Wyzga On Words

"Emotional Meaning Leads To Listener Action."

My dear friend, colleague, author, writer, mediator, blogger and story-tracker, Stephanie West Allen, emailed me the link to The Inside Story, an article on the power of narrative by Peter Gruber published in Psychology Today.

Gruber's article is a tidy review of what we storytellers live and breathe.  Excerpt.

"Telling stories is not just the oldest form of entertainment, it's the highest form of consciousness. The need for narrative is embedded deep in our brains. Increasingly, success in the information age demands that we harness the hidden power of stories. Here's what you need to know to tell a killer tale."

I was encouraged to revisit many of the themes I have been writing and speaking about since 1994 when a book of stories fell off a shelf into my hand and said, "Come follow us."  Themes like "virtual journey" which Gruber calls "virtual transportation."  Either way you look at it the notion is a well told story invites the listener inside the story to share the experience. Remember to release them at the end.   

Stories are not fluff - they have become the "cornerstones of our conscience" as lawyers have learned. Pull accurately on the collective community conscience and you are likely to get them on your side of an argument.

This is another oft-told notion:

"The first rule of telling stories is to give the audience—whether it's one business person or a theater full of moviegoers—an emotional experience. The heart is always the first target in telling purposeful stories. Stories must give listeners an emotional experience if they are to ignite a call to action."

As I wrote on bookmark give-aways in 2003:

"Storytelling thrives on imagination.  Images touch the heart and become sensations, sensations trigger memories, memories create meaning and meaning leads to listener action."

Any story must be emotionally meaningful for the listener to care about it. That does not mean the story has to be emotional and fraught with drama.  No.  It must evoke a value or values that the listener identifies with as personal to them and their life experience, their view of how the world turns.  This is especially true of decision-makers, those people you want to give you some action in exchange for the story.

Not all of us are called to be storytellers.  There are three distinct and interwoven parts to any story: the story itself, the teller and the listener.  Listening attends to the images and helps translate the metaphors into "this is like that."  Without the listener there is no story.

If it's true that we read to know we are not alone, I believe we listen to stories for the same reason. 

You, Your Secrets & What Companies Learn About Them.

We think we know all about marketing, branding, advertising.

We say: "I buy just what I need or want, not what someone or something tells me to buy."

Would that it were so. As Ralph Nader says, "You get away from marketing when you are asleep."

Start here if you have not already seen POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Morgan Spurlocks' documentary about branding, advertising, and product placement brought to you by the very folks who do the branding, advertising and product placement.

Or here.

Or here.

Then ask yourself what you buy and how come you buy it.

When you are done talking to yourself, visit a fascinating and in-depth article by Charles Duhigg reporting for the NYTimes, "How Companies Learn Your Secrets."  It's so rich for mining I  don't know where to turn first.

Number 1: we are habit-driven creatures.  The habit works like this: cue + response + reward.  For example, it's Saturday night (cue) and on Saturday night I have fish and chips (response) because it's fun and greasy (reward).  And so it goes until something pretty drastic breaks the habit.  Drastic like a move, a divorce, a marriage or the like.

Raise your hands: who here uses the same dish washing detergent their mom used?  See.

Number 2: companies collect information on customers.  No news here.  But apparently Target is ahead of the game turning demographic collection into a data driven, statistics-based enterprise that makes the most of "the intersection of data and human behavior." 

Number 3: all the demographic information companies collect is meaningless (as we have learned in other areas of practice)

..."without someone to analyze and make sense of it. That’s where Andrew Pole and the dozens of other members of Target’s Guest Marketing Analytics department come in."

The article claims that Target has gone so far in its analysis as to know when a couple is pregnant so they can target (ahem!) the new parents and turn them into loyal customers for years. A Dark Art or admirable enterprise?  

Admittedly, the article will take almost as long to read as it takes to watch The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  Yet, it sure is worth knowing a bit more about what they know about you so you can decide for yourself who or what is the

Iraq Vet With PTSD Finds Solace In A Film Role.

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, has seen its share of wounded military men and women.  Many have war-inflicted wounds you can see.  Many others have something not so easily detected: post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Sgt. Matthew Pennington is one such survivor.  James Dao brings his story to clear relief in his reporting for the NYTimes, "Acting Out War's Inner Wounds."

When I read the article I was reminded of the line by pre-eminent writer Zora Neale Hurston that I have embedded in my email signature line and on which I have written: "There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story."  I believe that what Hurston meant is when we share our stories we find we are very much alike.  I don't know whether the sharing or the reflection of our experience in that of another human being is where the burden lightens; but I can tell you that it does.

