There’s a reason why university graduates are not very good with communication. It’s the same thing you see with film school graduates (whom Hollywood has traditionally laughed at). Universities develop intellect. It takes a different approach to develop intuition. It’s what Story Circles is designed for.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE IN COLORADO: Celebrating completion of the first of six Story Circles that ran all summer. Complete with an ABT cake!

INCULCATE THIS

Once upon a time the educational world understood and accepted the need for repetition. It’s called inculcation — “the instilling of knowledge or values in someone, usually by repetition.” Inculcation is also the pathway to intuition.

I experienced plenty of inculcation in elementary school where we learned the alphabet and arithmetic through endless, sing-song repetitions. I didn’t get much repetition through high school, and by college I could tell it was looked down on as some sort of old fashioned technique for stupid people.

But then I entered into a two year Meisner acting class in 1994 in Santa Monica (and keep in mind that acting and communication are the same thing). Meisner is the technique that is revered by the greatest of actors from Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck to Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton. The Wikipedia entry for the Meisner Technique says:

The focus of the Meisner approach is for the actor to “get out of their head”, such that the actor is behaving instinctively to the surrounding environment. To this end, some exercises for the Meisner technique are rooted in repetition so that the words are deemed insignificant compared to the underlying emotion.

There you have it. The word “repetition” and the idea of having people “get out of their head.” If you take a look at all that I’ve written and preached for the past 20 years for communication in general, those are the two most important underlying principles.

My first book, “Don’t Be Such A Scientist” (second edition coming in March) was built around the Four Organs theory that we learned in the Meisner class. It was all about “coming down out of the head.” The class was also built around endless repetition.

UNIVERSITIES ENTERTAIN MORE THAN EDUCATE

As I said, somewhere along the way the smarty pantses in the ivory tower decided that repetition is for slow learners. I think it’s something along the lines of, “Only dummies need things repeated.”

That attitude is fine if all you want to achieve is intellect. That’s what universities do. They are great at producing intellectuals. But there’s a problem when university graduates go out into the real world, which is that they lack intuition. Especially when it comes to communication.

We saw it at USC film school. In our orientation the older graduate students (well, actually, I was older than just about all of the students from the start) explained to the new students that when you finish film school, Hollywood is going to hire you for one main reason, which was not your ability to do the visceral/intuitive part of filmmaking as a director or even cinematographer. No, what Hollywood looks to film schools for is writing — the more cerebral element.

They mostly laugh at the directing and visual skills of film school grads. Why? Because new graduates lack experience, which means they lack the visceral elements. If you want to see a perfect comic picture of this watch, “The Big Picture,” which came out in 1989 but is pretty much timeless. One of the opening scenes is of three film school students and their lousy, clunky student award-winning films. We had to sit through hundreds of such films in film school. It’s what happens with communication when people lack experience.

STORY CIRCLES: NO LECTURES, NO NOTES, NO READINGS, JUST EXPERIENCE

I think there are a lot of people in the science world who want to be told they are wonderful communicators. Improv classes are certainly great for building comfort and self-esteem. But at some point you might as well accept that getting good at communication requires experience. And as everyone always likes to say in every profession in the world, “There’s no substitute for experience.”

So this is what our Story Circles Narrative Training program is built around — not feeding knowledge, just gaining experience. The whole realization of how it differs from university courses became clear to me last spring when a professor told me about his course on “narrative for scientists” he was teaching at his university. He felt it was similar to what I do. I asked if the ABT was part of it, he enthusiastically said, “Yes! It’s an entire third of a lecture!” Which meant what he’s doing is not at all similar to what we do.

With Story Circles the ABT is just about all there is. There’s no lectures, no notes, no readings. It’s not a university course. It’s training, similar to going to the gym and lifting weights. It’s “conditioning.”

The result of this is we’ve had some graduate students show no interest — saying, “I got it on the ABT — And, But, Therefore — all set, why should I spend an hour a week for ten weeks when that’s all there is?” But the response is completely different with government agencies and the scientists I work with at Genentech. They know that the practical side of anything takes repetition and experience. So they get it.

BUILDING “NARRATIVE INTUITON”

And now we’re getting to see how well they get it. A couple weeks ago I posted this set of comments from a recent grad. Last week we had the first of a half dozen Story Circles finish that have been running all summer in Colorado with the National Park Service.

We know from past graduates that the training takes time. That’s the whole deal with both narrative and intuition — they take time. But for those who go the distance, we’re seeing the development of what I’ve termed “narrative intuition.” The consequences of this end up being the term that NSF wore out long ago — that the training is, “transformative.”

The climate crowd dreams of motivating the masses, but their voice is so robotic, so informational, so rational, so non-human that the masses feel little. You want to hear a voice that cuts through the noise into the hearts of real people? Listen to Eminem’s rap about Trump last night at the BET Awards. It’s not easy to listen to, but what do you expect — it’s not easy communicating effectively like a real human.

