From his convention speech to last night’s debate, Donald Trump has tried his best to generate fear around crime in America.  I still love Republican strategist/skeptic Mike Murphy’s comment after Trump’s Republican convention speech — “Who knew we’re living in Gotham City?”  The statistics don’t support what Trump is saying.  But the problem is he’s selling a “positive pattern” narrative (meaning a clear pattern, not a positive vibe).  The truth, in this case, as is so often the case, is a null narrative of “there is no net increase.”  This is a classic example of how null narratives are a tough sell.

A SHIFTING BASELINES PROBLEM. If you started tracking the murder rate in 2010 you might accept Trump’s hysteria about crime being out of control. If you set your baseline at 1992 you see it’s dropped in half. But that’s not as good of a story.

FIGHTING TRUMP WITH A NULL NARRATIVE

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” I told about the difficulty of propagating null narratives, meaning situations in which there is no clear pattern.  This is part of the challenge of establishing innocence in the legal system.  People always want a culprit, which is a positive pattern (definitely need to come up with a better term for this than “positive” because everyone is so fixated on the popular definition of that word these days as being happy and uplifting, grrr …).Fighting for innocence is another example of trying to convey a null pattern (we don’t know who did it, but not this person).

Our brains are programmed to seek the positive pattern.  Trump, having deep narrative intuition, has a good feel for this.  He knows how to exploit these programming flaws of the average brain.

And that’s what he was doing (again) last night in the debate as he talked about the murder rate. But as the data above from 538 Blog show, the murder rate today is half what it was two decades ago.  It’s just that lots of people don’t know this and it’s hard to get them to hear it because … it’s a null pattern.

Everybody wants a good story.  Declining murder rates isn’t one.

This is how I will be viewing the first Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  There are plenty of things to listen for in the debate, but as far as narrative dynamics, these five may be the most important.

THE NARRATIVE INDEX.  I posted this video (edited by John Rael) on Thursday.

1) STORYTELLING

Ronald Reagan was of course a (supposedly) master storyteller.  I always thought his stories were hokey, but billions didn’t.  Neither of these candidates are good at it.  Hillary is too cold and fact-oriented, Trump is too impatient.  It would be good to open with a specific story of some sort set in a specific moment in time involving a single individual as the main character, but neither have ever shown much ability for this.

2) NARRATIVE (Problem/Solution)

This is Trump’s “strength.”  He is a dealmaker with a short attention span.  He likes to get down to business quickly, and it shows in his Narrative Index (But/And ratio in the video above which Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing did a nice post about).  Listen for this. But also see if he doesn’t manage to get through lots of narrative loops (And, But, Therefore) by cheating the system through over-simplifying (“we like the Mexicans AND we want them to be part of our country, BUT there are too many illegals, THEREFORE let’s build a wall”).  See if Hillary is able to answer questions by quickly getting to the problem being addressed, or if she goes off with little focus.

3) OVER-ARCHING NARRATIVE

They both have supposed themes.  Trump is Make America Great Again.  Hillary is Stronger Together (though it’s not clear who this is directed at).  See if they open with their theme, then close with it (coming full circle like the Monomyth).

4) QUICK OPENING

Hillary has a tendency to open with four paragraphs of thank you’s that destroy her momentum. Trump opens quick.  Watch for this. One would hope she would open with a focused fierceness and a tone of “this is no time for pleasantries.”  It would also be really nice if she were to open with an ABT structure along the lines of the opening of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

5) HISTORY

The description of the ordinary world ideally involves drawing on history.   In the Gettysburg Address, before mentioning the civil war, Lincoln described the history of the nation: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, AND dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  He started his second paragraph by talking about the present problem, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war”.

Hillary could do so much by drawing on the history of equality in this country, but who knows if she will.

Hollywood instructors are discovering Hegel’s Triad (which underpins the ABT).  It started with Frank Daniel in the 1980’s, moved to the “South Park” guys, and now can be seen in what current screenwriting superstar Aaron Sorkin is teaching.  Sorky’s template is bascially the DHY, geared more towards for advanced writers and advanced audiences who are completely up to speed with the stories he’s telling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdVdQkw24M

AARON SORKIN TEACHES SCREENWRITING.  “You don’t have an idea until you can use the words ‘but, except, and then’.”   It’s what you’d expect from a sophisticated master — the DHY.

