Well then I'm here to really
kind of wrap things up and

I hope today is gonna be a fun day because
you're going to get to go through your

videos and we're going to see
how we can make them better.

So in this episode asked me here to talk
a little bit about what it means and

what it's like to do storytelling.

So my presentation will be titled
The science and art of storytelling and

just to kind of give you a little bit
of premise for one minute talk about.

So I'm a researcher.

I'm an artificial intelligence
researcher I'm a computer scientist here

at the ecology computing as school of
interactive computing here at Georgia Tech

and what a lot of I do is I research
artificial intelligence but

I also research artificial intelligence
in the context of computer games and

storytelling and I find the storytelling
is a very interesting place to kind of

put kind of your academic interests and

there's lots of different reasons why we
might want to study storytelling from

a computer science from an artificial
intelligence perspective and

one of that is just the sheer
pervasiveness of stories of storytelling

itself so stories are everywhere right you
can't really kind of go down the street.

You can't live your day on a day
to day life without coming across

stories they're everywhere.

So think about books stories or movies
they're in computer games you can think of

training scenarios or the educational
vignettes that we use in our classrooms as

stories every day communication so how
often do you just come to a colleague or

friend or a family member and
say hey this is what happened to be.

How was your day with this exchange of
the series these stories we tell stories.

Dozens of times a day is this something
that happens and actually to us is

something that occurs constantly to us and
we don't even think anything about it and

this is a kind of
a fascinating sort of thing.

If you think about the psychology and
the dialogue and

the discourse aspects of what goes
into telling and understands stories.

So the pervasiveness of stories.

There's a lot of reasons for it.

A lot of reasons why is part of our
culture in our society but psychologist

tell us that it may actually be something
more fundamental going on there.

Maybe something that we might refer
to as narrative intelligence which

is a fundamental way of there's something
about the way we use stories we think

about stories to organize and explain and
manage and communicate about the world.

Around us and there's something kind of
ingrained in the way that we're just kind

of designed to think and communicate and
talk and this is really kind of where my

interest come in and that's what we're
going to talk about today though in

the context of this the session is really
well what can we learn about stories and

storytelling in this process that
might help us become more effective

communicators can we become more effective
communicators by really understanding what

goes into this process of understanding
and telling and making up stories.

So a bit of background about me.

Why am I here talking to you about this.

So first of all where we are I
am a computer scientist.

OK.

And as a computer scientist I'm interested
in understanding what is computer

what it what is it possible to be computed
by computers competition systems and

how do we go about
computing those systems.

More specifically I'm into
artificial intelligence

which is in the context of computing.

How do we make computers do things that
at least on the surface appear to be

intelligent that any reasonable person
would say for that to have happened for

a computer have done that it must have
been some intelligence going on it and

we don't really know how
to define intelligence but

we can do it when we see it right.

So what we're about in artificial
intelligence really trying to create this

appearance that computers can do
intelligent smart sorts of things

now is that there's lots of different ways
to go about doing artificial intelligence.

We've seen a lot about this in
the news there's kind of this new

amazing amount of stuff that's going
on artificial intelligence from driving

cars to better google search
to to Amazon drones Wendy.

Delivering our packages or not.

And but the regional goals
of artificial intelligence.

Were really to say can we bring computers
to the point where they can almost do

things that are human level right that can
do the same things that humans are able to

do on a day to day to live a life sort of
basis and there's lots of reasons why you

might want to do that or might not want
to use that as a particular goal but

if you do perceive artificial intelligence
as the goal of reaching the level of

human level computation computation at
the level of what humans are able to do.

Then there's this interesting thing that
people can start talking about which.

There's the strong story hypothesis which
is that the ability to tell him understand

and create stories is one of the things
that might separate us from other

forms of intelligence out there so animal
intelligence possibly even computational

intelligence so the strong story
hypothesis as this really is storytelling

that makes us fundamentally human right
and this is really interesting right so

now can we think about using artificial
intelligence to make computers able

to understand tell explain stories and
by doing that.

Can we get a little computers a little bit
closer to what humans are able to do and

to me this is interesting because
if you really want to think

about a computer you really
want to say if we're going to

be to the point where you can't tell the
difference between a human and a computer

which is what the Turing Test about
the fundamental test for computational

intelligence could you ever imagine
a system being mistaken for a human.

If you can't do something as simple as
tell a story or laugh at a fairy tale or

something like that
understand a fairy tale.

So this is really kind of what drives
me and my research interest and

really if I'm going to kind of boil it
down into one particular statement is I'm

interested in instilling computational
systems with the ability to craft and

tell stories because I think once we
do that we can make these computers

better entertainers or
better educators or better trainers or

just generally more capable
of relating to humans the way

humans seem to relate to each other on a
day to day and hour to hour sort of basis.

And again there's lots of different
ways of going about there's

lots of different interest
in doing this one.

My particular interest is story generation
can we make computers tell make up and

brand new stories think
about making a soap opera or

a fairy tale from scratch without any sort
of human a system can we get a computer to

create something as new and novel as a new
sort of fairy tale that no one ever told.

And this idea of making
computers that can make up and

the stories goes back a really long time
I found this Popular Mechanics article

from the one nine hundred thirty
one about a computer that was

going to make up stories right now as
even before computers even existed.

So it's all of been kind of a lifelong
dream that computers will be able to

create and innovate and

do kind of artistic creative sorts
of things in the context of stories.

So what does it mean to
make computer tell stories.

Well.

Think about going up to
a computer asking it.

Tell me a story.

What does it have to do with a minimal
amount of user input to make

something like a fairy tale from scratch
that no one's ever heard before them.

Someone say that's interesting.

That's good that's a novel and
I've never heard that before.

So I've been working for more than
ten years building story generation

systems and here's a story that
my computer generated one time.

