ABT Framework Student Resource Page Round 40 – Emory

Pick an available half hour time slot on this page.
Fill in your first name, last name, and a short title for your Working Circle based on your ABT.

Host responsibilities

Email your participants your ABT before the Working Circle so they have time to review it – we’ll send you the list of your participants’ email addresses 3-5 days ahead of time.
You can send your participants a revised ABT of what you originally submitted to class or use a brand new ABT all together.
During the Working Circle, use the ABT Blue Card and follow the half hour schedule.
You’re the moderator of the discussion, so do your best to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak and provide input.
We’ll send you and your participants a Zoom link for your Working Circle 3-5 days before you’re scheduled to host, so no need to worry about that.

Participant responsibilities

Sign up to participate in a minimum of 2 Working Circles. Sign up here.
Review the ABT that the host sent you ahead of time and come up with your version of the 5 Word Problem (this will be discussed in class) for the host’s ABT before the Working Circle starts.
One participant should volunteer to be the notetaking Scribe. The Scribe will share their screen so that everyone can view it and have a Word document up to take notes. You can find a premade Scribe document in Word here.
(Optional) Participants can rewrite the host’s ABT and present the rewritten ABT to the host during the Working Circle. This approach is for participants who want a little extra practice and to give the host more options and ideas for rewriting their ABT. So far we’ve had reports back that hosts are incredibly grateful when participants do this.
Be prepared to use the ABT Blue Card and all the tools you’ve learned in class to help the host clarify their narrative.

Presentations

For guidance on how to format the first draft of your slide deck, read section 4 of this pdf.

Course Dates and Times

Zoom Sessions:

Thursdays @ 2:00 pm Eastern Time
- Start Date: 8/29
- End Date: 11/21

Before the first class

Download the ABT Blue Card – Have it open or printed out and ready for each class.

Session 1 Resources – Intro

Chat Log

How to Create a Powerful 90 Second Project Summary Using the ABT Framework

Watch this video on YouTube

Download the ABT Blue Card – This is our 3 step model for revising an ABT to make it more effective.

Optional Exercise #1 – “This is a story of…” – Change

This is an exercise that would be handy to have done before your in class ABT Build with Randy because Randy asks this question for roughly 99% of ABT Builds.

For this exercise, tell us what your ABT is about by finishing this sentence and using only 3 additional words “This is a story of____.”

It seems simple, but this exercise is tricky because participants tend to focus on the subject. But stories need more than a subject, they need change. Look at your ABT and see what major change you want to occur. Your story starts at point A and ends at point B – what’s the change that you want to get us to point B?

Examples of changes in past ABTs:

Protecting a species
Strategizing building restoration
Managing conservation efforts
Restoring wildlife
Adapting to change
Educating our stakeholders
Understanding a disease

Look at this example ABT:

Congressional funding is a key requirement for the continuation of important avian research, and we know that our research allows us to be better able to manage our wildlife habitats and protect endangered species. But program managers don’t feel confident about securing future funding because some research areas are not receiving enough attention. Therefore, we need to effectively promote the proven success in these research areas to secure future funding.

When asked to complete the sentence “This is a story of____,” a possibility is “This is a story of avian research.” But this is just the subject and it doesn’t tell us what change is taking place in this story.

Instead of the subject (avian research), focus on the change. If you wanted the change for the broader story, then you might say “secure,” since ultimately the purpose is to secure the future funds. “This is a story of securing future funding.”

Point A of the story: We are not securing future funding.

Point B of the story: We are securing future funding.

Try to fill in “This is a story of____” for your ABT using only 3 additional words (focusing on the change) or less.

Session 2 Resources – Outer Circle and Singular Narrative

The One Thing:

Watch this video on YouTube

Nicholas Kristof’s Advice for Saving the World – The importance of the singular narrative. Once you increase the size of a narrative from one person in need to two people in need, compassion drops in the audience.

Compassion Fade: Affect and Charity Are Greatest for a Single Child in Need – The research article that “Advice for Saving the World” references.