“We are lonesome animals.  We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.  One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the Listener to say - and to feel - ‘Yes! that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.  You are not as alone as you thought.’” [John Steinbeck]

 The story continues:

"For Mr. Pennington, medications seemed to worsen his depression and therapy did not ease his anxiety. He seemed headed for divorce, isolation and perhaps alcoholism. And there his story might have ended, a case study on the intransigence of war’s psychological scars. But it did not end there.

In 2009, an unexpected opportunity landed in his e-mail inbox: a casting call, forwarded by a friend in Nashville, from an undergraduate filmmaker looking for someone to play a combat veteran who had lost a leg, had post-traumatic stress disorder and lived in Maine.

This is my life, Mr. Pennington thought.

So on a lark, Mr. Pennington — whose last appearance on stage was in middle school and who had become nervous in crowds and, indeed, avoided most human contact — decided that fixing his life depended on performing before a camera.

“I thought acting would be so out of the normal that it would force me to deal with things,” he recalled. “I wanted my life back.”

The struggle by wounded veterans like Mr. Pennington to reclaim their lives is the unfolding next chapter in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2001, 46,000 American service members have been injured in combat, perhaps a third or more seriously. Those veterans now face years of rehabilitation at a cost of billions of dollars annually.

In the coming weeks, The New York Times will profile a few of those veterans. Their cases say much about the critical importance of high-quality health care and loving families. But as with Mr. Pennington, they also underscore the individuality of recovery, where the most effective therapies are often discovered by the veterans themselves."

I am not writing a happy ending.  That's not for me to write.  If one is written it will be Pennington's doing.  What strikes me is that yet again the story of who we are, where we've come from, what we've seen, how we have persevered will help all of us get home.

You might wish to click here to watch the story in video form.

Glamorous Movie Star + Weapons Systems + Cultural Story Themes Of Bias Against The Beautiful.

My father used to wax nostalgic about the glamorous Hollywood actress, Hedy Lamarr.  And no wonder!

Who knew that behind all the glamour was a brain?  And imagination? 

When Lamarr put those skills to work she invented and patented weapons systems that were a precursor to today's "smart bombs" as well as technology for cell phones, the Bluetooth and GPS. 

Could she sell it?  Not a chance.  The problem was that the men in charge could not be persuaded beyond her beauty.  And Lamarr assumed that the men in charge would overlook her looks and bank on her brains. 

Bias against the beautiful.  Then as now you have to prove yourself twice as much.

Lamarr got nowhere until at the age of 82 when she was awarded the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Click here to read John Adams' review of Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World in his NYTimes Book Review article, "Brainy Beauty."

Here's the best part that resonates with this storyteller:

"Behind the uniqueness of this story lie deeper themes that Rhodes touches upon: the gender biases against beautiful and intelligent women, the delicate interpersonal politics of scientific collaboration and, perhaps most important of all, the never-ending, implacable conflict between art and Mammon in American culture."

Bias against the beautiful.  Then as now you have to prove yourself twice as much.

Q&A Tuesday: What Does Legal Writing Have In Common With Walt Disney?

Q:    What does legal writing have in common with Walt Disney?

A:    Before you put pen to notepad or fingers to keyboard you must identify the story you want to tell.  Only after identifying the story will you be able to shape and deliver it.

Walt Disney was a master of the storyboard to identify the story.  This simple idea made him the single most influential fellow in animation.

Click here to view the short process.

TIP:    Before you write know the bones of the story you need to tell on behalf of your client, issue or project. 

TIP:    The bones of a story are the skeleton or major elements.   

TIP:    Some folks find it useful to sketch out their story in icons or stick figures. Others use key words.  And still others rely on shorthand phrases or a mnemonic.

TIP:    Imagine that your story will be a Tweet; you have 160 characters to work with.  What is the story? 

TIP:    Reduce that Tweet to a text.  What is the condensed version of your story? 

TIP:    Now that you have created the bones of your story you can flesh out the rest by writing your brief, argument, opening, and so on.

What This Country Needs For Inspiration: A Movie Showing Brain Injured Survivors Going The Distance And Making A Comeback.

While at the BIACal conference I met David L. Brown, the producer and director of a spectacularly hopeful documentary entitled, "Going the Distance - Journeys of Recovery."  It is the perfect timely message for those with traumatic brain injuries (in particular) but any handicapped person, survivors, families, friends, caregivers, and so on to see that there is a way to be "A Comeback Kid."  You need faith, family, friends, assets and resources.  