WORDS THAT CUT LIKE A KNIFE.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNCIATION AIN’T PRETTY

It’s really painful listening to climate activists trying to rap (here’s one and another that will only motivate you to do one thing — avoid climate rapping), yet if enough of them tried with complete conviction they would probably eventually find their way to something that would be motivational for the masses. It just might take a lot of awkwardness to get there. But how serious is the climate issue? If it’s that serious, it would be worth it.

Rapper Eminem delivered this uncomfortable, searing rap session last night at the BET Awards that was instantly praised for its power. Similar to what Lin Manuel Miranda did for the seemingly dry historical material behind “Hamilton,” Eminem blazes life into today’s political issues with this performance.

This is what the theme of “Make Science Human” is about. If you want the masses to activate around the issue of climate, someone has to take the message down to a gut level like this. It’s how things work in a noisy society. You can’t stay up in your orderly, safe, logical tower and expect to motivate anyone.

Because Story Circles Narrative Training is a long term process we’ve been hesitant to attempt “assessment metrics.” The training is 10 one hour sessions, usually weekly, but it can take up to a year to see the full results. That’s how narrative is — it takes time. For now, the training is better described qualitatively. To that point here are the detailed comments of a recent graduate telling about the value of the training.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS. A flashback to one of the first Story Circles Demo Days from early 2015.

THE VALUE OF STORY CIRCLES

Here’s the comments of a recent graduate of the 10 one hour sessions of Story Circles who works with a government agency.

OVERALL VALUE – Story Circles really helped clarify the ABT. However, the log-line maker/hero’s journey is emphasized more during the story circles than during the introductory Demo Day session. Thus, one gains insight on how to write a narrative longer than a couple of paragraphs during story circles. One also begins to recognize this structure during movies and how it is a successful formula for a good movie…..

TIME COMMITMENT – The amount of time is not demanding and is worth it. Even if you wait until the last minute to do the homework (or don’t do it all for the days you aren’t on the hook for some writing), the time spent listening to the rest of the group’s comments and engaging in the discussion, will have an impact on your thinking and writing.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE – The opportunity to intensely practice recognizing, analyzing, and creating narrative structures was something I would otherwise not have undertaken. The story circles deepened my understanding of the ABT and improved my writing. It’s like learning a musical instrument or a new sport: practice, practice, practice.

IMMEDIATE VALUE – The challenge to my thinking that came from the story circles helped me reframe a major message about my program – I used the ABT structure in a presentation within days of this realization and have changed all my presentations and write-ups to incorporate this same ABT structure. This new message structure greatly strengthens how I communicate the unique value of our programs.

THE SUPPORTING MATERIALS – The reference cards and the handbook provided for the story circles are immensely useful aids. One can look at the reference cards during discussions to help with the ABT analysis and stay on track. I still refer to these aids when I am writing – whether it is on the job or at home. However, one needs to sit in a story circle and go through these aids to fully grasp how useful they can be – and how useful a narrative structure is to effective communication.

Story Circles is unique. We make no apologies for the time involved (and actually it’s really not that much, just an hour a week) as well as how challenging the sessions can sometimes be. You get back what you put into communication training. It’s about developing “narrative intuition,” and that takes work.

But the flip side is what you get from Story Circles, which you can see in the comments above. To put it simply, it’s a fascinating form of training that can crack your mind open to viewing the world in a whole different way.

If you have specific questions feel free to email me at: rolson@usc.edu

Bill Maher ends every episode of his HBO show Real Time with a monologue that begins with the last of his New Rules. Month after month, year after year, the monologues are powerfully written essays. Wanna know why? Just look at the Narrative Index. I measured it for 53 of them — the average is 33. Last week’s was a 43. That’s strong narrative content. If only they had written Hillary Clinton’s speeches. Seriously.

BILL MAHER’S WRITERS HAVE TEETH. His monologues have consistently strong narrative structure as reflected by the Narrative index. His values come from 52 monologues. McKibben is from four speeches, Trump is 11 debate performances, Lincoln is his 7 debates with Douglas in 1858, Hillary Clinton is 9 debate performances, Douglas is his 7 debates with Lincoln, climate skeptic Marc Morano is from 9 television appearances, and the left-most value is the average of 4 equipment maintenance manuals found on the internet.

MAHER KNOWS NARRATIVE

Wanna know why Donald Trump hates Bill Maher? It’s not just because Bill suggested he was descended from an orangutan. It’s also because Bill communicates with strong narrative content, as revealed by the Narrative Index.

It’s a metric so simple that it’s beneath the dignity of serious text analysis jockeys, but it’s also very profound in what it reveals. It’s just the ratio of all the BUTs to ANDs in a given text. I derived it from the ABT which arose from the Rule of Replacing I learned from the South Park creators.