Off With the Talking Heads: A Plea for One COVID Voice – Randy’s Medpage article where he talks about the importance of the singular narrative.

‘Data-Driven’ Campaigns Are Killing the Democratic Party – The article in which Dave Gold coined the term “Christmas Tree” when looking for an overarching problem. It’s okay to have several problems in your narrative, but you need to find the overarching Christmas Tree problem for your narrative that all the other problems can hang off of like ornaments.

Optional Exercise #2: The 5 Word Problem

“What’s the problem?” is the second most common question Randy asks during the ABT Builds. For this exercise, look at your ABT and try to finish this sentence “The problem is _____” and use only 5 additional words.

Examples: The problem is bad resource management.

The problem is the old method doesn’t work.

The problem is we have bad data.

Stripping down your problem to just 5 words can help you clarify what your narrative is actually all about and focus in on the real problem that you want to address.

Session 3 Resources – cABT and Abstract Analysis

Three Forms of the ABT – It’s recommended you read this excerpt from Houston, We Have a Narrative and get an understanding of the cABT (Conversational ABT).

Optional Exercise #3: Using the Dobzhansky Template to find your “One Thing.”

Restructure your ABT in the form of a Dobzhansky Template to help you find your singular narrative. This is an excellent tool to use during Step 2 of the ABT Blue Card.

Dobzhansky Template: Nothing in _______ makes sense, except in the light of ________.

Examples: Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution.

Nothing in geology makes sense, except in the light of plate tectonics.

Nothing in the management of mule deer makes sense except in the light of correctly estimating abundance.

Nothing in the challenge of teaching human anatomy makes sense except in the light of time management.

Session 4 Resources – Hero’s Journey and Bankspeak

Matthew Winkler Video: What makes a hero? – We only watched the first two minutes in class. Watch this to the end to see how the hero’s journey applies to your life:

Watch this video on YouTube

Bankspeak: The Language of World Bank Reports, 1946–2012 – The Literary Lab report on how the World Bank reports are completely unreadable, due in no small part to the overuse of the word “and” to glue together contradicting statements.

A spat over language erupts at the World Bank – The somewhat dismissive Economist article on the “conjunction dysfunction” about the Literary Lab’s report.

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a 7 year foundational study that took a quantitative analysis approach to the English language. It found that the ideal percentage of Ands in well edited documents tend to converge around 2.5%. You can use this word frequency tool to find the number of Ands in your own document, then divide that by the total number of words to find your And Frequency. We consider an And Frequency of over 4% to be indicative of “deadly levels of boring.” An And Frequency of over 3% could use some more editing. The closer to 2.5% you are, the better.

Optional Exercise #4: cABT – Starting from simplicity

Randy might ask you the cABT version of your ABT, so for this exercise you’ll prepare your cABT ahead of time.

The cABT should have all specifics stripped off of it. Use nothing but generic words, like “thing” and “stuff.” For example, if your ABT dealt with a new way to clean junk from the ocean that’s an improvement and the old system is outdated, the cABT would be “We had a thing we were using for a while, but it’s not working that great, so now we want to use a better thing.”

See? We can’t tell that you’re working on cleaning the environment. You could just as well be telling me that you’re implementing a new accounting system at your bank for all we know. That makes it a good cABT.

This exercise is important in making sure you have an easily understood base narrative, that you really know what the narrative core of your ABT is all about. And then from the base cABT, you can start adding specifics again when constructing your kABT.

Session 5 Resources – Narrative Gym Day

Optional Exercise #5: Ordinary World – Framing your ABT

Setting up the Ordinary World is important for correctly framing your ABT so that you audience understands your topic at a broad level. If you can set it up correctly, then it makes it easier to quickly dive into the stakes and get buy-in from your audience ASAP.

But we’ve found getting the right Ordinary World is extremely tricky because framing your topic at the right level takes practice.

So get some practice, in this exercise, I want you to make three attempts at the Ordinary World for your ABT. Come up with three different possibilities for the wording of the broad topic and use each to complete this sentence to create three different versions:

(Broad Topic) is important for/because ______________.

