Every good story needs a reason to be told

"The process of developing a story is one of discovery," Pete (Doctor, director of the movie `Mosters, Inc.´) says. "However, there´s alway a guiding principle that leads you as you go down the various roads. In Monsters, Inc., all of our very different plots shared a common feeling - the bittersweet goodbye you feel once a probelm" - in this case, Sulley´s quest to return Boo to her own world - "has been solved." -
I took this quote from Ed Catmulls wonderful book Creativity Inc. as it describes so brilliant what every good story needs to have: a reason to be told. No matter what the plot gonna be or how often you change your characters or the end of your story, you always should know - from the start you work on a story - what your "Reason Why", your higher purpose, your believe is, your story should stand for.
There is no one better to explain this "Reason Why" than Simon Sinek in his famous TED Talk about "How great leaders inspire action". He decoded a formula which even helps storytellers to start best with their story. Be defining the Why (storyline), the How (hero´s journey) and the What (plot).

The "Ultimative Book-List" on Storytelling

People ask me very often: "What do you read? Which book was most inspiring about storytelling?". So I thought about the "ultimate book-list". For today it´s this (but you never know the future will bring):

1. McKee, Robert: Story. Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. Methuen 1999.
2. Sinek, Simon: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Penguin Group 2009.
3. Catmull, Ed: Creativity, Inc. Random House 2014.
4. Campbell Joseph: The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books 1949.
5. Rushkoff, Douglas: Present Shock – When Everything Happens Now. Orange Press 2014.
6. Gottschall, Jonathan: The Storytelling Animal. How Stories make us Human. First Mariner Books 2012.
7. Denning, Steve: The Leader´s Guide to Storytelling. John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2011.
8. Field, Syd: Screenplay. The Foundations of Screenwriting. Delta Book 2005.
9. Fuoti, Julie / Johnson, Lisa: Story Juice. How Ideas Spread and Brands Grow. Grapevine Group 2012.
10. Flath, Herbert: Storytelling im Journalismus. Formen und Wirkung narrativer Berichterstattung. Dissertation TU Illmenau 2012.
11. Heath, Chip / Heath, Dan: Made to Stick. Random House 2010.
12.  Berkun, Scott: Mindfire. Big Ideas for Curious minds. Scott Berkun 2011.
13. Kelley, Tom / Kelley, David: Creative Confidence. Crown Business 2013.
14. Lotter, Wolf: Die kreative Revolution. Was kommt nach dem Industriekapitalismus? Murmann Verlag 2009.
15.  Latitude: The Future of Storytelling. http://futureofstorytellingproject.com.

"Storyscaping" ... new buzz word with worth wisdom on Storytelling

„Storyscaping“ is a beautiful designed book, written by Gaston Legorburu, World Chief Creative Officer of SapientNitro and Darren McColl, World Chief Strategy Officer of SapientNitro SapientNitro is the agency behind the award-winning campaign “The Best Job in the World” and the heafty job titel of both authors say everything about the deep thinking in this book.

Although the title of the book is a bit misleading. It gives the impression that this book is purely about storytelling. Iin some parts it refers to knowledge around crafting a great story. But after reading all 244 pages, 2 parts and 13 chapters my take away on this book is that it is more about “brand experience” than “storytelling”. But maybe that´s also the reason why Legorburu & McColl came up with the artificial word “Storyscaping”. A quite unusual word and I never fell in love with it – even after reading the whole thing.

Legorburu and McColl unveil a lot of insights around the advertising and communications business and how to come up with a state-of-the-art campaign. They talk about Sinek´s Golden Circles (“Start with Why”), they refer to Cameron´s movies such as Terminator, Titanic and Avatar and they even quote one of my favorite comedy move: L-A-Story.

Especially I love their idea of having an Organizing Idea instead of a Big Ideas as well as their preference for Systematic Thinking instead of randomly picking an insight. But I also must say some parts of this book are a bit challenging. There is great and inspiring thinking but also some kind of  “obvious thoughts”, where you ask yourself: “So what …?” and there are other parts of the book where clearly the authors have too much in mind. Just shortcutted their thoughts and leave it up to the reader to connect the dots.

On the other hand there are some cool, easy to use, pragmatic tools which marketeers and also PR people can use right away such as a”4-Step-Box to create Consumer Connections” or a “Insight Mining Map”. All this is worth to read.

The last chapter is a little bit too much “promoting their agency”. But hey, that´s the job of these too gentlemen. Overall is´s a great sneak preview into the way of working of a successful agency like SapientNitro and we should be thankful for the opportunity to look behind their curtains. My favorite quote: “”The first step to a great insight is having a very clear view of consumers.”