Walking to Listen : 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story at a Time

Andrew Forsthoefel is an author, speaker, and peace activist living in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. After graduating from college, he spent eleven months trekking across the United States with a sign on his pack that read “Walking to Listen,” recording interviews with the people he met along the way. He co-produced a radio documentary about this project that was featured on Transom.org and This American Life.

His book, Walking to Listen tells the tale of the journey.

"Every one of us has an extraordinary story worth hearing, and I’m walking the country to listen. There’s no such thing as the Average Joe, no such thing as a boring, uninteresting, unexceptional life (for more on this, see this poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko). This walk is to honor that. Life is fast, and I’ve found it’s easy to confuse the miraculous for the mundane, so I’m slowing down, way down, in order to give my full presence to the extraordinary that infuses each moment and resides in every one of us. We’re a country of great diversities and divisions; sharing stories, I think, is one way to find resonance" (via)

The Moth recently shared one of the many stories from Andrew's journey, one where Andrew "meets a man who tests the limits of his compassion and makes him see his project in a new light". You can listen to it here.

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Stories  :  Humanity  :  Power of Stories

How Disney Connects Us All

Human's have been telling stories ever since we could talk . . . probably even before then, because the power (and perhaps purpose) of Story is to "connect with people on an emotional level" (via).

Which is why people tell stories of their experiences, and "write what they know," to connect with other people - to share in the Great Story. 

But what if what you know is suburban Minnesota? What if all you've ever seen is Montana farmlands? How do you write about that? Because most people don't want to read those stories, we want car chases, space adventures, and monsters in the closets. But we also want to connect with the characters. We want to feel the sadness, the loneliness or the joy of the character, because when we do, we're suddenly connected. No matter where or when we're from.

Disney has known this trick for decades. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Zootopia, Disney has been connecting audiences, from all around, from differing age groups, sexes, and social classes to a curious fox, adventurous clown fish, and a self-entitled young lion.

And they've done it, predominantly, by connecting us all through a pain and sorrow that can only come with deep loss. Below is the list of movies used in the short film above. As you watch it, take note of how many of the major characters experience the loss of one or both of their parents.

THE EVOLUTION OF DISNEY ANIMATION (1937-2016) from Bora Barroso on Vimeo.

In all of life and throughout all the world, everyone has experienced loss. And Disney has picked up on it, preyed upon it, and used it to connect us all.

Films Used:

- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Pinocho (1940)
- Fantasia (1940)
- Saludos Amigos (1942)
- The Three Caballeros (1944)
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
- Cinderella (1950)
- Alice in Wonderland (1951)
- Peter Pan (1953)
- Lady and the Tramp (1955)
- Sleeping Beauty (1959)
- One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
- The Sword in the Stone (1963)
- The Jungle Book (1967)
- The Aristocats (1970)
- Robin Hood (1973)
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
- The Fox and the Hound (1981)
- The Black Cauldron (1985)
- The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
- Oliver and Company (1988)
- The Little Mermaid (1989)
- The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
- Beauty and Beast (1991)
- Aladdin (1992)
- The Lion King (1994)
- Pocahontas (1995)
- The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1996)
- Hercules (1997)
- Mulan (1998)
- Tarzan (1999)
- Dinosaur (2000)
- The Emperor´s New Groove (2001)
- Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
- Lilo & Stich (2002)
- Treasure Planet (2002)
- Brother Bear (2003)
- Chicken Little (2005)
- Meet the Robinsons (2007)
- Bolt (2008)
- The Princess and the Frog (2009)
- Tangled (2010)
- Wreck-It-Ralph (2012)
- Frozen (2013)
- Big Hero 6 (2014)
- Zootopia (2016)

Music: Really Slow Motion - Suns And Stars

Editor: Bora Barroso // Twitter: @BoraBarroso

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Movies  :  -N- Stuff  :  On Stories

Pixar is offering free classes!

In partnership with Khan Academy, Pixar is offering a number of free online lessons in making 3D animated movies and, perhaps most importantly (at least for me) . . .  storytelling!!!  The project is called Pixar in a Box. Here’s an introductory video:

There are lessons on rendering, shading, crowds, virtual cameras, and many other topics, but the most accessible for people of all ages/interests is probably the lessons on The Art of Storytelling, which were just posted earlier this week. Here’s the introductory video for that, featuring Pete Docter, director of Up and Inside Out (via).

