--- ## Highlights This was a productive session. Ten minutes of effort yielded: •   six potentially new stories •   three amusing anecdotes / possible stand-up bits •   three possible magazine articles / blog posts •   one possible addition to the résumé (pirate) (Location 1219) this exercise requires about fifteen minutes at a time. Although I think it’s a highly productive exercise, I realize that fifteen minutes every day is asking a lot. So I’m asking a lot. Do it every day. (Location 1231) CHAPTER FIVE (Location 1260) finding new stories both fills in and fills out my life. They bring breadth and meaning to my life. (Location 1265) 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. (Location 1326) 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. (Location 1332) For each of these prompts, you fill in the word or words that indicate the answers to those questions. That’s (Location 1337) 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? (Location 1374) CHAPTER SIX (Location 1516) CHAPTER SEVEN (Location 1587) All great stories — regardless of length or depth or tone — tell the story of a five-second moment in a person’s life. (Location 1591) Every great story ever told is essentially about a five-second moment in the life of a human being, and the purpose of the story is to bring that moment to the greatest clarity possible. (Location 1593) These five-second moments are the moments in your life when something fundamentally changes forever. (Location 1596) Probably not. But place that heartfelt, deeply resonant story on an island full of dinosaurs, and your opinion may change. And you’ll probably leave the theater thinking that the movie was great. You’ll find it lingering in your mind and heart longer than any dinosaur movie before or since. You’ll think it was because of the action and suspense, and that might be some of it, but deep in your bones, you’ll love the story because it wasn’t about dinosaurs. It was about transformation and love. (Location 1712) Few people will ever understand what it’s like to crash through a windshield or awaken to paramedics performing CPR on your body. But feeling alone? Forgotten? Lost? We all know that feeling. (Location 1764) CHAPTER EIGHT (Location 1823) But when telling true stories about our lives, we always start with the ending, because we’re not making stuff up. (Location 1835) This is a beautiful thing, because knowing the ending will inform all the choices that we must make as we craft the rest of the story. Everything must serve our five-second moment, so knowing the ending — and starting the process of crafting the story with the ending — is helpful beyond measure. In fact the ending simply involves the choice of words you will use. How will you describe your five-second moment for the greatest emotional effect? (Location 1840) So how do you choose the right place to start a story? Simple. Ask yourself where your story ends. (Location 1844) Once you’ve distilled your five-second moment down to its essence, ask yourself: What is the opposite of your five-second moment? Simply put, the beginning of the story should be the opposite of the end. Find the opposite of your transformation, revelation, or realization, and this is where your story should start. This is what creates an arc in your story. This is how a story shows change over time. (Location 1850) The easiest, most effective way of doing this is by ensuring that the beginning and the ending of your stories are opposites or as close to opposites as possible. (Location 1865) Simply ask yourself what the opposite of the first fifteen minutes of a movie is, and you will almost always have your ending. (Location 1898) Even when the ending is all but certain, a good storyteller can grab the audience by the throat and make them temporarily forget that they know damn well how this movie will end. (Location 1933) The opposite of someone uncovering a secret, I decided, is the creation of that secret. The initial decision to keep something secret. For me, this meant dipping back into my childhood for moments of hunger and shame, so that I could show my audience how and why I decided to keep my childhood hunger a secret. (Location 1963) But rarely is the first idea the one that I choose. First ideas are for the lazy. The complacent. The easily satisfied. (Location 1974) The correct beginning makes the rest of the choices seem much more obvious. I also try to start my story as close to the end as possible (a rule Kurt Vonnegut followed when writing short stories). I want my stories to be as temporally limited as possible. I strive for simplicity at all times. By starting as close to the end as possible, we shorten our stories. We avoid unnecessary setup. We eliminate superfluous details. (Location 1978) Here are a couple more practical tips for choosing an opening: 1. Try to start your story with forward movement whenever possible. Establish yourself as a person who is physically moving through space. Opening with forward movement creates instant momentum in a story. It makes the audience feel that we’re already on our way, immersed in the world you are moving us through. We’re going somewhere important. (Location 2073) Don’t start by setting expectations. Listen to people in the world tell you stories. Often they start with a sentence like, “This is hilarious,” or “You need to hear this,” or “You’re not going to believe this.” This is always a mistake, for three reasons. First, it establishes potentially unrealistic expectations. (Location 2076) Second, starting your story with a thesis statement reduces your chances of surprising your audience. (Location 2082) Third, these are simply not interesting ways to start a story. (Location 2086)