OK So computers think in data
structures they don't know.

So I think the same thing we do this
is actually a story about Aladdin and

genies and dragons and
and and princesses and

evil of these ears and I believe what
happens here is this is the story in which

Jasmine gets to marry this year and
the Genie gets killed.

So this is not your Disney version and
that's the point right.

We want to tell stories that we've
never heard before unhappy stories.

So we can't really read
these data structures.

It's kind of hard so here's what it looks
like if we were to run this through

a natural language generator.

I'm not a natural language
generation expert.

That's not my research.

So this reads really really clunky.

But I think if you were to look
at this you'll say it's a story.

It's got a beginning middle and
things happen.

There's some sort of plot it more or
less make sense.

And while it's painful to read
the short little sentences.

I think it's a decent story.

And I've more recent work and

it's actually able to show that
story generations of science.

Like this are able to beat very
limited forms of Turing test.

Involving just simple stories being able
to tell where to the point now where we

can no longer tell the difference between
simple stories written by humans and

simple stories written by computers and
that's a great thing.

So we can tell stories we can.

Computers Jerry stories.

Why do we care what can
we possibly do with this.

Besides ask interesting
scientific questions.

Well.

We can kind of branch out.

And we can start talking about
interactive systems in particular.

What's called interactive narratives
interactive storytelling systems which is

a form of digital entertainment in which
the user gets to step into a virtual world

and suddenly become a character in
this fictional virtual universe.

And not only just step in there as if
they're going into a computer game system.

But also being able to do things very
naturalistically and change what happens

to the characters change the outcome or
change the direction of the story itself.

So this was popularized by the notion
of the holodeck in Star Trek where

you literally get to step in the world and
literally get to become Shakespeare or

Hamlet or some like that and then do
things radically different and have those

characters and the story unfold in
radically novel different sorts of ways.

So this is kind of like a big vision for

what we can do a story generation systems
the idea that we can entertain or

educate or train people in different
sorts of ways in this way.

So think about this not just from
entertainment perspectives but

how we would use this to educate or
to train people and

their effect I've been doing quite
a bit of work in the last few years

using interactive narrative
sorts of systems to do training.

So now we have virtual people entering
virtual training environments and

now they do different things differently
than the original scenario was addressed

this scenario is able to train adapt and
modify itself so

that we can still reach pedagogical
objectives the scenario can still unfold.

But the the trainee is able to innovate
create and do things maybe in ways that

were not originally envisioned by
the original creator and you know for fun.

We also do games as well.

We can also think about
cinematic reasoning.

So what would it take to generate
a movie or generate a comic book.

Now we have to think about
how to tell the story.

Visually through camera work or through.

The pains of.

Comics as well.

So there's a little bit about
me a little bit about my.

As an artificial intelligence.

Researcher who's been thinking and
working a lot with stories and

with storytelling systems throughout
the years I've had a lot of work

opportunities to dig deep into
the science of the technology but

all of the as you can imagine have had to
learn a lot about how people tell stories

how the experts the professional
storytellers work and what they do.

And while I don't consider myself
a professional storyteller myself I've had

the opportunity to speak interview
work with these professionals.

So what I'd like to do today
is really kind of tough.

About the science and art of storytelling.

I think it's very important I think
one many of us are scientists probably

all of us are scientists
who are technically minded.

I like to understand how things work.

So we start with the science and
say why is storytelling so important to us

how does it really work on a fundamental
level what's actually goes into it and

then we'll see how it kind of emerges in
the day to day practices of what people

actually do when they try to create and
tell stories.

So we'll start with the science first.

And I think it is a good place to start
with science is really some definition so

we all this notion of what story is and
what storytelling is but

do we really have a kind of a good
definition Well there isn't really any

particular good definition of what
stories of storytelling is so

I've tried to cobble together a few
that all tried to share with you and

the first is we need to start very basic
we'll start from the very bottom right.

Even before we talk about
storytelling we need to talk about

something called Narrative and
what is narrative.

Well one definition is it's the recounting
of a temporary order sequence of events

with a continuous object
that constitutes a whole.

So I like to break this down for this is
second recounting we're talking discourse.

It's dialogue.

We're communicating something.

What we're communicating is a temporally
ordered sequence of events events

are change in the world something happens
the world changes in particular way.

What I'm telling you is
a sequence of these events.

And to keep this sequence of events from
being a laundry list of random things.

What I want this to be is to have
a continuous object has to be

about something and everything
that goes in the story has to be

about that something
whatever happens to be.

And finally has to constitute
a whole it must contain

everything you need to
understand the story but

no more right has to have all
the things that are necessary for

you to derive pleasure or understanding
from the story but not too much.

So we don't end up with dead ends and lots
of random nonsensical sorts of things.

So there's still very big but
at least it gives us the right direction.

And there's a lot of things that will
fall into this category of narrative

that we wouldn't necessarily
even think of a story is right.

There's a lot of really boring and
interesting narratives.

If we just use this definition.

So I could recount to you.

My morning which is getting up
having breakfast going to work right

there is a narrative that's not a very
interesting narrative it's probably not

worth me spending the time and
breath to tell you that story.

So what is the story then what do we
talk about when we talk about stories.

Well the story is a narrative.

It's going to have everything that we
talk about in a narrative but also has to

have something else and most people
cannot agree even the people who study

storytelling can't really agree what this
something else is but it has to be there.

So the one thing that I think that is
the most important that I put here is

is a breach of canonicity something must
happen a sequence of events that must

happen that violate the normal violate the
expectation of character has a goal and

there is only an obstacle to that goal or

something unusual happens
on the way to work.

So it.

Many of us have really really boring
stories about catching airplanes and

those are the best sorts of stories from
our perspective there's not the ones we

talk about trade is the ones in
which weird things happen like

showing up your gate and

seeing three fire trucks surrounding your
plane hosing down the plane and suddenly

realizing you're probably not going
to make your connection in Amsterdam.