To introduce you to the man behind the viewfinder, following are two sites that tell stories about what motivated David Brown to take on the personal journeys of four people, strangers really.

Bay Area Filmmaker Goes The Distance. 

Brown Follows Injuries.

This documentary has all the elements of great storytelling and movie-making: love, romance, danger, pathos, hope, despair, triumph, loss, gain, and the indomitable human spirit.

The four featured survivors are a young boy who gets back on a surf board with a "helper" dog; a young Marine injured in the war; a young woman thrown from a motorcycle; and a young man who was the victim of road rage. 

You can visit this website to see the trailer:
http://www.goingthedistance.info

There is a companion website to help raise the last $16 grand needed by Thanksgiving to get this movie out into the world:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Going-the-Distance.

Please check it out, reach into your pockets for a contribution, and pass this message along.

The lucky ones get to the finish line - this movie is also to raise awareness of the on-going need for assets and resources to enable those who are not so lucky.

What better Thanksgiving gift than to help David meet his $16,000.00 matching challenge to get this movie out in the world for all of us, especially we who are temporarily able-bodied.

If they can do it, we can.

  

"Hot Coffee - Movies For Lawyers - Legal Stage"

My friend, colleague and fellow board member for the American Society of Trial Consultants, Katherine James, has a strong message in today's post, Hot Coffee - Movies for Lawyers, on the Legal Stage.

I've seen the documentary, Hot Coffee, and listened to Susan Saladoff talk about the process of bringing this iconic American incident to film.  What lingered longest in my mind's eye were the photographs of the scalded flesh.  I served as a USNavy nurse caring for children with burns.  Pictures of the injuries made me turn away my face while pressing my knees together.  

As a storyteller I am familiar with a genre of stories called urban legends.  You've all heard them: the traveling businessman who wakes up in his hotel bathtub packed in ice and a note telling him his kidney was surgically removed; the college coed who spent two romantic weeks on some tropical isle and on the flight home reads a note form her lover telling her she is his 23rd AIDS-infected victim; or the elderly lady who put her poodle in the microwave to dry him and ended up vaporizing the little pooch; or the high school boys who pick up a girl on a dark rural road only to find out when they try to return the sweater she left in the car that she is dead some 20 years; and so on.

Urban legends are example of modern folklore.  These are stories we tell and retell for the sensationalism, for the fear factor, for the sense of safety that "We would never do [fill in the blank]".  Urban legends serve as cautionary tales, propaganda, and cultural narrative.

I am curious to know what the reaction will be as the documentary gains traction in communities. Has the MacDonald's Coffee Story become a form of urban legend?  And if so, will the movie more deeply root people in the distorted telling?  Or, is this a chance to pull back the curtain to reveal the human faces and suffering of all those who became the legend? 

"Heavens To Murgatroyd!"

The English language is replete with wonderfully engaging phrases.  We use them all the time and give no thought to it - like the old carpet in the entryway. 

Consider "Heavens to Murgatroyd!"

Who here has ever wondered where it comes from, who said it, what does it mean and, who is Murgatroyd?

Interestingly, a website originating in the United Kingdom, The Phrase Finder, has an answer. Click here to read more.

And, who or what was Snagglepuss?  To those growing up in a land before YouTube, he was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character.  Story being what it is, everything old is new again.  Snagglepuss has elements of Coyote the Trickster and The Fool, among other mythic characters.

TIP:    We speak in stories, metaphors, analogies, idioms, generationally generated phrases, geographically created experiences, sound bytes and tidbits.  When we better know what is being said we can better understand what the speaker might mean.

It's Time To Watch "A Film Unfinished."

It has taken me many weeks to finally sit and watch a 90 minute documentary that recounts life in a place where my people come from.  "Watch" is not accurate; better yet to say sit in stillness as if one occupied a sacred place and allow the sepia-toned images to penetrate your soul.  As I learned, this is not a film to watch before one goes to bed.

"A Film Unfinished" is what grew out of Yael Hersonki's preoccupation with witnessing what an archive hears.  Excerpt.

"A Film Unfinished first emerged out of my theoretical preoccupation with the notion of the "archive", and the unique nature of the witnessing it bears." - Yael Hersonski

The Holocaust confronted humanity not only with inconceivable horrors, but also for the first time, with their systematic documentation. More than anything else, it is the photographic documentation of these horrors that has changed forever the way in which the past is archived. Atrocities committed by the Nazis were photographed more extensively than any evils, before or after. Yet since the war, these images, created by the perpetrators have been subjected to mistreatments: in the best of cases they were crudely used as illustrations of the many stories; in the worst, they were presented as straightforward historical truth."

