Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques - Between the Lines: In Storytelling, Simplify to Amplify - Premium Sampler

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Visit fastersmarter.io/premium to become a Premium subscriber."Start with the action moment or right before it," advises Hilary Price whose one-panel comic strips offer insights far beyond humor—they’re lessons in concise storytelling that resonate with anyone seeking to communicate effectively. “Simplify and amplify,” Price advises, emphasizing the art of clarity and impact. Every stroke of her pen strips away the unnecessary, letting the essentials shine through.Creating her daily comic strip, Rhymes with Orange, Price starts with the game of “what if,” merging unexpected ideas to surprise and engage her readers. “You want to start at the action moment—or just before,” she notes, pointing out how the unsaid often speaks louder. Price extends this philosophy beyond cartoons: whether crafting a presentation, a joke, or a story, it’s essential to leave room for the audience to co-create meaning. “Don’t spoon-feed your readers,” she says. “The joy comes from not getting it, then getting it.” In this bonus episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, Price joins host Matt Abrahams to explore the power of surprise, stakes, and shared experience in storytelling—reminding us that the punchline, whether in humor or communication, is where the magic happens.Episode Reference Links:Hilary PriceRhymes With OrangeEp.170 Advice From Nontraditional Storytellers Part 1Ep.171 Advice From Nontraditional Storytellers Part 2 Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> [e-mail] Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (03:31) - What Makes a Good Story? (04:24) - Crafting a Story (05:44) - Auditioning the Characters (08:48) - Stories in Daily Life (10:36) - Visuals in Storytelling (12:23) - The Power of a Punchline (15:44) - Admired Storytellers (17:41) - Communicating with Titles (19:13) - Conclusion ********Thank you to our sponsors.  These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost.Strawberry.me. Get 50% off your first coaching session today at Strawberry.me/smartJoin our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be. 

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Their support allows us to bring you quality content free of charge. If you've ever thought, I know I can do more, but something's holding me back. You're not alone. Whether you're navigating career growth, seeking better balance, or wanting to communicate with more confidence, coaching can help you bridge the gap between intention and action. At strawberry.comme, you'll get matched with a professional coach who's trained to help you clarify your goals, build lasting confidence, and make intentional choices professionally and personally. This is not therapy. It's not consulting. It's a thought partnership designed to help you take action with more clarity and purpose. I strongly believe in the value of coaching.

All of us can benefit from the help of a coach. Visit strawberry.combe slash smart to get matched up with your coach today. That's strawberry.combe slash smart and get 50% off your first coaching session. It's the most affordable time ever to see if coaching is right for you. Being concise and clear is critical in a world where our attention is constantly being tugged and pulled. When I thought about communicators I know who had to deal with this challenge of being clear and concise on a daily basis, I was reminded of a former college classmate who for decades has written a daily one-panel comic strip called Rhymes with Orange. As part of our recent Think Fast Talk Smart miniseries on non-traditional story.

tellers, I interviewed Hillary Price. Her complete episode, along with those of others who are in the miniseries, can be found in our Premium Library. But since Hillary's insights into communication are so useful and applicable to all of us, I wanted to share the full interview here outside of premium as a bonus episode. I hope you enjoyed learning from Hillary as much as I did. I am super excited to speak with Hillary Price. We went to college together, and Hillary helps me start every day as a cartoonist and the author of Rhymes with Orange. I get a little chuckle and sometimes a big guffaw every morning by reading Hillary's work. Hillary, thanks for being here with us, and I'd love for you just to take a moment

to introduce yourself. Okay, thank Matt. So I have been creating the comic strip Rhymes with Orange, which appears in newspapers daily and also online for the last, gosh, almost three decades. For the last seven years, I collaborate on that with a Torato-based cartoonist, and we go back and forth generating gags for the strip. I thoroughly enjoy your work. And what I find so fascinating about it, Hillary, is you do it all in one panel. Lazy cartoonists. I want to hear more about that. But what makes a good story? There has to be change, and there has to be surprise. And there also has to be stakes. I'm going to reference a storyteller who is one of my favorites. His name is Matthew Dix, and he does a lot of mock storytelling. And his definition of a story is, I used to think one thing,

then some stuff happened, and now I think another. So I think that when you're doing that in a cartoon, in terms of the before, you rely on cultural history. So if you're at a Thanksgiving table, you don't have to have a banner that says Thanksgiving over the top, right? and then you're going to have a twist. If every bit of cultural history is a common knowledge, then a cartoon or a good story that has surprised disrupts that cliche. It seems to me that something you're bringing to the table

that we have yet to talk about is how we use the reader or the story experiencers past experience to help us tell our stories. So you're relying on cliche or common experiences that are culturally shared and bring that literally, in the example you use, to the table, to help us be part of the story. And then this notion of surprise and change is critical as well. And one of the things that I enjoy so much about the cartoon that you draw and write

is the fact that there is surprise and change in it. It makes you think for a second, oh, that's really clever. And that's part of the shared experience that you bring through the storytelling you do. Are there other aspects of storytelling you use in your job? Can you share a little bit perhaps how you go through your process of actually crafting the story? So for my creative process, I tend to come up with the joke first and then I audition the characters. Is this most effectively done by having two dogs talking to each other, by having a dog talk to a person, a person talked to a dog? what is the best way to get the gag across?

