This is the third blog in a series about storytelling – 5 in 5 days.  Everyone seems to get it that storytelling is important, because we’re awash in data and information and can’t remember it all.  But we do remember stories.  That’s because they are how our brains work.  For example, they are why we all feel that it’s safer to drive than fly, even though the statistics prove the opposite.  We remember the horrifying stories of plane crashes, and forget the stats.  Our brains are constructed that way.  

Conflict Is at the Heart of Good Storytelling.

Without conflict, you don’t have a story.   But it’s not just any conflict.  It’s a struggle between a hero and a villain, to put it as simply as possible.  The conflict can be as big as World War III or as small as who will win the flower show.  The hero can be flawed, and the villain can – and should – have his good points.  But it’s all about the struggle between the protagonist and antagonist.  Without that, you have an anecdote:  We were in New York City.  We spotted Stanley Tucci coming out of a drugstore.  We asked for his autograph.  He obliged.  That’s a fine celebrity-spotting anecdote, but it’s not a story. 

And there’s more.  For a story to be a good one, you have to put the hero in jeopardy.  That turns out to be surprisingly hard for most people – and organizations – to do, because they don’t like to admit weakness, or uncertainty, or anything remotely associated with flaws.  And yet, it’s how our hero responds to jeopardy that makes a story interesting, and great.  In the recent enormously popular series of books, The Hunger Games (soon, as they say, to be a major motion picture), the heart – and strength – of that trilogy is that the heroine is in terrible jeopardy for most of the three books.   We get to see how Kat struggles, fails, and deals with danger and tragedy, and her own flaws, and we’re mesmerized. 

In the business world, telling good stories is difficult because you have to get past the unwillingness of the organization to contemplate struggle, failing, and flaws.  The legal department doesn’t want to go there.  The marketing department doesn’t want to go there.   But the same rules apply.  No conflict, no struggle, no jeopardy – no story.