So something happens that makes this tell
a bill that makes it worthwhile to tell

usually is something that is outside
the norm of what everyone expects or

somehow a character has a goal this so
no longer achievable and there's

going to be some sort of struggle for
that character to read sheave his goals.

So now once we know what a story is
was you know the narrative is well

now the rest is psychology.

So we read stories we watch stories.

And something happens in our minds.

So we often think about watching T.V.

or watching movies and we think
about being in a vegetative state.

Right.
We're just staring at a T.V.

and we're just absorbing but actually
what the psychologists tell us is that

there's a lot of cognitive
mental activity that goes on.

Just in reading or just watching a T.V.
show or some sort of story is amazing

amount of Man effect what they
say is that watching stories or

understanding stories receiving stories is
a very active in gauging mental process.

And here's just a list of the few things
that go on inside of our mental in.

Side of our cognitive state while we're
receiving while we're listening to stories

we're reconstructing themes and plots.

So it's a sequence of images are sick
is a word somehow we're deriving

abstract structure out of these sequences
of words or sequence of letters.

We're starting to infer character
drives Why did that character do that.

What are you going to do next.

Why would you even want to do that
we're problem solving on behalf of

the characters.

How is James Bond going to get
out of this next dilemma right.

What's going to happen next.

We're predicting the future.

And there's so on and so forth.

There's all these things that we're
doing that are mentally engaging us and

it turns out if we do enough of this
mental engaging we start to enter a new

mental state that some people
refer to as transportation.

So in computer graphics in virtual
worlds we talk about immersion.

And immersion is a state in which we stop.

Distinguishing between the real world and
this graphical screen that we might

be looking through in narrative in
storytelling we talk about transportation

as a narrative state in which we no longer
distinguish between the real world and

a fictional world that we've
entered through the story through

the story we're being told.

So what happens when someone gets
transport how we get transported.

Well first of all we have to be forming
some of these mental actions that we

just talked when you start
performing those mental actions.

What happens is the person the reader
goes some distance away from

the original world.

Their original world the real
world is the one we live in.

But we start thinking about ourselves
being in this alternate fictional world.

So think about if you've read The Hobbit
or you watch the movie right so

here's a fictional world in which the
rules about the world magic indorse and

hobbits now exist.

So there are some new things that are in
this new world that we start thinking

about and
certain aspects of the original world.

No longer become accessible.

Right.

So for engage were transported
into the world The Hobbit.

We no longer know about
combustion engines right.

The our guns right.

Bilbo cannot get his way out of of.

By shooting a small building a gun
as you write that doesn't exist

in this real world.

We begin to forget about what's possible
in the real world by adopting the rules of

this fictional world losing aspects

of the original world may also mean
understanding what's going to happen next.

So maybe you've read The Hobbit
fifteen different times but even

though you know that the Bilbo is going
to survive and he's going to prosper.

You kind of forget that you're not allowed
to know what's going to happen next.

You become completely immersed in the
moment in Bilbo's particular moment and

then finally which is the most fascinating
is when you finish the story you return to

the original world but you may return
changed right to your mental states.

What you know and what you believe
may actually be different and

this is really fascinating.

A few years ago in two thousand green
broke to some studies about this

transportation States and Iran a very
simple experiment this kind of show

you the power of storytelling right here.

They went to malls and they did pray and

post testing of how safe
people thought malls war and

then they told people stories about
children being abducted in malls.

OK And then of course they tested whether
people still thought malls are safe and

of course people didn't think malls were
a safe after being told these stories.

So they're going into this fictional world
of being told the stories that are coming

out with a different belief
about their own real world and

the most fascinating thing about this
is they also told people this is

a fictional story about
people being abducted and

people's attitudes about
safety still changed and

then they went back months and months
later and they re interview the people and

they discovered their attitudes about
the holes were still different.

So these believe changes
lasted a really long time.

And so what we think is happening
here is stories are not logical.

We're not evaluating
stories based on logic.

We're valuing based on very similar to.

Does it seem like it could be possible and
if it does we accept it as.

The truth we accepted
as something real and

we can no longer distinguish between
fictional and real world stories.

And this changes us changes our
beliefs changes our memories

about the real world and
the fictional world itself.

So this.

If you ever want to believe you know
is there power in storytelling is

the reason why politicians tell stories.

This is it a more fun side.

There's also these weird things
that happen to us call suspensory

why when I see a scene
like this of jeans on.

Should I feel anxious should my palms
get sweaty I'm watching a T.V. show.

I'm watching a movie.

Why does this happen and why am I having
a physical response to a story that I

believe great being told and
this is suspense.

So it turns out once we engage
in these mental states.

Turns out if we have a strong affinity for
a particular character.

We start thinking in the frame
of that character we

start thinking from that character's
perspective we start problem solving for

the character and story trying to
predict that character's future.

So James Bond is here struck down to
a table there's a laser pointed at.

Unfortunate parts of his body.

And what do we see as we're
watching this we're saying

my God how do I get out of this not
how does James Long get out of this.

How do I get out of this.

I'm strapped down I have no possible ways
of going about this my goals which are not

to be split in half by a laser to
not die are being violated and

I could no longer find a new way to
achieve my goals based on what I

know about the situation we start thinking
about the character we start feeling

the same ings ID that James Bond starts
feeling in this particular situation.

And so what storytellers do with
the really great storytellers do in

cases like this is they
found ways to manipulate

you through the story that they're
telling to manipulate the circumstances.

So that you're likely to have
this effort of response to it and

this is all just what good storytellers do
they find ways of manipulating the story

the content of the story
they're telling so

that it will have the effect
that they want to have on you.

OK so I can go on.