And in my business, it's called gag cartooning, and gag means the joke, just like for musicians, gig means the act. So it sounds like you start with the end in mind, the result you want the gag. And I love this notion of auditioning the characters. So can you walk us through? What is it you're looking for?

Is it what's most appropriate, what would be most silly, what would be most counterintuitive? What's the audition about? I'll walk you through what's going to be my Easter gag. So I started out and I was talking with a friend and we were brainstorming ideas or what are the kind of cliches of Easter, the bunny, right? And then we were thinking, where does this bunny exist outside of Easter? And we came up with the idea of the magician.

So what if you took the concept of you've got a magician and you've got a bunny and the bunny is turning to the magician and saying, I told you I needed this Sunday off? You need to have some clues that this is A Easter. You don't want to say it's Easter because anybody reading the newspaper on that day is going to know Easter, right? And so I had the bunny, the prop I added was the bunny holding a basket. That's all I needed to say Easter. And then it never says, Majesto the Magnificent in the drawing, because if you see a man and a cape and a mustache and there's like a dove and some rings

or something else, some magic rings, then you, the reader, already bring to the experience where we are. I ended up with, I told you I needed this Sunday off, but it started with before that, I told you this was my side hustle. The goal in cartooning is you want to simplify and amplify. Those are the two things. And also not spoon feed your reader because the joy of a cartoon, it's interactive. It's going from not getting it to getting it. I love this notion of simplify and amplify. And I think a lot of our communication would benefit if we thought about how can we make our messages as simple as possible and really amplify the meaning. And also in what you said, in your brainstorming about this idea, you were really

thinking about what's appropriate for a reader of a newspaper on Easter Sunday. And it's not just here's a gag. It's how do I make the gag play for the audience? And I think those are really critical skills for anybody in communicating and storywriting. There's something interesting in terms of back end is that when my syndicate receives my comic strip, they try and do tag words. And one of the first things they do is they just record what is said. But that doesn't make for effective tag because you need to bring also what is the cultural things that aren't being said. It doesn't state Easter. It doesn't state Bunny. It doesn't state magician. It's a challenge then for like an AI SEO to properly mark the strip because you're trying to take out those markers

because the reader's bringing them. So that's just a little left turn. But it's just an interesting way that it doesn't help in this modern world. I think what's fascinating is we've finally found something that AI can't do well and what humans need to do well, which is to bring in all the implied information that isn't just overt. So this notion of, in many ways, it's a partnership with your reader to co-create the meaning that you're talking about. Many times, in the type of storytelling that people do, they're literally bringing your audience through the story. You're telling them everything. And in your case, you're actually leaving out critical information. that the audience brings to the stories you're telling,

the comics that you draw and write. And that's the magic. That's where it really happens. What is it in storytelling that you do as a cartoonist beyond what we've talked about in terms of simplify and amplify, consider the context, think about the audience? Are there any other things that people who tell stories in their daily lives could benefit from what you do in your process?

Yes. You never want to start a story with, first I was born and then too much introduction is not necessary. So you want to start at the action moment or right before the action moment. The way that this translates for me is that I have a single panel to do this. So I can't futz around giving too much information that is unnecessary. And with humor, you either want to show an event right before it happens or right after it happens. If I were going to throw a glass of water at you, what is funnier? Me about to throw the glass of water or the act of it? You want to give the audience the joy of imagining it versus

showing it. So what I'm hearing you say, which is really important for I think all of us to think about is where do you start? And some of us start too early and with too much. And we have to think, I love this idea of what's the action moment. Even if you're writing technical documentation, There is an action moment there that you can think about. I want to ask you, because of all the guests we're talking to for this mini-series, you're the only one that uses any visual elements at all. We're talking to a mime who uses only physical body. How important is the visual element, and where does the visual element come in your process?

So for many of us, we're not cartoonists, but we might create slides or PowerPoint to help us get our message across. In your process, do you start with the visual elements? Or do you start just with the character or the gag? Where do you start and where do visuals come into that process? The first question in creating a joke is taking two disparate ideas and going, what if? What is the connection between these two things? It is a game that I often play in order to generate gags.