After you come up with three versions, pick the one that you like best.

Need an example of the Ordinary World? Go back and read the first sentence of this optional exercise. 🙂

Session 6 Resources – Proposals with Dianna Padilla

DNA (Dream, Nightmare, Action) and the 4 Moments

Are You Confused by Scientific Jargon? So Are Scientists – A New York Times article recommended by Dianna about how jargon clogs up scientific papers to the point that other scientists can’t understand them. Remember: your Inner Circle is always smaller than you think it is.

Chaos in the brickyard – A famous Science Magazine letter on scientists, their obsessions, and squandered effort.

Optional Exercise #6 : IF/THEN – The tool of HOPE and FEAR

The IF/THEN tool is incredibly powerful at helping to set the stakes and getting very specific. You can use it in the Blue section and it can be a tool for Hope, showing what Heaven could look like it all goes according to plan. Or you can use it for Fear in the Red section, showing how bad Hell can be if everything falls apart.

But what should your IF/THEN be about? To answer that, go back to the optional exercise “This is a story of…” – Processes – Change ‘‘ and find the changes that are taking place in your narrative.

Let’s look at the example we used.

For the example ABT, the changes were:
Broader change: A story of securing future funding
Specific change: A story of promoting our success.

Now that you have the changes, try crafting them into IF/THEN statements, both positive and negative, and see if you find any variation that has some power. If it helps, you can put them into the form of questions like the ones below for you to answer:

If you can secure future funding, then what happens? (Hope)
If you do a good job at promoting our successes, then what happens? (Hope)
If you can’t secure future funding, then what happens? (Fear)
If you fail to promote our successes, then what happens? (Fear)

Try asking questions like this for your own ABT’s changes and see if you can properly set the stakes using the tool of Hope or Fear.

Session 7 Resources – Narrative Spiral with Nancy Knowlton

The Narrative Spiral:

Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics – The paper Nancy referenced that shows how science literacy and political affiliation affect belief in controversial topics. Despite what scientists would like to believe, more information isn’t always the right answer.

Citizens of the Sea: Wondrous Creatures From the Census of Marine Life – Nancy Knowlton’s book.

Earth Optimism – A movement that Nancy is heavily involved in to help highlight the upward rise of the climate movement’s narrative spiral.

Katharine Hayhoe – The Evangelical Christian and Climate Scientist who emphasizes shared values when teaching about climate change.

Medical Obfuscation: Structure and Function – Michael Crichton’s paper on how medical communication does NOT have to be as complicated as it is.

Optional Exercise #7: Past, Present, & Future

There’s a few different variations of the kABT. We’ll be looking at one of them here, the Past-Present-Future ABT.

The Past-Present-Future format isn’t applicable to all topics, but we can experiment and see if it is with yours. For your project, craft the AND in a way to tell the audience what was going on before in your project or your old method for addressing a problem. For the BUT, tell the audience the current problem with the old method of doing things. For the THEREFORE, let us know the solution that you’ll be attempting to implement in the future.

The cABT for a Past-Present-Future ABT might look like: “We were doing this one method for the longest time AND it worked well enough, BUT a new issue came up, THEREFORE now we have to fix it by doing a new thing.”

You could also attempt an IF/THEN in a Past-Present-Future ABT, for example: “We were doing this one method for the longest time AND it worked well enough, BUT a new issue came up and IF we don’t fix it THEN it’s going to get really bad, THEREFORE now we have to fix it by doing a new thing.”

Try filling in the details with your own project and make your own kABT using the Past-Present-Future ABT format.

Or fill in the details with facts about your life to make a Past-Present-Future ABT for introducing yourself at parties or networking events: “I was doing this one thing, BUT then a big issue came up, THEREFORE now I’m focusing on this other thing.”

And you can break out the Past-Present-Future ABT if you’re ever put on the spot by your employer with a question on where you’re at with a project at work. cABT: “Well boss, we got all this stuff done and it’s working great, but now we’ve got a new problem, so we’ll be doing a bunch of steps to fix it.” Fill in the details to that cABT on the fly and your boss should be up to speed on what you’re up to.