I think this is kind of a basic
idea of what's going on

from a psychological cognitive aspect of
what happens when we're told stories.

So I like to kind of shift gears and say
well how do storytellers go about doing

some of the things achieving some of the
facts that they just to achieve before.

And again as I'm not
a practitioner on a regular basis.

What I'm doing is I'm just kind of talking
about some of the things that other

people who are professional storytellers
have talked about over time and

this will be kind of a review
of those things now almost

anyone who talks about storytelling talks
about the structure of the story itself.

So now you're the practitioner
you have to make your story.

What do you need to know to to lay out
the content the structure of the story.

And almost everyone will talk about
stories having a beginning middle and

end and this is you know
something is very common but

like to dig into this a little bit.

So first of all the beginning of the
beginning is everything you need to know

about this fictional world that you're
hoping to transport people into.

You have to lay out the rules
of this world up front so

we're all familiar with Superman.

We're all familiar with fact that we have.

Characters that can fly a good story
teller will lay out the rules early.

There are characters from other planets
who can fly who can violate the laws of

physics as we know it and as long as
we lay this out early the reader of

the watcher is more likely to accept to
the rules into their transported state.

It's no good if we discover ninety
nine minutes into a story that some of

the characters can fly and
have superpowers.

That's surprising but if we say early
on some characters can fly some

characters cannot think about
the matrix if you watch The Matrix.

All right the first scene we see
is people running up walls and

doing amazing jujitsu
tricks in slow motion.

I don't know why this happens but
I least know that in this world.

Some people are able to do slow
motion jujitsu kick ass and

some people are not OK We'll
figure out what's going on.

Later on but
at least I know what the rules are.

I know what world I've entered I
can start to become transported.

Now the middle is where
the story actually happened.

And the middle of this once upon
a time there was some character

every day something
happened to this character.

This is the Canon This is
the every day sort of situation.

One day something different
happened to this character.

Now is breeched can write something in new

has set this character off
into uncharted territory.

There used to be equilibrium and now
the equilibrium in this character's life

has been violated in some particular way.

Because of that something happens and
because of that something happens and

now these nerd of dominoes start to fall.

Everything is a consequence
of that one breach of Canon

everything is a reaction to that
at some point in till finally

the character figures out how
to reestablish equilibrium.

Now the equilibrium doesn't have
to be the original equilibrium.

It could be some new equilibrium.

But reaches some point that everything is
maybe not perfect but at least OK again.

Every.

Canon has been restored or
a new Canon has been discovered.

I think of this is kind of the causal
dominoes that eventually you stop this

chain reaction in some way and
then you wrap up all the loose ends right.

Everything that has to happen to make
sure that all the neat the ends and

pieces have been wrapped up come up.

The kind of the end so

we're no longer telling stories we're
just kind of wrapping things up so

there's a beginning middle and
end all right so

that doesn't tell us a lot
about how to tell stories.

So we need to go a little
bit deeper into this and

we'll see the same beginning middle and
structure here but all going all the way

back to our Aristotle people are talking
about what's called the dramatic

arc the notion that somehow this
sequence of events is dominoes.

Of narrative structure is structured
somehow and the way to think about

the structure is there's some notion that
as time as a story goes along the audience

itself should be feeling
tension in different levels.

So go back to suspense for example is
a great way of making someone feel

tense about a particular character and so

as you can see there again there's
this beginning part of exposition.

This is what the world
is like this in the.

Inciting incident is that.

I think that breach is canon
that starts the dominoes falling

that breaks a character's goal.

Right or stops a character's goal
rising action is all the things

that happen after that.

So you might not just want
to have one breach of canon.

But suddenly you have a problem for

the character and every time the character
tries to resolve the problem.

Something else happens to him and
you're just stacking the odds and

stacking the odds and
things of worse and worse and worse and

things are becoming more and more dire and
this character is getting further and

further away from equilibrium from
achieving his final goals over time

until finally something changes
we get to the climax and

the climax of course is the high point of
the Story Corps the high point of tension

lot of people think the climax is the end
of the story when everything is resolved.

Actually the climax is the point
in which the audience realizes

that the hero the protagonist will achieve
his goals is often about literally

half way through the big fight scene at
the end where you suddenly realize that

the hero actually has all the tools he
needs and all the abilities he needs to

finally start coming these goals and what
you see is that falling action happens.

He starts resolving is goals he suddenly
starts becoming closer and closer to

reaching his equilibrium achieving these
goals and this often times the entire

climactic scene in some superhero
movie is actually falling action

like the heroes have decided they're
going to have to fight they have

everything they need to go into this fight
and everything else is just resolving.

Kicking the bad guys butts.

So to speak.

Finally denouement wrapping everything up.

We have a resolution.

Everything is wrapped up.

OK so having the sort of structure
being able to track the tension of

the of the reader of the watcher over time
is a way of thinking about what decisions

do you have to make when you're deciding
what to put into your story itself.

How should this affect the viewer
in terms of the tension and

we can literally correlate this back to
how far away is the protagonist from his

goals from people of Earth and
we can almost kind of sort of measure the.

But not quite so.

Switching tracks from here are going to
talk a little bit about some of the tricks

in the tools that we might start
to do some of these things and

the first one is disparities of knowledge.

So the easiest way to achieve some
of these effects is to control which

characters know what things and what the
audience knows about those characters so

storytelling is not possible
when all the characters

know everything about the world right.

So the good guys will never leave home
because they know they're going to win

the bad guys will never try to take
over the world because they know they're

going to lose.

So everyone just stays home and
watches T.V.

right that's not a story where you
have to know that some characters

don't know everything about the world and
what's going to happen to the world and

what these disparities of
knowledge start to unfold.

Now we have an asymmetry.

And we build that asymmetry
to breach canon and

to start manipulating what these
characters are going to do so.

