Storyworthy
Page 9
That all changed on that night in early May, when Bengi and I climbed into the cab of that idle bulldozer and planned our future together. Bengi was finishing his freshman year at Bryant University in nearby Smithfield, Rhode Island. Tired of living in the dorms, Bengi asked if I would be willing to move in with him off campus while he finished his last three years of school.
As you already know from chapter 2, I said yes. But what you don’t know is that I practically shouted my answer into the night. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. I had found my next home.
Bengi and I moved into a townhouse in Attleboro, Massachusetts, with a third friend named Tom, who lasted less than a year before returning home broke. Attleboro was equidistant from Bryant University and my restaurant, making it an ideal location for us, but neither one of us knew the area at all. We found a grocery store, two or three fast-food restaurants, a gas station, and the local dance club, all within a mile or two of our home. The town seemed small but sufficient. As teenage boys, we didn’t need much.
I’d been living in Attleboro for about a year when I found myself driving down Route 152 — the main drag — and noticed that a long line of cars were turning left at a traffic light. I’d driven through the intersection hundreds of times before but never considered where the left might take me. I got curious. I suddenly needed to know where this street led. So even though I was running late, I turned left and followed the procession of vehicles. I drove about half a mile down the street before reaching another traffic light. I looked left and right, wondering which way to turn, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I had discovered another main drag, bigger than the one I’d just been driving on. Just from this spot in the intersection, I could see a McDonald’s restaurant, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a bowling alley, a pizza place, a sandwich shop, another grocery store, and much more. It was a whole new world of food, entertainment, and retail options almost within walking distance of our home.
Running even later now, I turned left and drove, taking inventory of the multitude of businesses that lined the street. I couldn’t wait to tell Bengi of my discovery. As I passed a pair of gas stations, I saw the on-ramps to Interstate 495 — a highway I drove almost every day of my life — and just like that, enormous pieces of my mental map of the area clicked into place. Sections of one part of town connected with the other, and in an instant, my understanding of Attleboro’s geography coalesced in my mind. A single exploratory turn had changed everything.
Something else far more important happened that day. A boy who had never driven far from home suddenly felt like an explorer. I hadn’t traveled more than five miles from our townhouse, but this was the first time that I had followed a road just to see where it led. This was the first time I had driven into undiscovered territory for the purposes of discovery. I felt unfettered for the first time in my life. It was such a small, seemingly inconsequential decision, and yet it changed everything that was to follow.
Two weeks later I drove into Boston for the first time to see comedian Steven Wright perform. A city that once frightened me was suddenly just waiting to be explored. A month later I made my first trip into New York City to watch my beloved New York Yankees play the hated Boston Red Sox. Before long I was traveling throughout New England and beyond. The beaches and the mountains were all suddenly within reach. I traveled to New Hampshire for girls and New York for comedy. I drove to Virginia with a girlfriend on a whim to see the famed two-headed cow in their state fair. I drove to Ohio with Bengi to visit the Football Hall of Fame. I drove up and down the coast, from Maine to Florida, chasing girls, lying on beaches, and playing video games. I visited Disney World for the first time and old Yankee Stadium for the last time.
One left-hand turn had filled in my mental map of Attleboro and filled out all the other possibilities on the map. Where I once saw limits and danger, I now see endless possibility.
Finding stories from your life can have the same effect. They can fill in the forgotten moments of your life while expanding your previously perceived boundaries. Moments that once lacked meaning and relevance can suddenly be recognized as critical and essential to your life story.
Make it your mission to find, see, remember, and identify stories, and you will begin to see your life in a new and more compelling light.
The last story-finding exercise — and one that’s ideal for this filling-in and filling-out process — is adapted from an idea given to me by The Moth’s artistic director, Catherine Burns. She shared this method for generating story ideas as we watched our children play in the museum one day, and I’ve since turned her idea into a workshop exercise that I use quite often.
It’s called First Last Best Worst. All you need to play is pen and paper.
As you can see from the worksheet that follows, the top row of the page (the x-axis) is labeled with the words “First,” “Last,” “Best,” and “Worst,” along with a column labeled “Prompts.” Along the left side of the page (the y-axis), the prompts are listed. The prompts are the possible triggers for memories.
What was your first kiss?
What was your last kiss?
What was your best kiss?
What was your worst kiss?
For each of these prompts, you fill in the word or words that indicate the answers to those questions. That’s it.
The sheet here contains the list of prompts that I use most often in my beginner’s workshops, and it also contains my responses.