Session 8 Resources – Business with Park Howell

Park Howell’s Business of Storytelling Podcast

Learn From My 10-Year Journey With The ABTs of Storytelling – Park Howell’s 400th episode of his Business of Story podcast in which he highlights his favorite moments with the ABT from previous episodes.

Brand Bewitchery: How to Wield the Story Cycle System to Craft Spellbinding Stories for Your Brand – Park Howell’s book on using the ABT and the Hero’s Journey to help market your brand.

The Narrative Gym for Business: Introducing the ABT Framework for Business Communication and Messaging – The business version of the Narrative Gym, written by Park and Randy.

Optional Exercise #8: Audience as Hero

Time to look at a different version of the kABT, the Audience as Hero ABT.

The Audience as Hero ABT isn’t applicable to all topics, but we can experiment and see if it is with yours. In this ABT format, the audience is the hero of their own hero’s journey, and you (or your organization, process, project, product, etc.) act as the sage/mentor character that guides the audience through the special world to the solution.

Audience as Hero ABTs work best when you have a specific course of action that you want the audience to take, such as to buy a product, vote for a ballot measure, support a conservation movement, etc.

For the AND, start with the ordinary world of what you and the audience can agree on as important, properly setting the stakes for something the audience cares about. (Remember the class on Listening? This is where listening to and knowing your audience comes into play.)

For the BUT, tell us the problem that is putting the audience’s important thing at risk.

For the THEREFORE, you (or your organization, process, project, product, etc.) are introduced as the sage/mentor that guides the audience toward the solution to their problems. Remember, you are not the hero of this ABT, the audience is. You are just the guide.

A typical Audience as Hero cABT: “You know that this thing is important to you for some reasons AND IF you have this thing THEN stuff turns out great, BUT this thing is having a problem, THEREFORE we have the solution you can use to fix this problem.”

Try filling in the details with your own project and make your own kABT using the Audience as Hero ABT format.

Session 9 Resources – Abstract Analysis #2

How And, But, Therefore improve Science Stories – A write up about Randy and the ABT in a German magazine focusing on science communication.

Time to look at a different version of the kABT, the Expected Vs Observed ABT.

The Expected Vs Observed ABT isn’t applicable to all topics, but we can experiment and see if it is with yours. For your project, paint a perfect world in the AND in which everything goes right, what you would Expect from your “ideal world.” Aim for Heaven!

Unlike the Past-Present-Future ABT, this time you’re starting the AND out in the ideal, perfect future, not the past. A positive IF/THEN in the AND is often helpful here in really driving home what the stakes are if all goes according to plan.

Then for the BUT, tell us the problem that you’re Observing which is interfering with this perfect world you envisioned in the AND. Aim for Hell!

Finally, for the THEREFORE, tell us how you’ll lead us out of the problem of the BUT and back to the ideal world of the AND.

(This is often a great ABT for people who work on climate change projects. Climate change has been such an ongoing problem that it’s a part of our past now, so instead of looking at the climate change ridden past, you’re looking at the ideal future where you’re actively solving the problems of climate change in the AND).

A typical Expected Vs Observed cABT: “We’ve got this great project AND IF everything goes to plan THEN we’ll get all kinds of great benefits BUT right now it’s not working because of a problem THEREFORE we need to fix it by doing some stuff.”

Try filling in the details with your own project and make your own kABT using the Expected Vs Observed ABT format.

Session 10 Resources – Ordinary World with Brian Palermo

Brian Palermo’s Resources – Brian offers a number of resource videos on his website, some with interactive exercises built in. Topics include listening, utilizing emotional intelligence, and audience focused communication. He also offers online improv training to help improve listening and communication skills.

Don’t Be Such a Scientist, Second Edition: Talking Substance in an Age of Style – In this second edition of Randy’s book, Randy added a brand new chapter: “Don’t Be Such a Poor Listener.”