“BUT, EXCEPT, AND THEN” = B1B2B3

It’s time to talk narrative templates, which all track back to Hegel.  He was the boring philosopher of the 1700’s (seriously, he tends to be the guy philosophy students most dread having to read). He’s the guy who identified “the Hegelian triad” of “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.”

A century ago, students were raised on it.  Then it became uncool.  But I predict a day soon where everyone circles back to realizing that in a world of too much information, the triad is an essential tool.

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative” I identified the narrative ideal as being the ABT structure of And, But, Therefore.  I then laid out The Narrative Spectrum where we end up with AAA when there’s no narrative at work, and DHY when we’re wanting complex/potentially confusing, hyper-narrative content.  The latter is what Aaron Sorkin is preaching in his workshops, which is what you’d expect for the narratively challenging medium of television.

SORKIN LIKES IT NARRATIVELY THICK

Aaron Sorkin is a Hollywood icon.  He won an Oscar for the screenplay of “The Social Network” and was the creative force behind “The West Wing,” “Newsroom” and lots of other great shows.  Now he is teaching screenwriting.

Above is the trailer for his course.  In the middle of the trailer he brings up a triad of “but, except, then.”  Which is great.  But … it’s a step beyond the iconic ABT structure.  As I have argued in my essay on The Narrative Index, television demands A LOT of narrative content.  It won’t tolerate AAA, and is often comfortable with DHY when it’s part of an on-going show.  This is what Sorkin is teaching.

THE “BET”

So let’s talk about his BET template (But, Except, Then).  The first thing he’s doing is skipping the A of the ABT and just starting with the B (But).  You can do this.  You’re basically “cutting to the chase.”  It’s great for short attention span folks and TV audiences who want the start to start right away.  But you do it at the risk of losing much of the audience, which isn’t a risk at all if they have already watched three seasons of your show.

You also lose the chance to set up your story – planting at the start the overall context an understanding of why this is an important story.  If it’s just another episode of a TV show that we already have been following for lots of episodes, then it’s probably a good thing to not waste a bunch of valuable screen time.  But if you’re trying to write a world-changing essay, you probably don’t want to lose the exposition at the start.

Then he moves to the E (Except).  This is the same as Step 4 (“The stakes get raised”) of the Logline Maker that Dorie Barton developed in our book “Connection: Hollywood Storytelling Meets Critical Thinking.” We established an initial source of tension or conflict with the B, then we add complexity to it with the E.

This means something like, “The father is found lying dead in his back yard and it looks like he shot himself EXCEPT the angle of entry of the bullet appears to have come from next door.”  So basically “the plot thickens.” And then Sorkin wants to thicken it more.

The third element Sorkin wants is a T in the form of “Then” instead of “Therefore” as we find in the ABT.  This means that instead of moving towards “consequence” he’s just wanting more conflict.  So we find the dead body, we realize the shot came from next door, THEN … we find out the next door neighbor just left town. Now we have a complex story to chase after.

All of which means he’s basically wanting a big chunk of DHY. Which is great for engaged, sophisticated audiences.

Sorkin is a brilliant writer AND I would expect nothing less than a bunch of DHY from him, BUT you’re going to lose people if you’re wanting to tell clear, simple narratives to audiences that haven’t been following your show for three seasons, THEREFORE you should stick to the ABT for now, and use it to understand more clearly what Aaron Sorkin is doing at a more advanced level with his BET template.

“Is the ‘And, But, Therefore’ Template the DNA of Story?”  That’s the title of the Reddit AMA session I’ll be doing next Thursday from 10 to 1 PDT.  It’s a chance to answer questions about the ABT, Story Circles and the upcoming fall schedule of Story Circles Demo Days at Yale, Genentech, Tufts, UCLA, AAAS, Smithsonian, and USDA.  The page for it will open a couple hours before the start time, allowing you to post your questions.  We did one last fall, it’s a lot of fun, so please join us! The link will be posted here on September 7th (the day before the AMA). 

