I do words. She does pictures. That’s the deal. Now my friend and work partner has gone rogue and started writing her own material. Here’s the part that makes me bitter. She thought she was writing a funny little story to introduce a golf tournament. But what she did (and I’m not telling her) was create a back-story, a loopy convergence of fact and fiction that enriches the context of the event and actually entices more people to participate.
Personable not Personal
We constantly create short hand narratives of the events in our lives. From personal profile pages on Facebook to corporate web sites, we’re sharing lots of information. But what’s often absent is a context, a sense of the person without it getting all too personal. A story is a great way to bridge the gap between the unfettered ickyness of too much info and the projection of a personable presence. The irony of the online networks that bind us together is that the realtime unfolding of our lives is less compelling than the constructed experiences we share. A story is profoundly human precisely because the doings and dilemmas of the individual have universal appeal. It is interesting that we (people, organizations, businesses) become more authentic versions of ourselves, not because of the facts we share, but because of the stories we tell.
Susan’s Secrets to a Better Back-Story
Okay. Keep this quiet because Susan doesn’t even know she knows this. But you can use her model to craft a better back-story for anything you care about.
- Keep it short. Ask Mark Twain how hard this is. Ernest Hemingway seemed to have the knack, but getting to simple did take its toll. 250 little (or even big) words.
- Keep it true. That means true to you and your experience. Authentic works. Sure you can change things up as long as you remain true to the spirit of events. Check out Two Fisted Science by Jim Ottaviani for an entertaining and illuminating treatment of a real event. Or, just add a big old disclaimer saying that ‘the facts have been changed to make me more interesting’.
- Mix in some mythic. Make your back-story engaging with a mash-up of the mundane and the mythic. Origin, quest, transformation and redemption. It worked for the Bible and Danielle Steele too.
And now, the best back-story ever in recent history.
Tater, the crappy Bassett statue
The Princess and the Pup, or How the TATER CUP was Born.
By Susan Bachman
Once upon a time, there was a tiny kitty named Sarah. The Princess loved her because she was soft and fuzzy, and well, all kitteny.
Excitedly, the Princess ran to show the mean Ogre the soft and fuzzy kitty.
“Grrrr” said the Ogre “We don’t need no stinkin’ kitty.”
The kind Knight said “I don’t like the name Sarah, and perhaps neither does the Ogre.”
So the Princess named the kitty Tater.
“Can we keep Tater, mean Ogre, I mean darling Husband?”
Flash forward to almost present times…
The Princess wandered about, searching for a Tater to call her own.
The King, taking pity on the Princess said “Here you can have this crappy Bassett statue and call it Tater.”
And Tater, the crappy Bassett statue was born.
The Princess took it home. But something was amiss. Tater wasn’t soft. Tater wasn’t fuzzy. And Tater definitely wasn’t kitteny.
One evening, the Princess and the Ogre were sitting on the balcony of their castle and wondering what they should do with Tater.
“Grrrr” said the Ogre, “We don’t need no crappy Bassett Statue.”
“I KNOW,” screeched the Princess, “we must have a joust, a tournament. We shall tie iron to sticks and hit rocks about. We will invite only the fiercest competitors, and the tournament will be long and arduous, and last many months.”
“And at the end, only one team shall stand victorious. And they shall be the winners of the illustrious TATER CUP – and be presented with Tater, the crappy Bassett statue!”
The End.
