The Elements of a Good Story

 

Helloo0O Ladies and Gentlemen!

Welcome back to another week at Graceland Ontario, your one stop to learn the success lessons Elvis Presley showed through out his lifetime. Today we’re moving onto our holiday series, starting with the holiday parade, a start to the holiday season, and how it shows the many parts all great work is made up of.

Now, it was hard thinking this one up. I could’ve talked about all the people it takes to make up a parade, like the number of people it takes to make up a show, and that no one does it all alone. But, hell, I’ve done that a couple times before (The Haunted House Special, Elvis’s Olympic Team) so I figured I’d try something different.

Well, when I started writing I got another idea. You see, Graceland Ontario’s been the baby of my recent writing endeavours. I’m working on a book at the moment and just the chapters in that are considerably larger than anything I’ve posted on this blog. And the more I work, the more I see the intricacies of a story, even if that be everyday life.

What I’m talking about are all those things you don’t usually think about until you’re doing it. It’s like something I read once in Robert Herjavic, the Canadian entrepreneur’s, book Driven, that many times he wouldn’t have dreamed taking up an entrepreneurial endeavour if he thought about all the work it would comprise.

The same thing works with the chapter of a fiction book − the way I do things, I think of the point of a chapter and how it will advance the plot of the book. Simple. That’ll take all of 200 words to explain, if not much less. How do you get an 100,000 word monster out of that? Simple. Add the detail. How did the character get there? Who did he talk to? What did he think? What did they think? How is this like his past experiences? Did he just walk past a tree? What did that tree look like?

A novel is a million different little acts and questions being answered to manifest a complete storyline. A balance of:

1. Knowing the major points of the story, and,

2. Adding the essential details, without rambling on

It works much the same way as a real life. Take for example the star of this blog, Elvis Presley. His life could be summed up in a page. Less. But it might read like this:

• Born poor.
• Rose to become a prominent singer.
• Became movie actor.
• Made singing comeback.
• Became biggest act in Vegas.
• Died, young, obese and divorced.

 

For a person who’d never heard of the King, they might ask quite a few questions. I mean, how did he move from the biggest act in Vegas to dead? There’re a lot of little details that make the whole picture up.

Now, let’s look at a parade. When you watch one, you’ll see lots of floats, bands, different costumes. And, of course, Ol’ Saint Nick pulls up the rear with his bride and beautiful carriage drawn by two stallions.

A good Christmas parade brings in the season so well because it’s well organized − it’s exciting. But when you recite it to people, you’ll probably say something like.

• Band started
•  Lots of floats.
•  More bands.
•  Crazy float with Spider-man on it.
•  Santa Claus.

 

Now, that’s not very exciting. It leaves a lot of questions to be asked, too. And if you were trying to sell a business man on how amazing it’d be for his company to sponsor a parade, he might not the wonder of it.

See what I’m saying?

Simply, the details are important. The main points will get the message across (which is what you want in a business pitch) but the details create the story. And people like reading/watching stories. We all have one. It’s how we tell it that makes the difference. Or the sale.

Some people are incredible (read Elvis). They have degrees and so many achievements that even the point version of their story can take up the back page of a book. But if it’s written out wrong, it won’t look like they’ve done anything in their life. On the other hand, someone who’s lived in a small town their whole existence can make their life exciting when they tell you about all the crazy things that happen in the local fall fair over fifty years.

What I’m talking about is the packaging. People’ll say they want only the facts. When they’re short on time, that’s true. But if something isn’t packaged nicely, nicely worded and explained, it doesn’t matter how good it is, no one’s going to take it.

That being said, make sure you do have points, that your work has substance. Then build round it. Something that’s packaged well but has nothing to it will get you a long way fast before it bankrupts you.

The parade, Elvis, they have significant points but with all the detail mixed in. Together, they are winning formulas to a good story, a story people will clamber to the curbs for every year in the winter months. A story people will stand outside in lines longer than the hedges in Central Park to get to Graceland every year in August. The story, the details and the points, make a tale people can’t help but want to hear.

And, man, you’re in a good place if people can’t help but want to pay you to hear your story.

 

Elvis’s Lessons:

A good story, or presentation, is made up of both the points and the details. The points provide the substance so you know you have something to work with. The details answer the questions and give the pitch humanity. Both parades and Elvis’s life use this principle. Both have their substance, the way things are planned out, the thirty second elevator pitch. But they also have the details to reinforce the presentation when questions are asked (and they always are). Keep both in mind, and neglect neither.