ASK ME ANYTHING (AMA). My friend Park Howell at Arizona State said last year (and I quoted him in “Houston, We Have A Narrative”) that the ABT is “the DNA of story.” The more we work with the ABT in Story Circles, the more I am certain he is correct. I don’t think you can boil story dynamics down to anything more concise than “and, but, therefore.” It’s incredibly powerful and gives rise to everything you need to know about story structure — which I think meets the definition of being “the DNA of story.” This is what I’ll be exploring in the AMA.

WHAT’S A REDDIT AMA?

If you’re not familiar with it, a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a chance to basically ask me (in this case, Randy Olson, scientist-turned-filmmaker) anything.  We did one last fall following the release of my book and and the webinar I did with the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Now we’re getting ready for a very busy fall schedule for Story Circles, so it seems like a good time to share the details of what’s ahead and what we’ve learned so far.

Hope you can join us Thursday morning!

By “Big Buts” I’m referring to paragraphs that start with the word “But.”  It turns out the New York Times is very fond of them.  We followed the front pages of 5 newspapers for 21 days this month.  The New York Times averaged nearly 2 “But Paragraphs” per day (or “BP’s”).  In contrast, the Wall Street Journal and two small local newspapers had virtually zero BP’s.  Why is this?

FASCINATING, RIGHT? Here’s our data for the number of BP’s per day for 5 newspapers over the course of 21 days. On an average day, the front page of the New York Times has at least two paragraphs that start with the word “But.” BUT … look at the Wall Street Journal and tiny Huntington News …

HERE’S THE DATA, TAWK AMONGST YERSELVES

The data are cut and dried.  Pick up the New York Times on any given day (as we did for 21 days) and you will see upwards of 4 stories that have a paragraph which starts with the word “But.”  It’s usually the third or fourth paragraph of the story.

Why is this?

HERE’S THE ABT EXPLANATION

It’s as simple as ABT — our “And, But, Therefore” template — or more specifically just the AB elements.  The front page of the New York Times, being so widely read, reaching for the broadest audience, having earned the most Pulitzer Prizes, and having the strongest narrative voice in the world of newspapers, also is the strongest “selective regime” for narrative structure.

I’m guessing the editors who shape the front page are not about to let a story amble and wander non-narratively with the “and, and, and” boring structure I identified in “Houston, We Have A Narrative.”  To the contrary, they shape every story, making sure there is exposition/context at the start (the “and” material) then a clear start to the narrative dynamic with the word “but.”

Moreover, when you look at their guidelines, they state explicitly that it’s fine to start sentences with the word “but.”  Here’s a post from their “After Deadline” blog where they address the idea of starting sentences with “But” (their ultimate source is the NY Times Manual of Style):

THIS AIN’T TRIVIA, FOLKS

Journalists seem to shrug and chuckle at everything I mention about the ABT.  Most act like they already know all this — they learned it in grade school.  But they didn’t.

The ABT is the DNA of story.  It comes from Hollywood.  It is both new (never before formalized) and old (the same thing as the age old elements of narrative form, going back to the Greeks, it’s just a new, more concise statement of them).  It’s at the core of our Story Circles Narrative Training that is now going wide.

The ABT opens up a whole new world of text analysis, as we’re deep into now.  There will be lots more coming along these lines in the next few months.  All new.  Which means, no, you didn’t already know this.

THANKS

Big thanks to Daria Epakchi for data gathering and Steph Yin for the NY Times editing insights.

Daniel Slotnik, whoever you are, you should be ashamed of the rotten New York Times obituary you wrote about my old buddy Thom Steinbeck.  Your first sentence includes the word “bitterly,” your only quotes from other people are from his father’s biographer disparaging him, and there was not one word about what a funny, fun-loving, boisterous, jovial storyteller Thom was.  Not one.  All you did was rake as much muck as you could find on him, then do your best to give him a final drowning in the shadow of his larger-than-life father.  I assume you were assigned to write the obituary and never met the man.  You should be ashamed of yourself.  F. you, Slotkin.  (btw, that’s for Thom — he would appreciate my saying that for him)

Me and a barrel-chested man.

