Have you heard of Scrat from Ice-Age?
Scrat is a saber-tooth squirrel who is obsessed with acorns. He is constantly putting his life in danger, braving earthquakes and tornadoes so that he can collect acorns.
Great storytellers are like Scrat.
They love to collect. Not acorns, of course. But ideas. Ideas, that they can use later in their stories. Now, this goes against the traditional image of a prolific storyteller who can pull stories out of thin air. But it’s the truth. Like a chef who keeps his ingredients ready, storytellers keep their ideas ready.
Let’s discuss 3 ways in which you can collect ideas for building stories.
- Carry a pocket diary everywhere – A thousand things happen to us during the day. And we can’t remember them all. So don’t even try. But your pocket diary can. Saw something interesting during your morning walk? Make a note of it in your diary. Did your boss crack a funny joke during the meeting that made you smile? Make a note of it in your diary. Slowly, you collect hundreds of entries that can be used later in your stories.
- Click random pictures – A great way to supplement your written story is through images. Your phone camera helps you capture images that you can use later. The idea here is not to capture ‘perfect’ pictures. Because we don’t know which ones we would use later. Quantity is the key.
- Fill a story sheet every night – I learned this exercise from Matthew Dicks. He calls it “Homework for Life”. Maintain an excel sheet where you document one interesting story/experience/insight that happened on that day. You won’t end up using 99% of the entries that you document in this excel sheet, but those 1 percent entries become the raw material for your next story.
But doesn’t it take a lot of time?
With practice, none of this takes up a lot of time. You may have to sacrifice 10 minutes of Netflix, but that will be all. “Homework for Life” exercise, for example, just takes 5 minutes every day.
Great storytellers don’t create stories on the go
Great storytellers are gatherers. They are collectors. They love to collect stories that they can use later. The time spent in collecting the raw material for these stories is time well-spent.
Have you heard of Scrat from Ice-Age?
Scrat is a saber-tooth squirrel who is obsessed with acorns. He is constantly putting his life in danger, braving earthquakes and tornadoes so that he can collect acorns.
Great storytellers are like Scrat.
They love to collect. Not acorns, of course. But ideas. Ideas, that they can use later in their stories. Now, this goes against the traditional image of a prolific storyteller who can pull stories out of thin air. But it’s the truth. Like a chef who keeps his ingredients ready, storytellers keep their ideas ready.
Let’s discuss 3 ways in which you can collect ideas for building stories.
- Carry a pocket diary everywhere – A thousand things happen to us during the day. And we can’t remember them all. So don’t even try. But your pocket diary can. Saw something interesting during your morning walk? Make a note of it in your diary. Did your boss crack a funny joke during the meeting that made you smile? Make a note of it in your diary. Slowly, you collect hundreds of entries that can be used later in your stories.
- Click random pictures – A great way to supplement your written story is through images. Your phone camera helps you capture images that you can use later. The idea here is not to capture ‘perfect’ pictures. Because we don’t know which ones we would use later. Quantity is the key.
- Fill a story sheet every night – I learned this exercise from Matthew Dicks. He calls it “Homework for Life”. Maintain an excel sheet where you document one interesting story/experience/insight that happened on that day. You won’t end up using 99% of the entries that you document in this excel sheet, but those 1 percent entries become the raw material for your next story.
But doesn’t it take a lot of time?
With practice, none of this takes up a lot of time. You may have to sacrifice 10 minutes of Netflix, but that will be all. “Homework for Life” exercise, for example, just takes 5 minutes every day.
Great storytellers don’t create stories on the go
Great storytellers are gatherers. They are collectors. They love to collect stories that they can use later. The time spent in collecting the raw material for these stories is time well-spent.