The first round of classes include:

And I gotta say, I'm pretty friggen stoked.  Thank you Jeff Birdsong for sharing this brilliant link!

 For more on . . .

On Stories  :  On Writing  :  -N- Stuff

Good Fiction : Good Life

The best fiction writers write like they’re in love—and edit like they’re in charge.

First drafting should be a wild and wonderful ride, full of discovery, dreams and promises. But at some point you have to settle down and make the book really work. You need to approach your manuscript with sober objectivity and knowledge of the craft.

Having reviewed hundreds of manuscripts over the years, I’ve identified the five mistakes that most regularly turn up. Start your revision by addressing these, and you’ll immediately change your story for the better.

This is the introduction from a Writer's Digest post entitled, The 5 Biggest Fiction Writing Mistakes (& How to Fix Them). In it, James Scott Bell does exactly what the title suggests, he identifies the 5 biggest fiction writing mistakes and shows how to fix them.

But what if these truths were applied to life? Truths such as:

1. Happy People in Happy Land

Chief among the most common problems, in first chapters especially, are scenes presenting characters who are perfectly happy in their ordinary worlds. The writer thinks that by showing nice people doing nice things, readers will care about these pleasant folk when the characters are finally hit with a problem.

But readers actually engage with plot via trouble, threat, change or challenge. . .

Yet, most of the time what we say we desire most is to live a happy life in a happy land. Yet, when it comes to stories, happy people living in happy lands bore us . . . because it just isn't all that relatable. Like a good story, there needs to be adventure.

2. A World Without Fear

The best novels, the ones that stay with you all the way to the end—and beyond—have the threat of death hanging over every scene.

Death comes in three forms. Physical death is a staple of the thriller, of course. But there’s also professional death, where the main character is engaged in a vocation and the particular matter at hand threatens that position: A cop assigned a case that may mean the end of his career. A married politician falling for a young staffer. A devoted mother losing the child she loves to drugs. Your job, if it’s vocational death overhanging your novel, is to make whatever problem the protagonist is facing feel so important that failing to overcome it will mean a permanent setback to his main role in life.

There’s also psychological death (“dying on the inside”), most often emphasized in character-driven fiction. This is where the romance genre comes in. It has to seem as if the lovers must end up together or their lives will forever be less than what they could have been.

Regardless of which form you use, you must put death on the line so fear may be felt throughout. Fear is a continuum—it can be simple worry or outright terror. You can put it everywhere. And you should.

Once the story is underway, scenes where fear isn’t present in some form mean the stakes are not high enough or the characters aren’t acting the way they should in the face of death.

Achilles says the same:

3. Marshmallow Dialogue

Dialogue is the fastest way to improve a manuscript—or to sink it. When agents, editors or readers see crisp, tension-filled dialogue, they gain confidence in the writer’s ability. But dialogue that is sodden and undistinguished (marshmallow dialogue) has the opposite effect.

Pro dialogue is compressed. Marshmallow dialogue is puffy.

Pro dialogue has conflict. Marshmallow dialogue is overly sweet.

Pro dialogue sounds different for each character. Marshmallow dialogue blends together.

Fortunately, the fixes are simple.

First, make sure you can “hear” every character in a distinct voice. . . 

Second, compress your dialogue as much as possible, cutting fluffy words, whole lines or even entire exchanges. Here’s an example:

“Mary, are you angry with me?” John asked.

“You’re damn straight I’m mad at you,” Mary said.

“But why? You’ve got absolutely no reason to be!”

“Oh but I do, I do. And you can see it in my face, can’t you?”

The alternative:

“You angry with me?” John asked.

“Damn straight,” Mary said.

“You got no reason to be!”

Mary felt her hands curling into fists.

Finally, when writing dialogue be sure to include some sort of tension in every exchange. Remember fear? At the very least you can have some aspect of it (worry, anxiety, fright) going on inside one of the characters so that communication is partially impaired. Try playing up the different agendas each character has in a scene. Let them use dialogue as a weapon to get what they want.

Perfect for life, right? When speaking (in real life) speak clearly and don't fluff, be honest not sugar coated, an original (confident) not an echo, and be a great listener. 

The Chinese character for "listen" is this:

When engaged in a dialogue, listen with your ears, your eyes, and heart. Treat the speaker like he or she is king. Which means although we are honest and original, we are also respectful.

Beautiful.