Rather Than Arming Our Differences, We Need To Embrace Them—and Simply Be NICE – An article on how shared values and first principles can help us bridge divides between different groups. And for the purposes of our course, where do you bridge that divide? The blue section.

‘Historic Botched Job’: The Narrative Mechanics of Failed COVID Communication From CDC and Elsewhere – A Medscape podcast that Randy was on with Eric Topol discussing the failures of COVID communication.

$71 Million of Disappointment – Randy’s podcast series on how politicians in North Dakota and Australia didn’t listen to their audiences to understand what was important to them on issues of conservation and Aboriginal rights.

Social Media

Science Needs Story – Randy Olson’s Blog.

@ABTAgenda – Follow Randy on Twitter.

ABT Time Podcast – All things ABT, start to finish. In this weekly hour long post Randy will discuss observations, applications and implications of this powerful tool that is at the core of his narrative training program and effective communication of all forms.

The ABT Agenda Newsletter – We send out a newsletter a few times a year with new ABT related events, news, and course updates. If you sign up, we promise not to spam you with tons of junk!

ABT Framework Google Group

We have an ABT Framework Google Group set up for all the current students and alumni of the Course. If you join, you’ll be able to create and submit new Working Circles for brand new ABTs for projects that you’re working on to get ABT feedback from others who have trained in this method. And you can participate in new Working Circles from future classes and alumni submissions to help hone your ABT skills.

Also, as graduates of the class, you’re free to come back and audit the entire course for free as often as you like. We post future classes that you can audit to the Google Groups.

To sign up for the ABT Framework Google Group, you can email Matthew (mattmdavid@gmail.com) a Google account email address (i.e. @gmail.com) to be able to visit the page directly. Or you can send him a non-Google address and still participate by receiving email updates from the Google Group whenever new Working Circles are posted or new classes are available that you can audit for free.

ABT Glossary

Agreement: The first of the 3 forces of Narrative (Agreement, Contradiction, Consequence). This is the set up part of a narrative in which the Ordinary World is established and Stakes are set. Typically, the Agreement section should be a statement about the topic that is non-controversial and contains no problems – this is done to maximize the narrative turn when we reach the Contradiction. In class, the Agreement is colored blue.

And Frequency (A.F.): The percentage of the word AND in a given document or presentation which is used to determine how well a document has been edited. The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English is a 7 year foundational study that took a quantitative analysis approach to the English language. It found that the ideal percentage of ANDs in well edited documents tend to converge around 2.5%. TIP: You can use this word frequency tool to find the number of ANDs in your own document, then divide that by the total number of words to find your AND Frequency. We consider an AND Frequency of over 3% to indicate that your document or presentation could use some more editing to “trim the fat.” An A.F. of over 4% is indicative of “deadly levels of boring.” The closer to 2.5% you are, the better.

Arouse and Fulfill: A common narrative dynamic in which you first Arouse the audience’s interest in a topic by giving them general information that only hints at what the full topic is about. The Arouse part of the narrative is very short, broad, and lacks context. The Fulfill section is where you provide the full context of the topic that you hinted at in the Arouse. It’s common for presentations to begin with a quick Arouse statement or question to give the audience a general idea of the talk before diving into the specifics in the Fulfill.

BUT/BECAUSE: The general to specific breakdown of the problem. The BUT introduces us to a general version of the problem that is typically no more than 5 words. It’s meant to quickly convey the emotional part of the problem. For example, “BUT that’s not happening,” “BUT we are failing,” and “BUT it’s not working right.” The BECAUSE gives us the specific informational part of the problem.

Christmas Tree (aka Umbrella Problem): The overarching problem of your narrative. Your narrative may have multiple problems. If so, the Christmas Tree is the singular broad version of the problem that encompasses all of the smaller problems. The Christmas Tree sometimes must be very general in order to encompass a wide variety of “ornament” problems.

Consequence: The third of the 3 forces of Narrative (Agreement, Contradiction, Consequence). In narrative, the Consequence is a statement of the action that will be taken to solve the problem. In non-narrative, the Consequence is often a logical conclusion, not an action. For the purposes of this course, we will be focused on the narrative/action type of Consequence. In class, the Consequence is colored green.

