Loadeye879

I saw Dan Pink speak in Orlando in May and he was great! I just finished going through the exercise for Agility:
Once upon a time people stopped reading magazines
Every day people would open their smartphones and chat with friends, play games and read news online
One day, a company called Agility launched a solution to help magazines integrate their content into the digital world
Because of that, people had a way to access their favourite magazines anywhere they were on any device!
Because of that magazines started to make up ground that they were losing on print sales and subscriptions
Until finally magazines rekindled and deepened their relationship with their audience by delivering their stories in new and interesting ways, without getting caught up in technology

An interesting approach I've started to use to practice story telling is to think of a recent movie or TV show I've watched, and then try to tell it to myself as a short one or two minute story (usually while I'm alone, driving for example). Actually it is really a lot of fun and I think it is improving my story telling skills!

@Clint, great tip. Will try it out, thanks!

I have been struggling with building a Pixar Pitch for a picture book that I wrote, The Monster on Top of the Bed.
This is what I've come up with after many revisions, but I'm still not happy with it. Suggestions for improvement will be appreciated.
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Suzy, who used to jump up and down on her bed having just a great time. This scared a young critter named Karrit who lived under Suzy's bed. Karrit heard Suzy do all sorts of nice things for people, and he wanted her to be his friend, but Suzy ate strange things like cakes made out of pans (pancakes) and the toes of toemays (tomatoes) and--could it be--he heard her talk about eating something truly horrendous.
One day Suzy told her mother that she was lonely and needed a friend. Because of that Karrit decided to visit Suzy, and Suzy got to meet him. At first Suzy was scared of Karrit. After all, he had red, scaly legs, and a blue nose, but he looked a little scared too. Suzy treated Karrit the way that she would want to be treated if she had gone to his house.
Suzy found out that one of the things that was scaring Karrit was that he didn't understand some English words, which made him wonder if Suzy ate dogs that were hot. Suzy figured out what was confusing Karrit, and was sorry that she had scared him. She went down to the kitchen and showed him a 'hotdog' a 'tomato' and a 'carrot', which sounded a lot like Karrit's name. She made Karrit feel that she liked him, and that she wanted him to be happy. Because of that, the two of them played and got to know each other better. They played until one day they both realized that they didn't have to be afraid of each other, and that it was a mistake for each of them to thing the other was a 'monster.' Suzy and Karrit became best friends, and neither was afraid of monsters again.

Well, I've made a few refinements:
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Suzy, who used to jump up and down on her bed having just a great time. This scared a young critter named Karrit who lived under Suzy’s bed. But, Karrit heard Suzy do all sorts of nice things for people, and he wanted her to be his friend. Still, Suzy ate strange things like cakes made out of pans (pancakes) and the toes of toemays (tomatoes) and—he couldn’t believe it—he heard her talk about eating something truly horrendous.
One day Karrit heard Suzy tell her mother that she was lonely and needed a friend. Because of that Karrit decided to visit Suzy, and Suzy got to meet him. At first Suzy was scared of Karrit. After all, he had red, scaly legs, and a blue nose, but he seemed a little scared too. Suzy treated Karrit the way that she would want to be treated if she had gone to his house.
As they grew to know each other, Suzy found out that Karrit didn’t understand some English words. Suzy figured out what was confusing Karrit, and she was sorry to have scared him. She showed him a hotdog (she didn’t eat dogs that were hot) a tomato (she didn’t eat the toes of matoes) and a carrot (she definitely didn’t eat Karrits).
Suzy made Karrit feel that she liked him, and that she wanted him to be happy. Because of that, the two of them played. They kept getting to know each other better until one day they both realized that they didn’t have to be afraid of each other, and that it was a mistake for each of them to think the other was a “monster.” Suzy and Karrit became best friends, and neither was afraid of monsters again.
I'll probably be tweaking it more. Should you want to see the latest version, visit http://www.Monbed.com

Thanks this is awesome.

I recently used this as an exercise for an Agile retrospective. team members basically had to write a pixar pitch-structured story, as it would have happened within 3 or 6 months from now. great format to introduce storytelling as a way of retrospection.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Alexandros Kneomia who was, though he did not know it, from another world.
Every day he enjoyed life with his companions, but struggled with not knowing his past before them or who he really was.
One day he woke from what he thought was a dream but was actually him remembering his past from that other world.
Because of that a visitor from his past comes from that world to bring him back so that he can fulfill his role in saving that world.
Because of that the world he now calls home is thrown into cataclysmic chaos.
Until finally he is forced to leave the world he now calls home in order to save it and his own.

do your best and makes proud us more

Great thing to use the storytelling tool. It wi'll assist me to write great blogs as I continue working with my community on different development projects.

This is great.

Great reading your post

Yes is clear .