I call it the justification game, trying to decide how two different things might make sense in a way that disrupts the cliches. The visual is the last thing that happens. But even that is an iterative process. So I might draw something and then redraw it and redraw it type of thing in order to cut elements out in the same way that I'm cutting words out of the speech bubble. I'm not over-complicating the drawing because I only want to put the elements that are important. If they're decorative, I don't want them there because I'm going to take them. tell my audience. If I've drawn it, then my audience knows it's a clue. What I'm hearing is that the

drawing often comes last. And that's the advice that those of us who do what I do suggest that you don't create the slides first, you create the story first, you create the reason first. And then applying similar rules to you, does it help simplify or amplify? And if it does, then maybe a visual makes sense. And then the other thing I heard you say, which I think is so important for all of us, is the task is to figure out what is the least amount of information you can provide to accomplish it. What I hear you saying is exactly the opposite. What's the least amount of information I need to provide to make the joke land or to get the point across? And I think that's an interesting lesson for all of us, is less is more.

It's called a punchline for a reason. You want to end on the strongest word in a cartoon. So the reader have to get to it and then there's the boom. And then your job as a cartoonist is not to have another character comment on the punchline. That is the reader's job. That's the listener's job. You don't say, and here you laugh. Your audience is going to laugh or not laugh. But I have always found it odd when a comedian makes a joke and no one's laughs.

And then they comment on the fact that no one's laughs. Just move on. This notion of a punchline, I think all of us in the stories we tell, the communication we do, We have punchlines. A punchline is what you build up to. I've learned that invariably someone is going to ask me, where did you get the title, Rines with Orange? What does that come from? As a general rule, I don't include it in the talk because I know that's a curiosity seed that someone is going to raise their hand and then you've got that engagement going.

And then if you break the seal with the first question, then others will follow. I think that is such good advice and advice that we often. and give to people during Q&A is have a question at the ready or set yourself up for a question to get the ball rolling. And that's exactly what you do. We'll be right back to finish our conversation. But first, a quick word from one of our sponsors. Their support allows us to bring you this show free of charge. If you've ever felt like you're trying to do everything yourself, especially when the stakes are high, you're not alone. One of the biggest shifts I see in effective leaders growing their organizations comes from focusing on the right things. But that's hard to do when you're stretched

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That's upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.org.com. And now back to our conversation. The last question I'd like to ask is who is a storyteller that you admire and why? mentioned one, but I'm wondering if there's another that you admire. Matthew Dix is an award-winning mock storyteller, and his definition of three elements that a story has to have is steaks, suspense, and surprise. And I figured that's something that would be good for folks listening to just keep that in mind. If your story is that you went to the drive-thru in order to grilled

chicken sandwich, there are no steaks involved. there. So you're going to lose your audience. There's nothing in peril. There's nothing that you could lose or win as a result. That's not a story because you didn't change from the fact that you were hungry and you're no longer hungry. That's not enough of a steak. If the steak is that the principal wanted the chicken sandwich and if I didn't get it for him in time for her lunch, I would lose my job. That's a steak. there's consequence and significance. And we as storytellers need to make sure that is clear. And what I'm hearing in the work you do is that because you rely on cliche or commonly known knowledge,

you will let the reader create the stakes in their own mind. They understand the stakes that are involved. Well, here's my other storyteller. Elena Baker, I heard a story she told about how in her life at that time, because she was a religiously observant person, She had to say no to a lot of things. And she was a young woman living in New York. So her credo was that she had to say yes to everything else. And so it takes her on all these adventures, the saying yes to things. And the name of her story is called Black Dress.

I think that you know at the outset that she is going to get in trouble because she's going to say yes to everything. And it takes her on these adventures that you just would not expect Okay, last question. How did you come up with and why did you name your comic strip rhymes with orange? So there are a couple different answers to this. First is that there is no real word that rhymes with the word orange. The other piece is that when the strip began, I was a 25-year-old woman living in an apartment with three other roommates and I date women. Right? So that was an experience that was absolutely not my dating life, but just my entire worldview was very different than the ones found on the traditional comics page. And so I felt like

the title reflected that the reader was going to get a different take on the world. Right. So the titling of a story can set expectations for the experience. So it signaled two things. One, that this is going to be different than all the other titles, which many of them are names for their characters or something. I think there's a lesson there. Many of us have to title our presentations, our meetings, our stories, and think of a title that builds curiosity and insights somebody to want to learn more

and perhaps a title that shares what's to come. And in your case, it was this comic's going to have a slightly different perspective maybe than others. So, Hillary, it is always a pleasure to chat with you. Your insights into storytelling are really cool. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me anytime, Matt. Hillary's insights can be used by all of us to be more clear and concise in our communication.

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