These are the two fundamental words of narrative. AND is the most common word of agreement, BUT is the most common word of contradiction. They represent two of the three fundamental forces of narrative (agreement, contradiction, consequence).

I’ve been measuring the Narrative Index for hundreds of texts over the past two years. The patterns are astounding. In the graph above you see a range of values. At one end are equipment maintenance manuals. Not surprisingly, they hardly ever present narrative content. Telephone books would score even lower.

At the other end are Bill Maher’s monologues. For a while HBO provided the transcripts on their websites. I analyzed 52 of them. Also, just to show you in detail how the pattern works, below is the transcript of last Friday night’s monologue with all the BUTs and ANDs colored.

There were 10 BUTs, 23 ANDs, which means a Narrative Index of 43. That’s powerful.

POLITICIANS NEED COMEDY WRITERS (BUT NOT FOR JOKES)

You have to be careful analyzing small sample sizes. I usually recommend at least 1,000 words. This one is only 566 so you wouldn’t want to infer too much. But when you average it across 52 of his other monologues you can rest assured the pattern is real.

The fact is he’s got a great team of writers, and what they produce is always punchy. It has to be. It’s for television — the medium that produced our current President — a man who has a dangerously deep grasp of narrative.

This is what I’ve been saying for years — that politicians need comic writers as their speech writers. Not for their ability to write humor. They need them because they, perhaps better than anyone, understand narrative structure. They have to, or else they’ll bomb.

EPISODE 438: TRANSCRIPT OF END MONOLOGUE

AND finally … if you want to understand why america is so divided, don’t talk about Republicans AND Democrats, or red states AND blue states, read the story about The City Mouse AND the Country Mouse, currently being sold under the new title, What Happened? BUT the original is about two mice who learn that you’re either one or the other, city or country. AND the same really could be said for America. When you fly over it, you don’t see red states AND blue states. You see vast stretches of land where there’s nothing. AND then every once in a while, a city.

Here’s Missouri, BUT every state looks the same — a sea of red with a few blue dots. Now I could joke about Alabama all I want — AND believe me, I want — it’s Trump country. BUT not Birmingham, cause that’s a city — it voted for Hillary. Something happens to you when you live in a city — you get mugged.

BUT you also have a multi-cultural experience. Cities are places with diversity AND theaters AND museums, AND other gay stuff. I have nothing against rural life, BUT I’ve seen farms on TV AND they look dusty. Republicans are freaking out lately because it seems Trump is pivoting from these two, to these two. Colluding with Russia — fine. BUT Democrats?

BUT really it’s not that complicated. Chuck Schumer AND Nancy Pelosi? They’re city mice. AND that’s who a consummate New Yorker like Donald Trump relates to. Why is he always poop-Tweeting at 3 a.m.? Because he’s from the city that never sleeps. He’s such a New York guy, he had is last wife delivered. Trump’s disillusion with McConnell AND Ryan is not really political — it’s just that for the first seventy years of his life he would never be caught dead hanging around with traveling bible salesman like Paul Ryan or a corny countrified goober like Mitch McConnell.

For Christ sakes, the man is from Kentucky. Jeff Sessions is from Alabama. When he talks all Trump hears is a tiny little Ernest movie. AND Mike Pence? It must be torture for Trump to be in the White House every day with that home spun Christian tightly wound human hard on. He literally won’t dine with an unchaperoned woman. Meanwhile Trump has spent his entire life posing with a shit-eating grin that says look at all the pussy I’m getting.

AND this is the existential crisis of our President. He’s an asshole, BUT he’s not a hick. He represents one group, BUT belongs to another. I hate to break it to you real Americans, BUT what Trump likes about Chuck AND Nancy is they’re not you.

He’s not one of you — trust me — when Trump watches “The Beverly Hillbillies,” he’s rooting for Mr. Drysdale. AND when he tells a crowd — as he often does, “I love you,” what he means is that in middle America, he found something that he had long ago run out of in New York — suckers.

Trump voters were played for rubes by the ultimate fast talking city slicker who saw vulnerable people nervous about jobs AND the melting pot getting too melty, AND he told them he’d built a great wall AND get their jobs back at the mine, AND they said where do I sign.

Folks, you didn’t make America great again, you enrolled in Trump University.

Remember that beating we took next year? No. Remember that beating we took last year? Yes. Case closed. We talked about this on Terrence McNally’s podcast.

A HOME GAME WITH TERRENCE MCNALLY.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO NARRATIVE GUYS GET TOGETHER

I did this very fun podcast with radio host, writer and actor Terrence E. McNally this week. We ran through a range of topics mostly centered around the importance of narrative structure in politics (especially in relation to Trump) and climate activism. It was so nice to have a host who could explain a lot of the basic aspects of narrative structure better than I can.