Prompt
First
Last
Best
Worst
Kiss
Laura
Clara
Elysha
Sheila
Car
Datsun B210
Hyundai Tucson
1976 Chevy Malibu
Datsun B210
Pet
Measleman
Toby & Pluto
Kaleigh
Prudence
Trouble
Corner in kindergarten
Speeding ticket
Inciting riot upon myself
Arrested
Injury
Mysterious head wound
Elbow tendinitis
Pole-vault pole snaps
Datsun B210 accident
Gift
Puppy
12 dates for 12 months
Friends as family
Bath towels
Travel
Pasadena 1988
Lewiston, Maine
Honeymoon
Disney with Cushman
After completing my chart, I analyze it. Specifically, I ask myself three questions:
1.Do any entries appear more than once (the signal of a likely story)?
2.Could I turn any of these entries into useful anecdotes?
3.Could I turn any of these entries into fully realized stories?
I mark potential stories (or stories that I have already told) with an S. I mark potential anecdotes with an A. Below is the same sheet, now marked for possible stories and anecdotes.
Prompt
First
Last
Best
Worst
Kiss
Laura (S)
Clara
Elysha (S)
Sheila (S)
Car
Datsun B210 (S)
Hyundai Tucson
1976 Chevy Malibu (S)
Datsun B210 (S)
Pet
Measleman (S)
Toby & Pluto (S)
Kaleigh (S)
Prudence (S)
Trouble
Corner in kindergarten (S)
Speeding ticket
Inciting riot upon myself (S)
Arrested (S)
Injury
Mysterious head wound (A)
Elbow tendinitis
Pole-vault pole snaps
Datsun B210 accident (S)
Gift
Puppy
12 dates for 12 months<
br />
Friends as family (S)
Bath towels (S)
Travel
Pasadena 1988 (S)
Lewiston, Maine (A)
Honeymoon (S)
Disney with Cushman (S)
Here are some details of the analysis: The Datsun B210 appears three times on the chart, and the best gift entry, “Friends as family,” also pertains to the Datsun. These four entries are all related to “This Is Going to Suck,” the story of one of my near-death experiences as the result of a car accident. I won a Moth GrandSLAM championship with this story, and it’s been featured on The Moth Radio Hour several times.
My worst gift, bath towels, will be part of the sequel to “This Is Going to Suck,” which will tell the hilarious and heartbreaking story of Christmas Day spent in the pediatric ward of the hospital following the accident.
My first kiss entry, “Laura,” and my first travel entry, “Pasadena 1988,” are also related. My first kiss took place in Pasadena, California, on January 1, 1988, with my high-school sweetheart, Laura Marchand. I told the story of that kiss (“The Promise”) at a Moth GrandSLAM championship, and it’s also been featured on The Moth Radio Hour. It’s one of my most popular and most requested stories.
I’ve also told stories related to my best car (1976 Chevy Malibu), my worst pet (Prudence), my first trouble (corner in kindergarten), my best trouble (inciting riot upon myself), and my worst trouble (arrest) at Moth GrandSLAM championships in New York and Boston, winning two of them.
I have yet to tell the story of my best kiss (Elysha), my worst kiss (Sheila), my first pet (Measleman), my best pet (Kaleigh, who has at least three stories attached to her), my best travel (honeymoon), my last pets (Toby & Pluto), or my worst travel (Disney with Cushman). All have great potential and will likely be told as stories onstage someday.
The anecdote called “Mysterious head wound” relates to an incident that happened when I was three years old. I emerged from my bedroom with a gaping wound in my forehead that left me with my first set of stitches and a cross-shaped scar on my forehead (which was later obliterated when I went through the windshield of a Datsun B210). My parents were never able to determine the cause of the injury. I think it could make for an interesting anecdote in a story about the brief period when my parents were still married and the few precious memories I have from that time.
The other anecdote (Lewiston, Maine) is from a recent trip I took to perform in Maine, where I met a young Muslim woman who confirmed that she was gay by watching lesbian pornography on a laptop provided by her school. I’m not sure how that might fit into a story, but it’s interesting enough to me to add to my list.
In all, nineteen of the twenty-eight possible entries could be told as stories. This is admittedly a high percentage, but there are two things to keep in mind:
1.I have a highly developed lens for stories. I may be able to see them in moments where you cannot yet. But if you’re doing your Homework for Life, you will develop a similar lens before long.
2.These are highly suggestive prompts that typically generate lots of ideas. I use them in workshops for that reason. They are prime real estate for finding stories.
