Pixar's Guide To Telling Better Stories + Understand Entropy To Design Your Ideal Life
Hey Fam!
I’ve been reflecting on the value of zooming out to acknowledge growth over the years. It’s helped me keep a longterm perspective.
This Week:
🎨Visual of The Week: Zoom Out
⚡️The Power of Storytelling + Pixar’s Guide to Telling Better Stories
🧘🏽♀️Mindful Dose: Understanding Entropy Can Help You Grow Your Awareness and Design Your Life
🍅Sauce: A song by Frank Ocean that makes me feel like I’m floating around in the magic of the universe
Thanks for being here. Have a great weekend!
Kyle
Visual Of The Week🎨
The Power of Storytelling and Pixar’s Guide to Telling Better Stories⚡️
We’ve all been moved by a good story.
Uri Hasson, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton shared, “As you hear a story unfold, your brain waves start to synchronize with those of the storyteller.”
Storytelling is a powerful way to share your message and worldview because stories emotionalize information, which deepens connections and makes the information feel more real or important to the receiver.
I realized my favorite non-fiction books all include great anecdotes. Without stories, I usually put the book down.
Consider the difference between how you respond to the following 2 sentences:
Meditation makes me more compassionate. —sure
As I sat, tears streamed down my face and I felt the pain of my younger self. I whispered first to my parents and then to myself, “I forgive you.” — fuck, what happens next?
3 Things That Can Help You Tell Better Stories:
Think of your story as a gift to others—prioritize the value you’re giving to others over your ego
Have a clear message
Show Don’t Tell
Pixar’s Guide to Storytelling
by Emma Coates, former Pixar story artist
You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
Mindful Dose🧘🏽♀️—Understanding Entropy Can Grow Your Awareness and Help You Design Your Life
You probably heard of entropy in a science class.
I rediscovered the concept on twitter, and it’s helped me approach life’s challenges with more calm and understanding.
Entropy is a measure of disorder and the concept suggests because everything decays, it’s a natural tendency for things to lose order.
For example, if you dumped a bunch of puzzle pieces out of their box, it’s far more likely for the pieces to be disorder than for all the puzzle pieces to line up.
Applied to life, entropy illustrates there are many more disordered states than ordered ones. Without effort, life tends to lose order.
You know what your ideal day looks like, but there are way more options for days that are different than your ideal day. With this in mind, it’s even more clear that you need to put effort in to design your ideal life.
Life has many problems—not because you’re doing it wrong, but because the law of probability is at work.
With the awareness that everything naturally moves towards disorder, we can give ourselves more grace for life’s challenges and put the necessary effort into creating solutions and stability.
Sauce🍅
Speaking of life’s randomness.
This jam by Frank Ocean makes be feel like I’m floating around in the magic of the universe.
Tweet Of The Week🧠
Thanks as always for your attention. I want to make this as valuable as possible, so share any feedback you have.
-K