Your Story, Your Intent & Your Show.

Finally! We get to talk about where story meets show.

What does that mean?

We established already that all story begins with an author. Not necessarily a writer, but an originator of an idea.

We also established that every second you’re alive, you’re authoring a story. Sometimes it’s for your personal life and sometimes it’s for your company and work place. Either way, you’re authoring RIGHT NOW.

When does story become a show?

Answer: When it gets presented.

Notice I didn’t say, “when you’re ready”. There are a lot of times in life we’re forced to present our story before we’re ready due to outside unforeseen circumstances. BUT for the sake of this, we’re going to assume you have control over the process of presenting.

But there’s another step before presentation that’s really, really important.

During my senior year of high-school I took an AP Music Theory course. On the first day, my teacher (shout out to Mr. Weaver at Ballard High School) entered the room and asked the small class of about 10 kids a question; “What is art?”

We drilled down on this question for about a week. I’m not kidding, it was a week. We talked about different forms of art as we knew; music, painting, drawling, drama, sculpting… etc. We also argued about the difference between modern art and the classics. Did art become art by standing the test of time? No. What about graffiti, is that art? Actually, yes.

After the full week of debate, here’s where we came down (with a lot of guidance).

Art is art when: It has intent, presentation and agreement.

Intent: The creator of a project must intend for it to be SOMETHING.

Presentation: The creator must present the work formally to the public for debate.

Agreement: There must be at least one person who agrees with the creator that the work is indeed, art.

Why does this matter?

Remember when I said “there’s another step before presentation that’s really important”?

It’s Intent. Intent is where ALL the planning and preparation for presentation, takes place.

Without intending for the story YOU’RE authoring to have a public impact, it wont. BUT keep in mind, there are others out there authoring stories involving you and your company. Those other authors DO intend for their story to be public, so you’d better be resigned that you’re giving up your right to have a voice in THAT story.

Once you intend the story you’re authoring to be presented in public, you have a show. You’re now author and producer.

In the next post, we’ll explore the steps of taking your story from authoring to presentation. THEN, each subsequent post will focus on the individual steps, leaning on the guidance and insight of professionals who do this all around the world.