4. Predictability

Readers like to worry about characters in crisis. They want to tremble about what’s around the next corner (whether it’s emotional or physical). If a reader knows what’s coming, and then it does in fact come, the worry factor is blown. Your novel no longer conveys a fictive dream but a dull ride down familiar streets.

The fix is simple: Put something unexpected in every scene. Doing this one thing keeps the reader on edge. . .

Life is unpredictable. No matter how many lists we create, plans we make, or details we check and recheck, we are not in control. 

Dull rides that lead us down familiar streets are safe, but boring. As Bilbo says, “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to" or what what you'll discover. 

A life that is unpredictable is Life. 

5. Lost Love

As I said up front, writing a book is like falling in love. Outlining and planning are the wooing. Drafting the novel is your commitment to marriage (which would make the opening scenes the honeymoon). But at some point, you and your book will likely need some marriage counseling. Because when you lose the verve for your material, it shows.

So how do you regain lost love? The surest way is by going deeper into your characters.

Start with backstory. Maybe you’ve already done an extensive bio for your main character. Try starting a new one. Keep the best of the old material, but put in plenty that’s new.

Focus on the year your character turned 16. Create an account of what happened at that crucial stage. What incident shaped her? What romances, heartaches, tragedies? Write those scenes in detail.

Do this for your antagonist, too, and your secondary characters. Soon enough you’ll be excited to get back to your story.

Also, try focusing on what your protagonist yearns for. We yearn because we feel a lack, a need, a hole in our souls. So yearning is about connection. This, in fact, is the power of mythology, some of the best storytelling of all time. Joseph Campbell taught that myths were a way of gaining connection to something transcendent, a life source, an essential mystery.

Readers, too, yearn for connection—with stories they can get lost in and be moved by. Fix these five areas in your work, and your books can be among them.

Holy Crap. Think of all that could happen to relationships if we applied THIS truth? Sheesh.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Stories Matter : John Green Style

"It is absolutely exhausting and infuriating and the more I let myself be stuck inside of [my body prison] the less I am able to acknowledge and celebrate the humanity of others or those who are distant from me who are fundamentally "other" the more the problems of people who live far away or live in circumstances that are different than mine feel like they are 'not my problems' . . .

Fiction for me, stories for me, are the only way out of that, out of this prison that I'm stuck inside of.

I can live inside the lives of someone else for a while. . ." 

 

Stories Matter.

One Book Which Changed My Life Forever

Sorry, I couldn’t come up with “50 GREAT READS TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY.”

Instead, here is the first book which changed my life forever. There have been others, of course, but you never forget the first time.

The book which had the most change on my life was The Bridge to Terabithia.

Picture this — I am a young, nerdy 5th grader walking into a class full of rowdy kids. (Yes, even at age 11, I thought they were rowdy). They stampeded through the hallways. I sat and read.

Our teacher tasked us with a wonderful book about woods and magical creatures. I soaked in the world. I traveled with the two main characters (no, I don’t remember their names, and I’m not going to google them to sound smarter).

This book pulled me in. I can’t remember an earlier experience which so engaged my heart, soul, and mind.

I didn’t just read the book, I was IN the book.

Pure nirvana.

AND THEN.

I read ahead of the chapters for the day. This was not a new thing. I remember flipping over the pages happily, wondering what mischief would happen next.

Here’s what happened next:

The girl died.

SHE DIED.

She crushed her head on a stupid rock, and she died. A needless, pointless, useless tragedy. Later, the boy character ate pancakes or something.

I couldn’t understand — how could she have died? Kids my age don’t die, even in books. They are invincible. If she died, would I die? Would everyone in my classroom die?

I finished the book in a daze. I walked across the room, trying to get to the bathroom.

The teacher grabbed my arm before I could make it out the door.

“Todd, are you okay?”

I wrenched my eyes shut and nodded my head, trying to prevent the inevitable. Then, I dropped my head to my chin and released the raw emotion which had been clawing its way out of my ribs and up my throat for the last hour. There, in front of all my friends and classmates, I squalled like a baby.

A book made me feel this way.

On that day, I learned words have the ability to change the way you think. I learned stories are more powerful, sometimes, than actual experiences. I learned reading ahead is not always the best idea.

Most importantly, I learned art can make you feel. It can make you think. It can create an emotion — not the fleeting emotion of a thought, but one deep enough and strong enough to change a life forever. One so powerful you tell strangers on the Internet about it 16 years later.

Words matter. Stories matter.

And they always will.

— TB

Repost from Todd Brison