In brief, two-thirds of the film is an hour of recovered film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in May 1942.  It was probably going to be used for propaganda to show how well the several million Jews were living while enclosed in the Warsaw Ghetto.  Most of the traces of who ordered the film to be shot, what was to be done with it, who the filmmakers were and, of course, the Warsaw Ghetto has been obliterated.

Eventually, one of the film makers, Willi Wist, was tracked down.  Some portion of his trial testimony is re-enacted.  He is, at turns, disengaged from and seemingly sorrowful over the events he partook in decades ago. 

Of all the horrors the one most gripping for me is the staging of scenes of plenty.  And the scene in the theater where Jews are forced to laugh or be shot.  As Wist says, "They laughed as if their lives depended on it."  It is stunning how compliant a community of people can become in the presence of evil-doers on whom they rely for some glimmer of salvation.

A few survivors also witness the film offering condolences, recollections and remembrances as commentary.  Even for the viewer this experience feels much like attending a funeral.  One woman cries for herself.  She recalls that at the time she could feel nothing; that was the way to survive.  If you were immune you could make it another day.  Today she cries for herself because she can feel the pain - and sees all those corpses left out on the sidewalk as human beings.

Brace yourself for the scene where naked bodies of skin and bone are shunted on a slide into a mass grave.  At the bottom of the slide two Jewish workers stack the corpses like so much cord wood.  Chlorine is sprinkled over the dead, a layer or two of paper is set down and the process begins all over again.

What I did not expect to hear was how in the midst of desperate suffering, starvation, typhus, degradation, fear, humiliation, and rot-gut basic survival the people of the Warsaw Ghetto were writing their collective narrative.  Teachers, electricians, butchers, doctors, grocers, and children were writing diaries and journals of life as they lived it.  Their stories exist.  I imagine this is what Heronski means when she talks about the witnessing an archive bears.

Ironically, while doing some research on the film I came across Ari Karpel's just-published article in the NYTimes, "Whitewash in Wartime" asking the question, "When information about a war comes from a government eager to promote and justify it, how can we know which parts to believe and which to reject as propaganda?"

To answer the question he poses, Karpel turns to two documentaries: "Tilman Story" and A Film Unfinished"  As he says, "Two new documentaries tease apart that question in relation to two very different wars and two very different governments."

And yet, what if anything has really changed but the names and the faces?  

Absolutely nothing can be anything until it is first imagined.  Someone imagined the Nazi propaganda film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.  In time, that footage rose from the dead.  And while it is a silent film the stories cannot be silenced.

 

Q&A Tuesday: Edit Out These Three Words To Lose Weight In Legal Writing

Q:    How can I  make the legal story a bit clearer, cleaner, and clarified?

A:    Be selective when using "the fact that."

As my mother always reminded me, "Everything old is new again."  So here I am relying on a scene with Groucho and Chico Marx to point out how so many of the words lawyers use are detritus that muck up the clarity of the story.  Click here to  listen to "Contracts and Clauses."

TIP:    Now, while I have you in a good mood, go to your writing.  Look for "the fact that."  Ask yourself what this phrase means.  Did you come up with "because" or "since"?  If so, how come you are using three words instead of one to express yourself?

TIP:    Rewrite the following sentence:  "The fact that the defendant was in a relationship with the CEO of the corporation should make us aware of a suspect affiliation and the potential of a conflict of interest."  Wouldn't it be clearer  to say, "The defendant's relationship with the corporation's CEO raises a suspicion about a conflict of interest."  

TIP:    Here is another: "Plaintiff hereby moves in limine to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff's former husband, XYZ.  Plaintiff bases her motion on the fact that (1) XYZ's expected testimony is prejudicial; (2) XYZ's expected testimony is irrelevant; and (3) XYZ's expected testimony is improper."  Whew!  How about, "Plaintiff moves in limine to exclude the testimony of former husband XYZ because his expected testimony is prejudicial, irrelevant, and improper."  Assuming that the Court reads the header of the moving papers, one could write, "The Court should exclude the testimony of XYZ because it is prejudicial, irrelevant, and improper."  Tah dah!

TIP:    When it comes to cleaning up your writing to be lithe and spirited:

1. delete "the fact is" for its leaner brethren "because" or "since";
2. rewrite the sentence altogether and not relyon "because" or "since"; or,
3. concede that every once in a while the fact is that the way things are written are fine just as they are.