STRANGERS SHOULDN’T WRITE OBITUARIES

What made Daniel Slotnik feel the need to stomp on the grave of John Steinbeck’s son, Thom Steinbeck who departed the world last Thursday?

His obituary is nothing but muck, raked back and forth.  There’s no quote from his wonderful widow, Gail.  There’s no quotes from his good friends.  Yes, he was engaged in plenty of legal battles.  So what.  He was a fun and generous person who supported veterans and workers groups vigorously.

And by the way, Slotnik, you overlooked the definitive statement on Thom to make your rotten case against him in death — the slender supplemental volume by Jackson Benson, Steinbeck’s biographer.  It was titled, “Looking for Steinbeck’s Ghost.”  When I first moved to L.A. and went in search of Thom I began by checking out Benson’s biography which I had heard was massive.  I saw the Jackson Benson name on the spine of the thin book and wondered as I checked it out with a stack of other works on Steinbeck how “THE” biographical work on Steinbeck could be so small.

When I got home I realized it wasn’t the biography.  No, the biography is indeed 1,184 pages.  The “Ghost” book was a separate essay he wrote after completing the biography.  At the start of the smaller book he explained that he wrote it as almost a public service to all future biographers of famous people.  What he wanted them to know was about the horrendous battles, conflagrations and befuddlements he had to endure in dealing with the descendants of John Steinbeck, most prominent of whom was his son, Thom.

So there, Slotnik — you might as well have at least hit the bullseye by citing that work.  No, there was nothing wrong with any of the facts cited in your NY Times obituary.  It’s just that there was more to the man — a human side — that I now want to share because I was so fond of him.  Here we go.

LOOKING FOR STEINBECK’S SON

I met Thom in 1994 when I first moved to Hollywood.  I had to meet him.  I had grown up as a marine biologist transfixed on his father’s book “The Log from the Sea of Cortez.”  It was my density to meet him (and yes, I said density, an oblique reference to “Back to the Future” to show I will be infusing this piece with humor, something the NY Times obituary lacked, severely).

I was in a writer’s group where a woman was listing the other clients of her agent with Gersch Agency and mentioned his name.  I had her give her agent a letter to Thom from me.  A month later a “producer” (I found out later actually just one of Thom’s drinking buddies) called me up suspiciously.  I made clear I was a poverty stricken marine biologist just starting film school.  I managed to prove I was sufficiently innocent/incompetent and was thus granted security clearance.

A week later I met Thom at one of the swankiest bars in Beverly Hills.  I walked in.  Everyone looked too young and hip for me.  But then I spotted an older guy at the bar wearing a sort of captain’s hat, looking 1000% out of place.  I said to myself, “Please don’t let that be John Steinbeck’s only living son.”  It was, and he was already three sheets to the wind.

To make matters worse, one of the hottest young actress wannabes in my acting class was our waitress.  She kept bringing the drinks, but glaring at me like, “Dude, you’re with THIS old guy?”

We sat there for FIVE hours that first night, trading stories, laughing our asses off.  I drove home obliterated.  He told me stories of love and hate for his father.  He told me about how his brother and he always wanted to rent a tractor and chains and in the middle of the night tear down the statue of their father in the middle of town in Salinas, California.  He told me how much his father would hate EVERYTHING to do with the tourists endlessly honoring and worshipping him — which by the way was already palpable in his wonderful final personal book, “Travels with Charley.”

Thom told me about serving in Vietnam as a combat photographer — he told me he was the only one who shot film footage of the iconic photo of a Vietnamese man being executed (a photo of which won a Pulitzer Prize).  He told me about his beloved brother who died in surgery in 1991 — the person he felt closest to in his life.