One of the most interesting parts is our discussion of “The future is intellectual, the past is experiential/emotive — you need to use the past to work towards the future.” Which is why scary movies of climate predictions tend to not have much impact.

Hey, I was just talking with Jayde AND we were wrapping things up, BUT then she said “So, call me maybe,” THEREFORE we now have our first entry into the ABT Hall of Fame. #seriously #drinkthekoolaidnow

I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING BRILLIANT ABOUT THIS SONG. Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2012 mega-hit “Call Me Maybe” is the simplest ABT ever.

WHAT MORE PROOF DO YOU NEED?

I’ve been saying it for 5 years now. The ABT is universal. Won’t someone please argue with me about this? Won’t somebody say, “No, you’re wrong, here’s an alternative, competing model for a universal narrative template.”

Maybe the ABT really is THE fundamental narrative tool that underpins pretty much everything. In his Masterclass, veteran screenwriter David Mamet says, “Everything is drama.” Which is true, except that I would broaden that to say “everything (interesting) is narrative, and thus ABT.”

Regardless, what more of a scholarly endorsement of the ABT is needed than Professor Carly Rae Jepsen using it?

“Reductionist and insulting,” “hyper-reductionist,” and “simpleton” are a few of the more common slurs you get when you advocate simplicity. But the mud slinging is worth it when you look into the eyes of 40 USDA scientists working with the ABT Narrative Template and see a moment of revelation as I did last Thursday in San Francisco at one of our Story Circles Narrative Training Demo Days. Kinda makes you wanna tell the narrative purists to get stuffed.

PROFESSOR OF “FULL” STORYTELLING

Last Tuesday my “buddy” Dan Fagin, long time professor of journalism at N.Y.U. who hosted me in 2014, tweeted some interesting comments my way — above are a few of them. The tone is condescending, the “hyper-reductionism” label is insulting.

Dan wrote a truly great book, “Tom’s River” that earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. I was one of many who applauded heartily. But I also agree with the Amazon reviewer who conveyed the essence of the book in saying, ” I appreciate how thorough it is but just beware that it’s meant for science-minded people who want the FULL story…plus the full story of the side stories.”

Yes. Dan’s an expert on telling the full story, and the world definitely needs such skills. But we had a Presidential candidate last year who tried endlessly to tell her full story, resulting in telling no story, and ultimately had her opponent tell her story with two words, “Crooked Hillary,” that she will take to her grave.

So don’t tell me about the need for subtlety and nuance in today’s world. Our nation is now getting ravaged by the consequences of thinking the masses have the time to hear full stories. They don’t.

Despite the record heat last week, Jayde Lovell and I ran our 8th Demo Day with scientists and communications folks from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Services (USDA/ARS) in their offices in Berkeley, California. The Demo Days just keep getting better as we perfect the Story Circles model. Lots o’ great developments ahead for the fall.

WHAT’S THE STORY, MORNING GLORY? USDA/ARS scientists and communicators craft their ABTs in a late summer swelter.

NOTHING BETTER THAN A DEMO DAY

Lots of skeptical expressions at 10:00 a.m. By 4:00 p.m., lots of deeply engaged minds, beginning to grasp how challenging this narrative thing is. What more could you ask for.

We ran our eighth Demo Day with the USDA/ARS folks last Thursday in Berkeley, California. It was organized by the USDA godfather of narrative studies, Mike Strauss (Director of the USDA/ARS Office of Scientific Quality of Review), along with his narrative understudy, Cathleen Hapeman. Jayde, Mike, Cathleen and I had dinner the night before where we realized how far we’ve developed the Story Circles model in less than three years.

At USDA/ARS they are launching their 12th Story Circle this month. That will make 60 graduates of the training consisting of the 10 one hour workout sessions. We’re approaching a tipping point with them where most everyone in the agency has heard about the training and seen the impact.

IT’S ALL ABOUT BREAKFAST

As Mike made clear in his morning presentation, the knowledge of narrative structure isn’t just for writing. He went through a list of the different applications of the training, from speaking to project plan development. And he presented his great use of narrative structure last year where he and a fellow administrator gave a major USDA national presentation that scored a bullseye by having a simple narrative core.

The presentation was a general talk about the importance of ARS work. They opened by saying, “All we’re here to talk to about is breakfast.” They then used breakfast as the central narrative to run through a series of ARS-funded studies on oranges, pork, wheat and other breakfast staples. Brilliant talk, brilliant use of narrative. Mike has been the heart and soul of Story Circles at USDA/ARS. And I’d almost say we’ll miss him, except that Cathleen is just as good and coming along to take his place when he retires at the end of the year. Which will make him available as a free agent for the Story Circles Traveling Road Show!