Same Old Story

It always seems to be the same old story, but is it really?

Kurt Vonnegut once did a lecture on writing in which he stated that one of the basic premises of a good story is as follows:

“Boy meets girl.
Girl and boy fall in love.
Boy does something foolish, loses girl.
Then spends most of the story trying to win her back.
Finally, boy and girl get back together.”

Sounds over simplified, but if we consider any great story, the fundamental architypes are always there. Whether it’s a romance, comedy, tragedy, drama, even horror, we are faced with stories that are, at their bare bones, always the same.

The art lies in the embellishment, the exploration, the execution, the art lies in the telling.

This applies to our own lives, our businesses, our brands, our relationships. We are all born, follow a basic plot and then die. But it’s how we deal with the plot, how we decide to fill in the space between “In the beginning… and …the end” that truly determines whether it is just the same old story, or if it is something worth listening too.

Will you settle for the same old story, or are you going to take that plot and make it something really unique?