A couple years later I was part of his bachelor’s party in LA where we went to Thai food, a strip joint, then a massage place.  A week later I took my buddy Jay Vavra with me up to Pacific Grove to his wedding to his wonderful wife, Gail Knight.  Just last year, as Jay was dying from leukemia, I went up and saw Thom and Gail in Santa Barbara and managed to find a couple of shots of Jay in their wedding photos which I contributed to his memorial service.

Thom and I worked on making a documentary of sorts out of “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” for a couple of years.  We had a number of fairly sloshed creative lunches, then at one point — and I’m sorry, but I just have to share this with some of you who can appreciate the outlandish humor of it (the rest of you can get stuffed) — we typed up a synopsis one day and as a joke he added on the cover page the subtitle of, “A Ribald Tale of Barrel-chested Men and Large Breasted Women on the High Seas.”

A month later he called me up and said, “Olson, I messed up.  It’s all over — I made a boo-boo — I accidentally sent that draft to Elaine” (his father’s third wife who shared with him control of the Steinbeck estate)  “She read the subtitle and wasn’t amused — she said no way will she grant rights to us to make a film.”  Which ended that project, but at least we laughed really, really hard about it.  For years.

In 2003 I brought him to our Shifting Baselines Roundtable Evening in Santa Monica.  At the intermission he told all the scientists they were full of shit — that the ocean was already done, all they were doing was agonizing over the remaining bits, then stormed out angry.  Which of course the next day was followed by a phone call with me where we laughed our asses off, again.

Thom was awesome.  He was of a different generation.  If you didn’t know him you could easily write the sort of pile of crap that Daniel Slotnik has written in the New York Times.

Actually, you know what, the whole journalism world owes the Steinbeck family an apology for the infamous question asked of John Steinbeck at the press conference for his Nobel Prize in 1962.  A journalist asked if he thought he deserved it.  That fundamentally soulless, disrespectful tone matches the NY Times obituary for his son.

Thom was just like his old man.  Not perfect, but deeply caring.  He did a lot of work with military veterans and farm labor groups and lots of other meaningful causes.  He was connected with the land and with working class folks, just as his father sort of tried to be and wanted to be and thought he was, but actually never really was, as Thom confirmed to me.  But at least his sentiments were in that direction.

They both knew bullshit when they saw it.  The New York Times obituary for Thom is pure bullshit.  You want to see the proper, decent, dignified way to write an obituary, Slotnik?  It’s right here, in the Monterey Herald, including a quote from Thom’s old buddy Arlo Guthrie.  Thank you, Monterey Herald.

“EPIC 2014” predicted the merging of Google and Amazon to create Googlezon; the beating heart of a massively superficial world. That hasn’t happened yet — the merger — but the superficial part is pretty close.

Gonna be a busy and fun fall with lots of Demo Days that will give rise to lots of Story Circles. Yesterday we launched the first Story Circle for USGS folks (both scientists and communications staff) who took part in the Colorado Demo Day in March.  We’re just getting started. 

THE FALL TOUR FOR STORY CIRCLES.

A DOZEN DEMO DAYS

The two Demo Days we did three weeks ago with USDA, NASA and University of Maryland produced 39 of 80 participants signing up to eventually enter into Story Circles that involve the 10 one-hour sessions. It takes a while to get each one off the ground.  From our March Demo Day, we have launched 4 Story Circles (two for USDA, one each for USFWS and USGS) involving 20 of the 35 participants in that Demo Day.

This fall’s events should involve at least 500 scientists and communications staff.  No telling how many Story Circles will arise from the Demo Days but I’m sure it will be lots (4 are already set for Tufts alone).  It’s a slow process, but we are on our way towards establishing small pockets of “narrative culture” meaning groups of workers where everyone in the group is fluent in the narrative language of Story Circles.  That is the point where we can start to put an end to painful AAA and DHY miscommunication efforts.

A wonderful time lies ahead!

