Steal Pixar’s Story Template

You probably struggle telling stories that resonate with others for two reasons:

1. You aren’t fully clear on why you are telling this story so you end up being are long winded and trying to connect too many themes.
   ​Result: You overwhelm yourself which leaves your audience overwhelmed)
2. You are thinking about what your audience wants to hear instead of telling your truth
   ​Result: Your story isn’t resonating with you, so it will never resonate with others

If you follow this guide I made today and use Pixar’s template at the end, you will uncover the true lesson you want to share which will help you be more concise and connect with your audience.

1. Getting clear on the purpose of your story

You may have heard of this concept by Ram Das.

He says there’s a way most people live which causes a lot of pain in life.

That is a lifestyle philosophy of “Have → Do → Be”

People wait to have something before they do the work to become the person they want to be.

An obvious example of how this doesn’t really work is… “When I have 6-pack abs, then I will go do the gym (do), then I will be confident.”

Of course, you will never get 6-pack abs if you never go to the gym.

So Ram Das says, you must live life as “Be → Do → Have” Become the confident person who goes to the gym consistently so that you can have your 6-pack abs.

But I just can’t get on board with that!

There’s just absolutely no way that I can become confident in the gym if I’ve never set foot in the gym before!!

Pixar’s number 1 rule of storytelling is, “We admire character for trying more than for success” Every great story is about who you become along the way of all your trying (aka doing).

So I think life is actually…

DO → BE → HAVE And I see that the greatest stories follow this model too.

You go to the gym scared before you are confident (do), so that you can develop confidence (be). Over time… do → be → do → be … you eventually have the 6-pack abs.

The question you need to answer when thinking about the story you want to tell is, who did I become as a result of my doing?

The easiest way to identify who you have become is to identify the lesson you have learned.

You may have learned many lessons along the way, but your task is to simply pick ONE lesson you want to share.

The whole story (setup, details, conflict) exists to make this transformation clear.

If you try to share two lessons, you are going to have to give more setup, more details and more conflict and you can see how that can be overwhelming for you and the audience.

If you do REALLY REALLY have two lessons to share, then good news… you have two stories to share!

Right now you understand the Do → Be → Have baseline.

You did something to become someone who has gotten something.

But that’s not a story, yet.

2. Story Structure

Every great story is a transformation, so we need to know who you were before you learned that lesson. This is how we (the audience) are going to connect to you.

You simply need to answer the question, “who was I before I did all that work to become who I am today?”

Who you were is based on:

1. Your old identity, thoughts, ideas, or belief about the world (hint: it’s the opposite of the lesson you learned)
2. The external actions you were taking (or weren’t taking) because of your old beliefs.

This goes at the beginning.

Next, every great story has an amazing climax where the story reaches peaks.

What was the one thing that changed everything for you.

This goes in the middle.

And now we have our storytelling framework!

Were → Do → Climax → Be → Have

This framework perfectly lines up with Pixar’s Story Template they call, The Story Spine.

3. Pixar’s Script Template

All you have to do here is fill in the blank based on what you learned above.

1. Once upon a time there was _____.
   [were]
2. Every day _____.
   [do]
3. Until one day _____.
   [climax]
4. Because of that _____.
   [be – lesson]
5. Because of that _____.
   [what do you do differently now?]
6. Until finally _____.
   [have]

Here’s a video I made word-for-word using the template​

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Talk soon,

Mattt