Here's a couple different ways we
can use despaired of knowledge.

One is one way to create suspense for

example is to control what we know as
the audience vs what characters know.

So classic example we know there's
a monster in the closet the productiveness

doesn't and darn it.

Why isn't that protectionist
leaving her bedroom.

Right because she's going to
get attacked by the monster but

she doesn't know enough
that she's in danger.

C.S. to leave right.

So in the way of looking this
is my cute little example here.

If your protagonist is bathing hippo
because who doesn't like being hippos

who's being stalked by some
creepy guy in the background.

You know if the tip was completely
unaware that he's being

stalked that he's about to be attacked and
I feel for this character.

I don't want him anything
bad to happen to the simple.

What am I doing.

I'm screaming at the top
of my head turn around.

Look you need more information that I
have that you don't have and darn it.

Why can't you

know what I know right because you
do something completely different.

So I might start to feel suspense for
this particular character.

But it might turn this around.

I can also use disparities of
knowledge to create surprise.

So maybe this hippo is not at all.

Concern because he actually
knows that a bomb is about to

go off outside the building and

this guy will never be able to execute
his attack right now we didn't know that.

So when we see the Spice and
we explode into lots of little pieces.

We're surprised.

Right.
The hippo knew something that we

didn't know.

So even though I still started with
suspense I ended up with surprise.

One way of controlling knowledge and
controlling the story flow is the realize

the fact that stories don't actually
have to be told in chronological order.

So I can suppress information
that I can tell a later point

which is called a flashback.

Right.
I can return to some previous time and

give you new information that you didn't
previously like how that got planted

in the previous scene.

I can also use flash forwards
I can show you things that

are going to happen later in the story.

Maybe I'm going to show you something
very dire about a protest further down

the road in the story and now suddenly
you're wondering how is the protagonist

going to avoid this situation this future
situation I've seen this is affectively

used in the T.V. show Lost where they
actually showed the end of the season

at the beginning of the season and all
the characters are extremely miserable and

unhappy and the rest of the season is
just the dominoes falling as they get on

happier and happier and happier Meanwhile
we're saying how can we avoid this fate.

Right.

We don't know how to do that because
we've shown been shown the future.

So we can control knowledge we can
control how people perceive the story

by rearranging the order in which we
show the things that actually happened.

We can do a sudden surprising reveal.

For example at the end of our stories.

We can also set expectations.

So the audience isn't just thinking about
the characters the audience is also

thinking about this implied author.

So it's kind of his mental reasoning going
on saying Well I actually know something

about storytelling even though I'm
transported into this other world I

have expectations about stories and

that I have expectations about
how stories are told and.

I can use that to kind of do for
prediction as well.

Right.
So for example foreshadowing can be used

very effectively to manipulate
people's expectations and

emotions to say well I'm not going to
literally show you the future but I'm

going to give you hints that a character
that you care about is going to be hurt.

For example.

Is a common thing to do another thing
that's commonly done is what's called

Chekhov's gun which is really basically

a simple rule that says if
you ever see a gun in a show.

That gun has to go off
someone has to get shot.

So now just by showing a gun.

You're you suddenly you're being set
up like someone's going to get shot.

Is it going to be the Good Guy
is it going to be the bad guy.

I don't know.

Now I'm starting to think about all
the ways that this could go horribly right

or horribly wrong.

And so.

These are some of the tricks.

Some of the tools.

I mean there are many many tricks and

many many tools the best story tellers
of course violate all the rules and

do their own particular thing but
I think by following many of these things.

You can start to think about how to
structure the story maybe start to

structure the things that you've been
thinking about in your experiences in

the project to be a more compelling and
more interesting way of talking about your

experiences the most important rule
however is don't toe the show.

I think we'll get frustrated when we
read a book that says this character.

Is a very violent character A I can say
this character's very violent character.

I could show this character being violent.

Maybe in a situation that's not
in which violence is on this.

So it's better for me to learn this
character by seeing the character and

what he does possibly in the past then for
me to sit down and

rattle off his ten attributes and
he's you know and I in T.P.

on the personality scale we don't want to
read about that when we're reading a story

we want to see this character's
personality come to life through

his actions that he does so
whenever possible show the characters

show their inner workings of these
characters show the things that happen.

And don't tell it don't describe.

So remember stories are events there
are sequences of events of the events.

So there are a couple things
I want to do before and

one is I'd like to pull some
of these things together and

kind of show how good storytellers
are able to manipulate here emotions and

the example that I love to do here is
by going through Toy Story three and

Toy Story three is a good example of
a story is very simple to sort and

it made a movie is one of my favorite.

It also has kind of a.

Somewhat disappointing end and
will kind of talk maybe a little bit about

why it's disappointing and but
what I'm going to do here is I'm going to

kind of step you through the major
points of the vignette of the story and

I want to do is I'm going to outline
across the bottom of the story.

What I think the tension of
the audience is feeling over time.

Now I haven't measured this this is
just kind of my intuitions as to what I

think I've felt as the story went on and
I think we'll see some pricing things

actually not as obvious as you would think
it's not as obvious as that dramatic arc

that we saw before but I think you'll
I think this will be a fun experience.

So if you.

I don't know how long you've been since
you've seen the movie hopefully you have

some memory of what it is.

There will be spoilers.

So if you're planning on seeing this you

should just walk out of
the room right now but

I'm fairly convinced that most of you are
seeing this one bordering at least right.

So here are my takes these are the major
plot points and here's my first bar.

So I have flat F.X. to this point.

What's happening in the story
is we see Woody and

his friends they're having some adventure
and what's actually going on is.

It's a play time I think Andy and
we're showing a sequence of and

he's playtime some of the toys are good
guys some of the toys are bad guys but

what we're seeing is what we're being
doing is we're reminded who these

characters are and
we're being shown how Woody and Buzz and

these other characters are really great
problem solvers they're really great at.