At our two Demo Days last week we heard from two of last year’s participants in the USDA prototype Story Circle. When their circle ended a year ago, one of them was moderately positive about the experience (though not wildly enthusiastic), the other wasn’t really certain it was worth the time.  But a year later, their tone was completely different. They talked in detail about how it has changed how they write, read and think. Yes, it is that profound. The same pattern of needing time to let the training soak in has emerged with the AAAS Invention Ambassadors I work with. The bottom line: NARRATIVE TRAINING TAKES TIME (furthermore, one day workshops on storytelling are somewhere between useless and counter-productive).

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES.  Two participants in the USDA/ARS Story Circle prototype last year, Cathleen Hapeman (left) and Gail Wisler talk in detail about how Story Circles has changed how they write, read and even think.

THE PATH TO NARRATIVE INTUITION IS STEEP AND CHALLENGING

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I can assure you that obtaining the gift of “narrative intuition” ain’t gonna happen for you in a day, either. These things take time.

That wasn’t what one government program officer (at an unnamed agency) wanted to hear last year when I met with him.  He said they liked the sound of Story Circles, BUT … (he actually used the ABT template to say this), their people are too busy, THEREFORE could we shorten it to 5 instead of 10 one hour sessions.

I didn’t say no. Instead, I had Mike Strauss, head of the USDA Office of Scientific Quality Review and coordinator of the USDA prototype of Story Circles write a lengthy explanation of how it was only in sessions 6 to 8 that we started to see the emergence of elements of “narrative intuition” in the participants.

NARRATIVE TAKES TIME

Last week I listened to the further confirmation of this from two of the members of that Story Circle who spoke at lunch time with both of our recent Demo Days at USDA.  No one was more blown away than I as they talked enthusiastically about the value of the Story Circles training.

But here’s the most dramatic aspect of what they said — they were nowhere near certain of the value of the training a year earlier when it finished.  In fact, last August I interviewed Gail Wisler on camera and was really wanting her to say Story Circles was awesome, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t.

Seriously.  I was cueing her, almost verbatim — “So would you say the training has been helpful?”  To my dismay she was filled with hesitancy — saying basically it’s probably useful to some people, but she wasn’t sure yet.

Which is why I was stunned, a year later, to hear them both talk so confidently. Cathleen had used the ABT to give structure to a huge and very complex “project plan” (their central organizing document at USDA) with multiple investigators and various aspects of studying sources of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. She said repeatedly that without the training of Story Circles the project would have been a tangled mess. But instead, it scored the highest rating she has ever received.

Gail was equally certain and enthusiastic.

IT TAKES A YEAR, EVEN FOR INVENTION AMBASSADORS

None of this should be much of a surprise since I talked about it in “Houston, We Have A Narrative.” But I really never totally believe anything I preach, so it’s still pretty remarkable to me when I hear it from others. Which was also the case with the AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassadors this year.

For three years I have been brought in to work with the team of scientist/inventors they choose to give a series of talks during the year. It’s always a bit of a shock for them to be subjected to me — especially the ones who have given TED Talks with over a million views. They naturally think there’s no need to mess with their presentation skills.

In fact, last year more than one complained about having to use up their time with my lecture and notes to them.  And yet this year I was told, before I started with this group, that the same people who complained last year after my three days of working with them, as the year went on and they gave their talks, actually began to incorporate things I had recommended using the narrative tools.  By the end of the year they were apparently telling about the value of the tools and the training in their talks.

It just takes time.

And that’s what Story Circles is all about.

A SHOCKING LACK OF PUSHBACK

So there’s the biggest shocker of all — almost everybody seems to realize this stuff takes time.  Just yesterday I had a conference call with another organization interested in Story Circles.  One of their communications folks said she has been bothered by the one day workshops they have run.  She said she always feels there’s no “follow through.”  As a result, she totally understood the need for the 10 one hour sessions aspect of Story Circles.

All of which gives me great hope.  After 25 years of studying the communications challenge and finally coming up with this whole approach of Story Circles I had feared I would hit the same brick wall that has refused to support my journey. But it’s turning out to be the opposite.  Everybody gets it.  They are ready for the 10 one hour sessions. Even the big boss man at that agency who wanted to cut it to 5. That agency is now participating and ready to run their first Story Circles.

Yay.