Thanks for reading along another week with my Christmas series - come back next week to see what's next!

P.S. If you'd like to see Elvis with some Christmas repertoire, here he is with "If I Get Home on Christmas Day".

Be Really Good At Something

I was only listening to an Elvis radio station when the King himself came on singing a version of Fats Domino’s big hit, Blueberry Hill. It was a pretty good cover which I and many other Elvis fans may have enjoyed, but it also spells out a major point of controversy associated with Elvis. More about this later…

Blueberry Hill was written in 1940 by Vincent Rose, Al Lewis and Larry Stock to be played in a western, originally being sung by Gene Autry. Glenn Miller had also had a hit with it and there had been a host of other covers in following years. Fats Domino released the song in 1956 and it rose to number two in the US and number six in the UK – his biggest hit.

For those with a poor memory, Fats Domino was the big-boned rock ‘n’ roll pianist who put out his first song in 1949, “The Fat Man”. Over time, the loveable Domino put out twenty-three big records, each selling over a million. His hard work not forgotten, he was inducted into the Rock n Roll hall of fame in 1986 (its first year and also the year Elvis was inducted).

So where am I going with this? Well, Domino, considering he didn’t even write “Blueberry Hill”, is an example, as Presley was, of a musician in the 50’s who would sing other people’s songs as if they were their own. They would then have hits with the songs and be associated with the tune for ever after. Another good example is Presley’s 1956 cover of Carl Perkin’s 1955 song ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. At the time, people were interested in hearing the gritty, new rock n roll versions of these songs or, in Perkins case, another artist’s interpretation of a song.

But what has happened with time is these songs tend to get associated with one person. It still gets many a Carl-Perkins fan when ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ is credited as an Elvis song because of Elvis’s enduring popularity, leading people to give Elvis credit even though the original was by Perkins a year earlier. In Domino’s case, Presley also covered his hit a year later. At the time, this meant a different version and, clearly, Domino’s version kept selling long after Elvis’s version came out; it wouldn’t be remembered so well today if it hadn’t.

But to the controversy: isn’t one artist covering another person’s song stealing the credit that person deserves? And, if the artist covering another person’s song is stealing, and Elvis did a lot of covers in his time because he didn’t take part in the writing process of many songs, then does that make Elvis a leech, stealing the popularity deserved to his fellow his musicians? Interesting point, huh?

Well, not really. Elvis claimed to be a singer. And that’s what he did, sing. And he was very good at it. But that’s a musician’s job, not a writer’s job. Writing songs is a completely different talent with different required skill sets. The best songwriters aren’t always great singers nor vice versa. Elvis couldn’t craft a good song so he made up with it by singing his all on other’s songs. And, if you’re into classical music, you’ll know this isn’t that weird; Mozart hasn’t played any of his hits in years, or Beethoven, but no one complains when Daniel Barenboin does his excellent covers of those great composers’s work. He’s perhaps not a legendary composer himself, but he is a great musician who does them justice all these years after the grave took them.

But, isn’t it different in pop music? Nope. Rihanna didn’t write her smash hit Umbrella, but The-Dream, Kuk Harrell, Christopher Stewart and Jay-Z (for his rap introduction).

Furthermore, there are copyright laws. Even if a songwriter loses publicity because another artist did a more successful version of their song, providing they had it copyrighted and have the rights to it, they can still get royalties on that song. Chuck Berry, the legendary Rock n Roll guitarist, does this when people cover his songs.

It’s not like talented song writers can’t be singers, like Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, or either one of the Lennon- McCartney duo, but there’s nothing wrong with being one or the other, like Elvis was. You’ve just got to be extra good at the one skill instead of decently extra good at two.

Elvis’s Lessons:
Ø You don’t have to be a little good at a lot of things; there will always be other talented people to take care of those areas if you can’t (like song-writing in Elvis’s case). But what is important is that you’re good at one thing, so good that you can make the original sound like it was a cover (for Elvis that was singing). That’s what Elvis did through his whole career and he still has more hits than most fellow singers then and now.

P.S. If you're interested in hearing Elvis's version of "Blueberry Hill", check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4zF3M_Y24E