Fail Safe: 3 Tricks for Telling Stories About Failure
For many people (myself included), the only thing scarier than failing is talking about failure. Maybe you’ve hit a parked cop car, peed your pants in front of the high school rowing team or cried in front of a group of Chinese school children*. Or maybe you’re like David Brent from The Office (see above) and you’re a tone deaf dancer. Whatever the case, you’ve probably failed a few times in your life.
This past week, I read a wonderful article in the New Yorker by Walter Kirn about how he was duped by one of the most famous impostors of the 20th century. The article is alternatively funny and heart breaking, but got me thinking: How does Kirn keep his readers rapt without launching into a tirade?
You’ll be happy to know: it all comes down to a few simple storytelling tricks.
To help you tell stories about screw-ups, shortcomings and unfortunate incidents without coming across as a bitter shrew or a total moron, here are “3 Tricks for Telling Stories About Failure.” Follow these rules and you’ll be able to talk about failure without looking like one.
1. Don’t pass judgment. The point of storytelling is to recreate an experience for your audience, so avoid passing judgment about any of the characters (yourself included!) in the story. The easiest way to do this is to eliminate comparatives (i.e. “better”, “worse”, “faster”, etc) and superlatives (i.e. “worst”, “best”, “fastest”) whenever possible. Instead, turn these comparisons into declarative statements (from “the best shot putter in Brooklyn" to "the #3 shot putter in the 18 - 22 age cohort in Brooklyn”). Specificity will help your story while making the narrator (you) more relatable.
2. Avoid complex explanations. If you’re talking about failure, it’s natural to want to explain away a decision through your own interpretive lens. Don’t do this. People love stories about a good flop (see my previous post), so don’t cheat them of the experience. One quick way to cut down interpretation is to eliminate explanatory words (“because”, “why”, “knew”, “understood”, “decided”, “realized”) from your story. Don’t tell an audience why something is important, show them how it is important.
3. Show (don’t tell!) us your emotions. Stories are filled with emotions and feelings, but manipulating your audience into feeling a particular way won’t help them relate to your experience. Skip emotive words (i.e. “happy”, “sad”, “excited”, “worried”) in favor of active phrases (“I smiled and screamed: "Awesome!”) that show the audience how you’re feeling. When you spend the time to recreate an experience, the emotions will shine through.
It takes time to tell stories about failure, but if you use these tips, you’ll be able to get over life’s hurdles faster and tell richer stories in the process. In the words of Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.”
*All of these things happened to me