Contradiction: The second of the 3 forces of Narrative (Agreement, Contradiction, Consequence). The Contradiction is the statement of the problem. To maximize the effect of the Contradiction, no problems or controversial statements should be used in the Agreement. In class, the Contradiction is colored red.

Context Deficit: A typical problem in ABTs where the Agreement section lacks necessary information to help setup the problem in the Contradiction section. This might involve a lack of explanation on what the Ordinary World is, leaving out the Proximate steps that are being taken to achieve the Ultimate goal, or not helping the audience to understand the Stakes. Having a well setup Agreement section with the right context and Stakes is necessary for achieving buy-in with the audience as soon as possible.

cABT (Conversational ABT): A tool that is a short, general version of an ABT that lacks all specific information. Using this tool can give you an understanding about what the narrative core is of the message that you’re trying to convey. A cABT should be easily understood by a 5-year-old. For example, a cABT for a complicated biomedical process that involves researching a new method to detect tuberculosis could boil down to: “There’s a thing that would be good to know, BUT we don’t know it yet, THEREFORE we’re going to find out about it.” cABTs can also be used as part of the Arouse segment of a presentation. For more information, read this excerpt from Houston, We Have A Narrative on the 3 forms of the ABT.

Dobzhansky Template: A tool used to find the singular theme of an ABT in just a few words and is the central argument that you’re trying to make in a narrative. The template: “Nothing in ________ makes sense, except in the light of _________.” Dobzhansky’s can be used as Arouse statements at the beginning of presentations.

DNA (Dream/Nightmare/Action): A method of grouping facts and information together to make an argument. First, the Dream is laid out in the Agreement where you make the argument of why what you’re trying to do is important (i.e. stating your Ultimate goal) and all the positive benefits that would occur if you where to succeed (a Hope IF/THEN is helpful with this). Then, the Nightmare is laid out in the Contradiction in which you tell the audience the obstacle that must be overcome if we are to ever achieve this Dream. Optionally, you can add a Fear IF/THEN in the Nightmare to project into the future with how much worse things will be if they continue on as they are. Finally, you give the Action in the Consequence that you will take that will lead us out of the Nightmare and towards the Dream.

General to Specific: A common pattern in narratives in which the General idea is laid out first and then the Specific details are filled in. This pattern can be seen in Arouse and Fulfill, BUT/BECAUSE, and THEREFORE/BY. For PowerPoint presentations, slides can be used to give General bullet points and the presenter can verbally give Specific details.

IF/THEN: A tool that is a hypothetical statement in which you project into the future to outline your goals and the stakes. Typically used in the Agreement section in what we call a Hope IF/THEN to help clarify for the audience what it is you are specifically trying to accomplish, why it’s important, and why the audience should care about it. It can also be used as a Fear IF/THEN, typically at the very end of the Contradiction, to outline how much worse things can be if no action is taken. Note: In class, we tend to use Hope IF/THENs for 95% of ABTs and Fear IF/THENS for only 1% because Fear IF/THENs are unnecessary if the Agreement is setup properly.

Informational ABT: An ABT that is crowded with too much information. The information is often put in in an attempt to make the ABT compelling and thorough, but the lack of concision tends to make an audience lose the narrative thread.

Inner Circle/Outer Circle: The two main audiences divided by one major element: context. An Inner Circle audience understand the background context of your topic and often does not need narrative elements to give them context. The Outer Circle audience lacks context and requires narrative to help give them proper context on your topic to understand what’s at stake and why they should care. Examples of Inner Circle audiences could include research project partners or co-workers who work together in the same department. Examples of Outer Circle audiences could include the general public, upper management at your company, a grant committee, or an office of co-workers who are right down the hall from you and don’t understand what it is that you’re doing.

Narrative Index (N.I.): The ratio of Buts to Ands in a given document or presentation which is used to determine the narrative strength. The Narrative Index is calculated as: N.I. = Buts/Ands x 100. A Narrative Index score over 10 is considered narratively adequate. Over 20 is narratively strong and over 30 is narratively fierce. More details can be found on this blog post.

