole talk. A skip takes my audience to the next point that I want them to remember.

The arcs themselves are small, emotional journeys. Whether they are short jokes, or long and complex parallelised stories with multiple characters, at its heart my narrative arcs are a chance to repeat and reinforce the points I've made so far and to get everyone prepared for the next important takeaway.

Arcs are not Optional

These arcs are not just candy or stylistic devices, they are life-savers for your audience. Your audience needs them, at least their brains do. As you build your own arcs you factor in your audience's attention span, helping them to avoid lulling too comfortably into the journey.

In a forty five minute talk I aim for around 4 or 5 arcs. That number seems to keep everyone awake and engaged. These 4 or 5 arcs are my opportunities to beat the drum for my audience’s attention regularly enough to stop them relaxing at the wrong moment and missing something important I really wanted, or maybe needed, them to notice.

"Oh crap!" to "I rule!"

Coming up with arcs is easier than it first looks as soon as you know the "Oh crap! I rule!" loop. The best narrative arcs that I use are where I introduce a challenge first. Maybe there's a gotcha that I forgot to mention, or maybe there's a next step that surprisingly makes our situation more dire. My arcs begin with a condition that my audience can feel, ideally makes everyone feel like, "Oh crap! We're in trouble now.". This sets up the tension for what comes next.

"Oh crap!" is an Opportunity

Your "Oh crap!" moment, when engineered well, is a huge opportunity to teach something. Your audience senses a crisis, and they desperately seek a resolution to get back to "happy and safe". You've achieved a small state of anxiety. That anxiety is like prime real estate in your audience’s mind—the audience's brain is crying out those three magic words, "What happens next?" and it’s perfect to drop a key point into that demanding void.

Close your arc with "I rule!"

With your audience's brain hungry for resolution now is your moment to use that tension by dropping one of those all-important points you are trying to get them to take away. Their brains are literally dying to know it. You can deliver your points in a way that feels, to your audience, just in time. Even better if you can deliver your point in a way that makes the audience feel like they are attaining important, even secret, knowledge. This way they get to win. You've successfully taken your audience from "Oh crap!" to "I rule", and your point is nailed.

Consider closing with a hint of "crap"

Unless an arc is the last one of your talk I tend to not close with too strong an "I rule" for my audience. If I nail my point a little too well then I end up satisfying the audience's brain to the extent it gets a chance to wander.

To build hunger for my next point I apply a little trick. Instead of leaving them with soul-satisfying closure I sprinkle a little doubt in their minds. I leave a hint that all is not entirely well with the world and that this tension is, possibly, going to get resolved in the next arc.

This last job of my intermediate narrative arcs is to leave my audience's brains looking forward to, sometimes even needing, the sequel. There's still a threat out there and, like a good post-credit scene, alluding to the fact that even more is to come in the next arc. I leave them with a little hint of “Oh crap” to keep them going on the next step of my talk’s journey.

Rinse and Reinforce, not Repeat

You might love your favourite food but if someone offered that particular dish to you morning, noon and night, you'd likely become bored and nauseous at even the sight of it. It's the same in your talks if you repeat something too many times.

Across your talk and its arcs, repetition can be a problem. A narrative arc is a beat in your talk, and those beats go on until the culmination of your talk's story in a grand, final act of"Oh CRAP! ... Phew! I rule...".

Each beat of your narrative arcs is an opportunity to teach something new or, and just as importantly, an opportunity to reinforce a crucial point. Notice I said reinforce, not repeat.

Repetition of the same point over and over has the same effect as not having arcs at all. Everything gets smoothed out in your audience's brains when they hear the same point the same way over and over again. Eventually the brain will smooth out the bumps and you'll be back to droning on and on again. When things are repeated too often, your brain will see your points coming and with a big yawn, and so the Cr@p filter² slams shut.

Reinforcement is different. When you reinforce a point you state the same essential point but in a new way. Maybe you'll use a new perspective, or introduce an entirely new context. Reinforcement of a point maintains the surprise and satisfaction in the brain that learning the lesson originally did. Reinforcement amplifies the reward of learning something, repetition undermines it. There's enough difference to fool the brain into thinking that this is in fact something new it has learnt, and so something satisfying and deserved of its attention.

Finally, the importance of .... (silence)

When I first began speaking in public I was terrified of silence on stage. I would do anything to fill those frightening, yawning gaps. But then I learned that this was one of the worst things I could do.

Think about it, you've just dropped new and, hopefully, essential information on your audience. It might have been completely new or reinforcing a previous point. Either way the closing of an "Oh crap! I rule!" arc should be a small a shock to their brains.

After that shock it's totally understandable that the brain needs a bit of time to process the new information. If you don't give the brain that personal space there is a danger that your audience’s brains will label the information as "probably not that important anyway" and your arc could have been wasted.

The secret here is the well-timed pause. Like a perfectly positioned full stop. Don't fear the silence at the end of an arc; control and use it.

I tend to physically wander about the stage a lot when I speak and so sometimes I force myself to take a break by trying to reminding myself to take a wander at the end of an arc. During this pause I'll keep maintaining eye contact with my audience to let them know that this silence is on purpose. I'm giving my audience's brains a chance to breathe, to save the moment, process the point, and build anticipation for the next arc.

Silence is a tool. Silence in a talk has a physicality and purpose, and the more you get good at using it the more of your talk your audience is likely to be able to recall.

Narrative arcs are small stories, beats, and emotional journeys within my talk's overall journey. Each arc is a bounce where I get a shot to leave my audience with something important, allowing them to pause for breath with a good silence at the end of every bounce along our way.

TL; DRs

• Use narrative arcs to stop your talks being one, long, droning experience.

• Narrative arcs bounce you from one important takeaway point to another.

• Build your narrative arc around an "Oh Crap" to "I rule" experience.

• Reinforce your points, but don't give in to boring repetition.

• Use pause effectively between your arcs to give your audience a chance to take a breath, and their brains to get started processing on what has been communicated.

(There are) No Dumb Questions

• What if my talk is *really* short and I only have time for one arc?
  It's ok to have one arc if your talk is short enough. If you only have time to make one, great point to take away, then you only need one arc. I use a rule of thumb that I have the same number of narrative arcs as I have time for important takeaway points. So if my talk as 5 takeaways, I'll get at least 5 arcs in. Only time for 1 major point? One arc is enough.

• I have 5 points to make in 5 minutes, surely there's not enough time to have 5 arcs?Narrative arcs do not have to be long and winding stories; they could be little more than a sentence or two between your points. The important thing is to make sure there is a thread between the points and that the thread *motivates* the audience through those points.

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This was an excerpt from the Work in Progress book, “How to Speak: Tips for people who want to tell their story” by Russ Miles.

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1. A post on that to follow!

2. More on your Brain’s Cr@p Filter in a latter post in this series.