Recently a class challenged me to complete a chart of prompts that they assigned, wondering if I would be as effective if given more challenging prompts. Here is what that chart looked like:
Prompt
First
Last
Best
Worst
Tree
Oak at bottom of driveway (S)
Sarah (S)
Grandma’s pine grove
Emma (S)
Toaster
Threw at Mike (S)
Christmas present (S)
Monopoly
Making our own board (A)
Slumlord
Bengi conspires against me (A)
Flag
Cub Scouts with Mrs. Dunne
Veteran’s Day
Nathan forced to pledge (S)
Nathan forced to pledge (S)
Socks
Sock lesson in class
Electric socks for Mom (S)
Socks as mittens (A)
The results are admittedly not as good. I have blanks in several places, where I simply had no memory of a moment that fits the prompt. Still, I managed to find eight stories in twenty possible prompts (though it’s not actually eight, because some of these items apply to the same story).
My last and worst trees (Sarah and Emma) are trees in the front yard of my home. My daughter, Clara, named the trees and fell in love with them more than any person has loved a tree. When Emma became diseased a few years ago, she had to be taken down, breaking Clara’s heart. She still walks over the spot where Emma once stood and grieves the loss. I could turn this into a sweet story about my sensitive, perhaps oversensitive, daughter.
My first tree, the oak at the bottom of my childhood driveway, is already featured in a story entitled “My Sister and the Toilet,” and it could easily appear in other stories as well. It was the tree my siblings and I stood beneath for years while waiting for the school bus, and many things happened during those long waits.
The best toaster was thrown at a guy named Mike who was trying to leave a party at the Heavy Metal Playhouse while intoxicated. I eventually blocked his car with mine, hoping that he would give up and agree to stay. Instead he began ramming his rear bumper into my car until I finally moved it.
My worst toaster was one of the gifts my parents gave me in preparation for my departure after graduation, and therefore it will be part of the sequel to “This Is Going to Suck.”
The best and worst flags are the same flag. Years ago, one of my fifth-grade students — a boy named Nathan — decided to exercise his right to not pledge allegiance to the flag each morning in protest of the reference to God in the pledge. While his classmates stood with their hands over their hearts, Nathan remained seated and silent. His silent protest went almost unnoticed until I was absent one day and my substitute teacher forced him to stand and pledge allegiance. Nathan attempted to protest, but the teacher refused to listen. The entire class was so outraged by this unfair demand that they refused to pledge allegiance to the flag for the rest of the school year, in support of Nathan and in protest of what had been done to him.
This was a Moth StorySLAM winner. When I told that story in Connecticut, Nathan was in the audience with his family. His father wept.
“Electric socks for Mom” were the socks worn by my mother after she had seriously injured her back while working in a hospital pharmacy. Instead of settling her disability claim, the hospital administrators forced her to accept a job as a security guard (a job they deemed possible with her back injury), even though she was barely five feet tall and weighed eighty-nine pounds. They were hoping to get her to quit rather than pay her claim. They forced her to work outdoors during the winter, and it was her battery-powered electric socks — equipped with enormous D batteries — that kept her feet warm enough to make it through the winter before the hospital officials finally capitulated and settled her claim. It’s a story about my inability to help my mother in her direst hour, and I had forgotten it until my class offered me the prompt.
As you can see, I also found three new anecdotes — two completely forgotten until prompted — making it a highly productive First Last Best Worst session for me (much to the dismay of my students, who were hoping to prove me wrong). Even when the prompts are intentionally uninteresting, First Last Best Worst works.
First Last Best Worst is a game that can be played many ways. For someone on the hunt for stories, you can play alone, as I often do. Prompt yourself, using objects in the room, a random page in a dictionary, or ideas you hear on the television or a podcast.
In class, we use First Last Best Worst as an improv game. You are given a prompt and must tell a story using the first, last, best, or worst version of that prompt. Not only does it generate storytelling ideas, but in class it helps promote extempora
neous-speaking skills and teaches my students to utilize the skills and strategies we learn in class without rehearsal. The best storytellers can spin a hilarious and heartbreaking tale with little or no preparation. Eventually it becomes as natural as walking or breathing. That is what I want each of my students to be able to do.
First Last Best Worst is also an excellent game for long car rides, first dates, or other moments of potential awkwardness and silence, or simply as a means of getting to know a person better. Regardless of where or how you play, I promise you that it will generate story ideas for you, and more importantly, you will find yourself filling in and filling out your life, making connections never seen before and expanding your memory beyond what you might have thought possible.
I’ve given you three tools to find stories.
•Homework for Life
•Crash & Burn
•First Last Best Worst
Do all three with regularity and fidelity, and you will find yourself drowning in stories before long. Your list of potential stories will grow beyond your ability to tell them all. What a wonderful problem to have.
Now it’s time to learn to craft a story.
Part II
Crafting Your Story
The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.
— Steve Jobs
Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.
— Ancient proverb
There are people who write every now and then. And there are writers who are people every now and then.
— Dan Kennedy