Creative solutions to really really
bizarre situations and we're just

watching them go through the process of
going through this adventure so I'm not

feeling anything particular because I know
these characters are not really in danger.

They don't really have goals
they're being violated.

It is just play time.

That's fun because we remind of
the characters this is exposition

right setting things up and
then after this happens.

Some of the characters get
thrown into the trash right now.

I believe that the characters don't
want to be thrown in the trash.

I don't want these characters
to be to go to the dump.

That's probably a very bad thing for
for toys to be doing so

I'm starting to feel a little bit tension
right we've had an incident right of

the characters being thrown away by
accident by by and he's mother right.

So Canon has been breached.

I'm starting to worry about
these characters their

goals don't seem to be achievable but
it's not too bad.

Yet as a matter of fact when he wasn't
thrown away and as you can see here he is

going to try to rescue the characters and
my tension has dropped a little bit.

Why.

Because I know that what he's really
good at saving these characters he's

done it time and time again as soon
as I know that when he's free.

I know these characters
are going to be saved.

Right.

So the climax this woman the climax is
past as soon as I realize that what

he's on the go and men effect.

They all escape from the trash but
another twist happens which is

all the characters decide that since
they're thrown away they don't want to

be thrown away they'd rather
be donated to the sunny side.

Day care center right now but
this is also not what he's goal right.

We don't want these characters to go to
Sunnyside we want these characters to be

home with Andy and a family.

So from what he's perspective
I'm feeling a little bit

of tension I don't like the way
this story's going again.

But then we

discover the sunny side is actually
a pretty wonderful place for toys.

So I'm feeling pretty happy about that
my tension drops until I discovered that

the children in this daycare.

Are very violent and
destructive to toys and

probably I don't want the toys that
I like Woody and Buzz to be hurt.

I fairly discover that.

There's a couple of evil toys that are
controlling the daycare that are going to

imprison all the characters I like and

that buzz in self has been conscripted
onto the bad guys side right.

So now trying to get away from this
daycare becomes harder and harder and

harder now to.

No how it's going to be happening because
even the characters are turning against

themselves until climax happens again
when he's on the go but gets turned into

Mexican dancer mode which is hilarious but
at least he's not a bad guy anymore.

They begin their escape so
tension climaxes happened.

Climaxes fall of tension is falling.

Everything seems to be going well even
though there's a lot of action and

adventure.

I'm feeling pretty good about these
characters until they get caught again.

So many their escape has been called off.

So again we've gotten further away
from their goals of becoming three

engine start to drive further more
they get thrown into the trash

exactly the place that they're trying to
avoid the very beginning of the story and

this seems like a very bad place or toys
they end up on a conveyor belt which also

seems like a bad place for to be because
comparables never go in place good

matter of fact into a furnace right and
furnace is a very bad for toys so

has an opportunity to stop the conveyor
belt but instead he turns on them.

This was their last opportunity
to get off the conveyor belt.

Did I mention furnace getting closer.

Matter fact they're in the furnace.

And they're getting closer to the first.

And they start to give up right now.

Woody and Buzz the great problem
solvers can't think of a way out and

I certainly can't think of a way for
them to get out of here and

Matter fact they hold hands they start
to give up they close their eyes.

It's about to happen.

My God this is the end of the franchise.

Ceiling opens up blue lights.

What's this a giant claw comes down
into the furnace scoops up all the toys.

Some sort of Deus Ex or maybe as a mocking
I'm sure it was going on here but

wow that was a super
disappointing end to that right.

My tension drops way they've suddenly been
saved thing I didn't see it coming but

now I have no tension
was over what happened.

Well remember these guys.

Somehow we lost track of them
they found the weight of the claw

scooped the characters up.

So maybe it's now alien X.
not sure what's going on here.

But at this point story's over.

They've been saved.

They're going to get back home.

I know everything's going to happen.

Everything else is Daniel we discover
that the bad guys are being strapped to

the front of trucks and all the toys
get donated to the girl down the street

happy and so
this is how I think the Pixar people

who by the way I think are some of the
best storytellers in the world have been

able to choose the scenes the vignettes
and the action that goes on in the story

to bring you on basically a little
rollercoaster along the way setting you up

dropping you off setting up a little
higher dropping you off setting up for

the big action and then ultimately
in my perspective fumbling the end.

But there you go.

I wouldn't say I could do better.

So I'm just saying what
I think is happening.

In the last few minutes.

What I like to do is actually go
a little bit deeper into what the Pixar

people think about when they
go into movies like this and

this really great think happened
on the internet a few years ago.

Person.
Emma Coats was a former Pixar storyteller

tweeted out the lessons that she
learned at her time at Pixar

telling stories which was great but
then something more awesome happened.

Someone else took those tweets and
decided to visually recreate those

tweets in Lego's OK this is why the
Internet is a wonderful wonderful thing.

OK so what I'll do this is not all of them
but you can kind of see this is where you

can go to find these things but
basically Here are the things that

Pixar thinks you have to do to be
great storytellers told in Lego's OK.

And I'll go through these and I'll kind
of give a little bit of context here.

So first of all it's about characters
you have my care character for

trying more than you care about succeeding
Yeah you want the character succeed

at the end you want them to restore.

Equilibrium to get back to to normal but

what you really care about what really
makes the story is the middle part

it is the journey that
the character has to go through.

And we care more about the journey and
the triumphs and the tribulation or

the the things the suffering the pain
that the characters have to go through in

the process of getting to the end of the
story more than we care about whether this

actually succeed or not and
I think for many of you.

This will be relevant as you think
about the things that you're going

to be talking about.

So you're videos.

What is your character good
at what is the comfortable

out through the polar opposite.

