Why do we tell stories? As my University of San Diego School of Law Professor, Steve Hartwell, often reminded me, “As homo narrans’, we naturally know that the story is the relationship.” Stories give our lives their meaning. We order the chaos of the universe, we learn, we teach, we mourn, we celebrate all through our stories.
The story is the relationship. We tell tales to connect with another, and to find the meaning we crave. We crave meaning because we are human. The stories we hear and tell humanize us. The best way I know to make a connection: tell a story and ask to hear one.
About this time last year I met a man named Max. Max is an artist but not the traditional sort. He works for a company that designs and manufactures sports trading cards and trading card games where he creates spectacular, magical characters from dark monsters to ninja fighters to mythical lords and ladies. With his exquisite eye for color, he earned a reputation for highly detailed designs. Though he appears professionally trained, he is self-taught. Curious, I asked him how he learned to do his art.
Max pulled a creased 8 x 10 glossy out of his wallet. He unfolded it crease by careful crease and handed it to me, asking me what I thought of the car in the picture. I told him it reminded me of something that happened in my early adolescence. He asked what memory could his 1965 Ford Mustang have for me. I told Max this story.
It was an early summer evening in South Jersey. My father, who worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories, brought home Vince, a fellow who had just started working with him. Vince was Polish as we were. My dad wanted to give Vince a proper welcome so he invited him to our house for dinner, mid-week. Vince drove up to our house in a yellow 1965 Ford Mustang convertible. The top was down, and the radio was playing Frank Sinatra singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” He asked us kids if we wanted to go for a spin around the block. Would we? All five of us piled in onto the white leather upholstery. I sat in the front seat right next to Vince as he shifted gears into first, then second, then third. We cruised along Scotch Plains Avenue. And I fell in love. That there must have been some 15 years between us was a small detail.
In time, Vince married. He and my father still keep in touch. To this day Ford Mustang convertibles have a special place in my once-adolescent heart. Standing there with the photo of his red Mustang in my hand I told Max I hadn’t thought of that memory in years.
I bet that now, Gentle Reader, you are wondering how Max’s picture of a 1965 cherry red Ford Mustang convertible would tell me the story of how he learned to draw. Here’s how: Max grew up on a small Hawaiian island. The roads on his island were mostly dirt roads. Few people owned cars. And the cars they owned were utilitarian, working cars dusty, dirty, wired together. But there was one that caught his eye: a 1965 red Ford Mustang convertible. It was the pride and joy of a farmer’s college son.
As a child, Max drew cars with crayons. He copied them out of magazines, comic books and the Sears Roebuck catalogue. He told me that his older brother was always after him to improve his drawings. Max could learn this, his brother told him, by paying attention to details. So after school and in their free time, Max and his older brother sat by the side of the road waiting for a car to drive by. When one did, the boys focused on a single, pre-determined detail. Maybe it was the silhouette of the car as it approached. Another time the line of the fenders. Then the shape of the windshield or the side view mirrors. Or the color of the paint as the light struck at various times of day.
They especially paid attention when that 1965 cherry red Mustang purred on by. Then, Max would stand and watch. That car slid by so slowly you could see yourself in the glossy paint. Over and over again Max would draw what he saw. He learned to draw cars so well you could just about hear the engines, smell the exhaust, and feel the heat glancing off a shiny window.
The story does not end there. When Max was older and had saved some money, he began to search online for a 1965 Ford Mustang to rebuild. Eventually he located the chassis of the car in a barn. He bought it, and over time, piece by piece, he restored it to its present mint condition. It was his car pictured in the creased 8 x 10 glossy he keeps in his wallet. Every detail was perfect, down to the cherry red paint. Just like the trading cards he designs.
I am an RN, JD and professionally-trained storyteller who is lucky to be working with attorneys. I help them identify the story they need to tell on behalf of their clients. I test the legal story in front of focus groups to learn how they respond to the story. As Frank Luntz reminds us, “It’s not what we say; it’s what they hear.” Once I know how research participants respond to the story, we have the power to change and reshape the message so we have the best chance at a favorable outcome at trial or alternative dispute resolution.
This article kicks off a series on storytelling for your professional and personal lives. I have a great deal to say, and I welcome what you want to learn. Please keep me posted on what interests you, how you are experiencing the exercises I’ve suggested, and what burning question about storytelling can we quench.
Here’s your first exercise: Buy a notebook and keep it handy. Use it to jot down images, ideas, phrases, impressions, and events as they occur to you that you might like to feature in a story. One of the first challenges of writing a story will be to allow yourself to puke on the page.’ As my mentors told me, first the right brain creates and then the left brain edits. It’s always in that order. Give the right brain its due and let it puke on the page.’ The left brain will clean it up.
Now, your first reading assignment: The Power Of Personal Storytelling by Jack Maguire, (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam), 1998. It will help you shape your personal story.
Tags by users:
- storytelling for lawyers
- lawyer storytelling
- lawyers storytelling
- storytelling exercises for lawyers
- storytelling for attorneys
- law storytelling
- law professor client\s story
- story telling for lawyers
- the story of the working lawyer
- story telling lawyer
This is a great post and a great lesson for attorneys. Few attorney are taught the importance of a great story, but great stories win cases.