Narrative Intuition: An intuition gained for what types of narratives work and what don’t. Typically, those who practice narrative frequently and get immediate feedback from broad audiences are more likely to have higher narrative intuition as shown by the And Frequency and Narrative Index metrics. Based off metrics, experienced professional stand-up comedians tend to have the highest narrative intuition, followed by journalists in wide publications and politicians. Scientists and researchers tend to rank the lowest. The goal of this course is to increase your narrative intuition through repetition.

Numerical Intuition: An intuition gained by scientists and researchers in which you learn to trust large sample sizes and intuitively understand the importance of them.

Ordinary World: A term derived from Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth. It is a statement of the topic at a broad level, is used in the first half of the Agreement, and is important for properly framing your narrative to orient audiences correctly. An effective Ordinary World tends to be non-controversial and does not include problems. It consists of well established knowledge and things that we know for certain. TIP: To come up with a rough draft of the Ordinary World quickly, try completing this sentence: “(Insert Broad Topic Here) is important for/because ___________.”

Plant & Payoff: Derived from the narrative principle of Chekhov’s Gun that states that every element in a story must be necessary and irrelevant elements should be removed (If a gun is introduced in the first act of a stage play, it must be fired by the final act.) A narrative element that is Planted in the Agreement must be Paid Off in the Consequence. Planted elements that aren’t Paid Off should be removed. The reverse is also true: any narrative element that is Paid Off in the Consequence must first be Planted in the Agreement (or at minimum in the Contradiction). Having a Payoff of a narrative element without first Planting it can lead to a Context Deficit.

Stakes: The thing in a narrative that can be gained or lost. When we ask “what’s at Stake,” we want to know what great thing do we have the potential to gain by what you’re doing, or what do we have the potential to lose out on? TIP: An effective way to set the Stakes is with a Hope or Fear IF/THEN.

THEREFORE/BY: The general to specific breakdown of the solution. The THEREFORE introduces us to a general version of the solution that is typically no more than 5 words. It’s meant to quickly convey the emotional part of the solution. For example, “THEREFORE we’ll fix this,” or “THEREFORE we’ll help solve this.” The BY gives us the specific informational part of the solution.

Ultimate vs Proximate: Narratives operate at several levels. At the Ultimate level, there is a larger scale problem that you need to solve. In your narrative, you’ll make the argument that in order to solve that Ultimate level problem, you need to solve a smaller, Proximate level problem that moves you closer to solving the Ultimate level problem. For example, an Ultimate problem might be that the current method to diagnosis tuberculosis isn’t accurate enough. In order to solve that Ultimate problem, you may need to solve the Proximate problem of finding out how to optimize the chemicals used for tuberculosis diagnosis to make it more accurate. Tip: For a narrative to be effective, you must select the right level of Proximate problem to focus on and build your narrative around. But this is difficult because narratives can have multiple levels of the problem, ranging from more and more Ultimate to more and more Proximate. So, when looking at varying levels of the problem from very Ultimate to very Proximate, it helps to ask yourself “what point am I arguing to my audience that we need to take specific action on?” When your audience can finally picture that specific action you want to take, you’ve hit the right level of Proximate problem. For your narrative, you need to make the case that your Proximate solution is the right one for the Ultimate problem. A Hope IF/THEN can be helpful for this. Here’s the cABT version of a Hope IF/THEN that deals with the Ultimate and Proximate: If we do the Proximate solution THEN we will get a bunch of good things leading to the Ultimate Solution.

ABT Booklist

Communication Books by Randy Olson

They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein – A book for an ABT like approach to argumentation.

Step by Step to Stand-up Comedy by Greg Dean – A book that takes a structured approach to joke writing with a focus on the AND and the BUT (i.e., Setup and Punchline).

The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler – If you ever wanted an in depth look at storytelling, THIS is the book. Draws heavily from Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and is based on Vogler’s 7 page memo that reshaped Hollywood.