This is a way to breach canon right or
to create to raise action to increase

the odds is dealing with things that they
would never ever have to deal with and

are not equipped or seemingly not
able to put to deal with at all.

This is the way that we create tension.

What are the stakes.

Right.
The stakes have to be meaningful.

What happens if they don't succeed
something bad has to happen we have to

care about these characters we have to
care about the fact that you cool Librium

has been violated and violated in
such a radical way that we care about

the stakes of this character or
not getting your pizza.

Tonight is maybe not
the basis of a great story

unless that piece of the most
important thing in the universe.

Give your characters opinions passive
characters might seem like a good idea but

it's poison to the audience so turns out
if you think about if you do construct

most stories if you think about it.

Protagonists and antagonists the good
guys and the bad guys are some

of the most extreme characters you might
think about their extremely focused on

things on good or bad thing about
Superman and Lex Luthor polar opposites.

You know believe Superman believes in
the extreme good in people and society.

Lex Luthor is an extremely bad person and

not only that but these characters are
unwilling to change their attitudes and

this ultimately is what
leads to the conflict.

So you often hear about this
notion of character development.

What is what people mean by
character development is not that

the characters are going to change or
develop over time character development

is how we learn about these extreme
attitudes either the extreme good or

the extreme bad of particular
characters these characters are so

fixed in their ways or so kind of stoic
and solid that they won't change but they

will change the world around them they'll
change the other characters the minor

characters around them in their attempts
to pursue their own particular goals.

So we have to have these characters
to have fixed more Christians and

to seek those out because we don't
ultimately want those characters halfway

through the story saying and
OK I think I was wrong.

Right.
Maybe I'll just go back and watch T.V.

after all right we don't want that
we want these extreme characters

they don't want then they'll have
to be extreme in a bad way but

extremely fixed in their
desires to achieve their goals.

Simple tick.

Tips that we might look at look for the
kernel of what the characters in the story

simplify focus combine characters the best
stories are actually very simple.

They often don't have lots and
lots of characters but they have the few

very solid characters find out what those
are kind of like an alchemist razor for

stories what is the simplest smallest set
of characters that you might need to go

about telling the story you want to tell
you have to identify with your characters

and the audience has
died of a character's.

We need to feel like if we're
in this character shoes and

this bizarre thing happened to them
this equilibrium changing event happens.

Would we feel the same way we have
the same convictions to want to go and

change these sorts of things.

What would take what would make
a good fundamentally good person do

a fundamentally bad thing.

And if we were that same good person
in that same situation would we

make that same choice if you can do
that you're going to hook the characters

are you going to hook the audience.

And they're going to go into this
transported state they're going to us.

Are thinking about.

How will that character achieve his
goals because that characters can be

coincidences great for getting characters
in trouble bad for getting them out.

OK so a coincidence can be this
equilibrium changing of canon for

every day I do this thing until wham
something out of the blue that I never

would have expected happens to me and
I have to adapt to it but

then they have to work their way out.

Right.
We can't do quite what to a story did and

have the magic claw get
the characters out of trouble.

That's what made me kind of
disappointed in Toy Story three.

You've got to keep in mind was
interesting to use an audience.

All right.

Think about the audience right.

So maybe it's fun to tell
a story in a particular way.

But ultimately it's the audience who
tells you whether you've succeeded or

failed at storytelling so you going to
have to storytellers think about things

from the audience's perspective.

Think about the tension that they'll
feel modeling this model of the user

the audience in terms of their tension
arc not is your own tension arc.

Right.
You might have very different perspectives

on how the story goes you know your
audience trying for theme is important.

But you may act actually know
where the story's going to go.

This is I think the one thing that Pixar
has learned over time is they have this

great idea for characters for a story.

They don't necessarily know how it's
going to end her house going to go mad.

In fact a very influential
dramatist agree.

Basically says you can have a premise
in mind set up your characters think

about the characters that you want for
that and then write what

the characters would do write what
comes naturally to the characters and

see if you get the premise to unfold or
not and if they don't go back and

change the characters so
that they're little bit different

that they'll make different decisions and
then rewrite the story from scratch.

So what he's not saying is
how the plot structure and

mind and force the characters into
the plot I think we've all seen

stories in which the characters are plot
driven that they're forced to do something

that doesn't seem natural the hero
runs back into the building the.

The you know back into danger when
it when he could have just gone home

right here to evolve his goals.

Yet somehow he has to say one more person.

Aristotle fact you know thousands
of years ago said it was everything

nowadays characters everything is
much better to have great characters

that lead you to maybe a place
that you don't recognize

that maybe you as
an author thought would go.

It's better to have that than to
force characters to do things that

are going to come across to the audience
as being very unnatural because you wanted

the story to go in a particular place and

the characters just weren't
willing to take you there.

A couple pointers on process so
discount the first thing that comes to

mind second third thing get the obvious
all the way surprise yourself.

This is basically brainstorming
creative brainstorming practices think

of lots of things take the best ideas
recombined them in different ways and

when you're stuck Make a list
of what should happen next.

You might actually see things that there
that you didn't think would actually be

the next great part of your story.

And then finally.

Nothing's ever.

Finish your story.

Let it go.
Even if it's not perfect and

ideal world how both but at some point
you have to give up and kind of move on.

They are good enough to better time.

So with that I think it's coming close for
me to move on myself so

I would like to end here and open up to
any questions you might have thank you.

Was.

So.

Technical so

telling the story to technical products or
end of the nations.

I want to be a little bit careful here.

These are not necessarily techniques
that you would use to pitch products.

I mean certainly commercial and

marketing does the last
storytelling to pitch products.

I think the.

The big difference between maybe how
you have conversations with potential

investors and so on and so forth.

Versus how you would say sell a product to

an audience a through a commercial are you
asking about the former or the latter or.

Then.

So talk a little bit about.

Well I haven't gone
through the process but

I'll tell you a little bit about how I
see storytelling in when I talk about say

the science of me doing my own research my
own work and I find that science is often

about these moments and so we often
you know sometimes we're looking for

these moments more often
than not something happens.

We have some insight that we didn't
realize were about to have or

they didn't happen and this suddenly
becomes a breach of canon for the everyday

sorts of things we do and it launches
the sequence of activities that we have.

Right.
Suddenly I have

a new problem that I want to work on and
I'm going to go pursue it and

then I'm going to run into
problems along the way.

So someone else has already started
doing work in this area or you know.

You know my scientific study didn't give
me scientifically valid numbers at the end

and I have to go back and redesign my
methodology or something like that.

So if I were to talk about say
a research project I would look for

these things these key points
that may be were not obvious

that seem to violate my
expectations of scientists but

also the people who are expecting me to
maybe you reach some sort of particular

conclusion focus around
those set those things up so

that people really kind of understand the
challenges that have gone into this and

then hopefully there's a happy ending and
you can get to resolve all these problems

but maybe also sometimes it's not it
is just the journey of getting there.

So in product development I think
there's probably also true as well that

there are things that surprise you.

Things that come up that weren't expected.

And if you can focus on those.

Those I think are what make
this story interesting or

accessible to people it's in some
ways the focusing on the negative and

the overcoming of this
negative sorts of things.

So hopefully answered your question there.

OK great.

Other questions.

Yeah.

Absolutely.
I think that if you were to talk

about a pitch in the protect perspective
of a story that I think what you

want them to do is you want them to step
into the world that you're painting right.

And presumably one in which you
have something to offer to them and

to highlight problems that maybe
they didn't realize they had as

you know forced this canon to be
breached in their everyday lives and

to say well there's something you didn't
realize that you need to know and

then we're going to give you
something that has to happen now.

Maybe this is not the only way to
pitch something and I wouldn't go so

far as to say every pitch has to
be a story like this doesn't have

to transport them into a particular world
but I think if you were to think about

it as storytelling than that I think
would be the way I would go about doing.

This.

What is my favorite story.

Well I you know I love stories movies and
books they're all different.

I will instead of telling what my favorite
story is I'll change your question and

I will tell you the shortest story that I
know that I think is also a good story.

And it's this and
then the other shoe dropped.

OK now I don't know if I
transported you but if I

have now you think of all the different
things that might be about to happen to.

This particular character and

you don't know enough to even know
the number of things that can happen

outstanding me the second favorite
which is also twice as long is.

Baby shoes for

sale never worn I think that's commonly
attributed to the Emily I think.

Right.
Gives you a little bit more details about

things that happened probably unhappy
story but maybe a very happy story.

So my son has a really big feet.

So we have lots of issues that
he's never gotten to where

I've told you probably
too much of that but.

So there's that other questions.

Yeah.

So.

I do so.

One thing I didn't talk about because
I was focusing really on the cognitive

changes that happen is I didn't really
talk about the presentational aspects

of story but certainly everything you
do presentational aspects whether it's

you know words on a page or
animations on screen or

Power Point slides are in
service of the changes that you

want to have happen in your
audience's mental state.

So if I can illustrate things more
clearly through animations or

if I can create a sense of expectation
by having things unfold over time using

complex build outs in powerpoint
then I will go ahead and do that and

I think that the trick is to then
go back and re-evaluate to say.

Did I do that because it ultimately is
a having the effect on the audience that I

want or did I do it because it was flashy

cool new thing in power point that
I have to go there and I think

having the awareness of everything at the
end of the day must have to change our.

Mental state change in your audience
whether it's ethic diverse cognitive

is kind of a good rubric of deciding
what it was the right things to do.

And of course there will never
be anyone right or wrong answer.

There's just more closely aligned
with their goals of affecting

your audience or not.

So I can't really get more
specific than that but

hopefully get it gives you an idea
of how to think about do that.

I mean when I think about this.

I didn't present this talk as a story but
you often think about

scientific communication as storytelling
just the way you might think about.

A news anchor or press as a story.

I'm carrying you along with a sequence
of events or with a set of things that

I want to communicate and ultimately I
care about how that's going to affect

the person who's reading or
watching me at the end of the day.

We're going to carry.

All the hero's story just basically
boils down to a pattern which is

the hero which is you probably in this
case or some character that you hope.

Will be an audience will have.

Affection for.

Well I mean and
basically goes on a story but

what really happens is something
changes they leave home.

And then everything that happens
after that is them leaving home and

then trying to return to home.

So that I don't you know a lot of people
talk about Campbell's hero's story.

Everything is the hero
story from that perspective

something familiar has been left.

And it becomes something happens to them
along the way that makes it hard for them

to get back and it's the continuous the
journey the struggle for them to get back.

So that stage you can probably
talk about everything.

Again you know this breach of can and
I think is the most and.

Porton thing because that
really launches the story.

They want to tell.

So any good story is going to find that
breach of canon and then potentially

set up greater and greater obstacles
along the way until ultimately the hero

discovers that he's either in classic
mythology acquired everything he needs.

So he's gotten all the magic potions
he needs to finally go back and

confront the bad guy or has discovered I
think this is actually a better story has

discovered that he had everything
he needed to begin with at the very

beginning but didn't realize that these
things were hidden deep within him and

is the unfolding of those things
those inner abilities and

that suddenly dawns on him that
he can finally return home.

And there's lots of different
ways of manifesting that.

But I mean essentially that
boils it down to the core.

OK Well I look forward to seeing some of
the stories that you've put together and.

You know possible be around to
try to you know to disseminate

any sort of knowledge that I maybe
haven't gone through here my slides and

look forward to talking more in
the the rest of this afternoon.

I think.