20 Instant Plotlines You Can Fit Around Any Event that People Find Utterly

Hypnotic Stories

DVD 29: 20 Instant Plotlines You Can Fit Around Any Event that People Find Utterly

Riveting

Igor: Before the lunch break, we were focusing on the idea of breaking our action sequence in difference places and how that will naturally evolve different kinds of plot lines, different kinds of stories.

What kinds of experiences did you guys have from that? Was it interesting?

Did you actually do it, or did you just sit there and go, I’ll be very quiet and I’ll pretend something’s happened? So she’s saying it was hard to stop within those two minutes. Anyone else find this? Who’s starting to feel constrained by this two-minute thing? I want more time. I want to get some stuff done. Good.

Let’s build up a little bit more pressure and then we’ll carry on with something.

Student: It was also amazing how engaged and how much you could present in two minutes.

Igor: Right. So the flipside is also true. Once you’re forced to do it – he’s saying he’s amazed by how much and how eloquently people can present in two minutes if they’re forced to. So a part of that’s about, by the way, is your stories should be scalable. You should be able to get a lot of stuff done in just a minute or two, or you can spend an hour weaving in elements and different things and expanding and contracting it as you need to.

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved The old European storytellers back when it was still an oral tradition where a lot of the fairytales have come from typically will only have, I don’t know, five to 10, maybe 15 stories that they told. That was it. That was their repertoire, but they could tell the story in two minutes or they could spend an entire evening telling the same story, depending on the time requirements, the audience and so on.

They could also change the nuances of each story to fit what’s happening at the time. So storytelling, just to give you a little background in terms of some of the tomology– hopefully it’s interesting to you. A lot of storytelling has sort of Shamanic or medicine man type roots where the Shaman, who was like the priest of the community at the time, would tell stories. Or, the same story in a different way each time, depending on what’s happening in the community to kind of heal rifts, to help a troubled youngster to get out of the problems they were in, especially if they were being blinded by what they were doing.

So they would tell the same story over and over, but they would expand it and contract it. They would sometimes emphasize an element of the story that’s normally not emphasized and vice versa, just to be able to bring the message across. Does that make sense? Erickson did the same.

Anyone who talked to Erickson or who knew Erickson would say that he would actually tell the same stories over and over. He only had maybe 15 or 20 stories that he primarily tell. He had a whole bunch of others things he’d tell from time to time, but he would repeat the same 15 or 20 stories very often. Only sometimes a minor character in a story would suddenly become the major character. Can you begin to see what’s going on here?

A minor character might suddenly become a major character and all the things that revolved around that person, although it’s the same events. So essentially it’s the same sequence of actions, the same historical event, but different messages are coming out as a result. Do you see where this is going?

One thing I want to focus on today is to be able to do that. To notice first, how the same story can be told in many different ways and many different styles and that there are many different plot lines that you can use. If you

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved understand the plot lines, if you understand the interplay between story-ness, performance, the forces that are circling this other story and the plot lines that give it structure, you have all the building blocks that you need to create amazing stories, don’t you?

Before we begin, in terms of the whole plot line thing, I’d like you guys to give me 20 mundane everyday events because the way we’re going to work this is we’re going to get into a little storytelling circle again in groups of three as before. We’re all going to tell the same story totally differently.

Does that make sense? So what is one mundane event?

What about the alarm clock, some mundane thing. Getting up in the morning, shall we put it that way?

1. Showering 2. Getting up

3. Setting the alarm clock 4. Picking up trash

Do you pick it up or do you just bring it out? Look, I picked it up and put it down. I picked it up and put it down. I picked it up. Sorry, sometimes I just amuse myself with the craziest things.

Student: You said mundane.

Igor: That was exciting, wasn’t it?

5. Scratching an itch

Oh, there’s a good one. You can just feel the need for a story to come out there? An epic, heroic adventure.

6. Feeding pets.

7. Getting dressed.

One would hope that people do that.

8. Falling to sleep.

9. Serving your loved one breakfast in bed.

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved Okay, I think that’s a highlight. Not necessarily a mundane event. It’s like, oh, breakfast in bed. Well, it depends on who your loved one is. I’m very fortunate. That’s not a highlight. It’s an everyday event, but you guys unfortunately are not looked after as well. So that can’t go on my list. On your personal list it will happily go onto.

I want normal boring events that people. Making breakfast is less interesting, isn’t it?

10. Packing for a trip.

What else is there? Oh, here we go. You guys are on fire now, aren’t you?

11. Checking the mail.

12. Drive to work.

Student: Showering.

Yes, I’m wondering how come showering is number 13 on this list?

Someone didn’t like my shower story perhaps. Say again.

Student: Showering was number one.

Igor: Oh my God, it’s a complete loop. This is going off. I want another one.

13. Shaving.

Student: Scooping dog poop.

Igor: That may not be necessarily an everyday event for people, so we’ll pass on that one for now.

14. Making a phone call.

15. Getting coffee or some kind of fluids.

16. Turning the television on.

Okay, there you go. Now you guys are really getting exciting, aren’t you? Do you like my dress?

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18. Locking the door.

19. Putting on shoes.

I like shoes. Shoes are good. One last one, make it good.

20. Yawning.

I’ve never tried this one. Let’s try yawning. Okay. These are going to be the fuel for your stories for the rest of this next session. In a moment, I’d like you guys to get into groups. You know what, just get into groups of three again please, and then we’ll add this exercise.

The following plot lines – they’re not my own. Everyone relax, sit, breathe and focus. Breathe and relax. Okay, good. So the following 20 plot lines aren’t my own. They come from a man called Robert Tobias. He’s written a book on 20 plot lines. It’s an excellent book. If you want to try it out, I would highly recommend it. We’re going to go with his essential plot structures so you understand it, but this is a good reference if you want to expand a little bit more in that direction.

This is more for giving you maneuvering possibilities. Make sense? The author’s name is Robert Tobias and his book is called something like Twenty Plot Lines and How to Master Them, or something like that. Just put in Robert Tobias, and you will find it. I guarantee it.

So the first of the plot lines is going to be about showering. Please base it on reality. Has anyone in this room never taken a shower, anyone? All right, we’re in good shape in that case. So consider a moment when you had a shower. The way I’d like you to tell it, or someone else actually had a shower if you were watching – that could be interesting – the way I want you to tell it is the plot line is called:

1. A quest.

Now the purpose of the quest is the hero has a purpose, a mission to achieve, an objective, an aim, maybe to find something, maybe to reach somewhere. You have a very clear objective, and they’ve got to get from A

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved to B. The thing that defines it as a quest rather than anything else is not the fact that he has a mission or an objective. It’s that the journey reflects that kind of inner journey. It’s a journey of growth, personal growth and change.

So, as the hero gets close to their goal, they change as a person. So reaching the goal becomes symbolic of them having changed as an individual. Does that make sense to you guys? Do you get how that works?

Good. Everyone, you have one minute to tell a story about showering in the format of a quest. Off you go.

Who here feels a little pushed for time, right now, anyone? Excellent! You’re in a perfect position to do the plot line called:

2. Adventure.

Now the adventure plot looks very similar to the quest. The main difference between the quest and the adventure is in the adventure, the main objective, goal, aim, chief purpose and so on is relatively unimportant. In other words, it’s just a vague purpose. The key thing is what actually happens in the whole thing. It’s the journey, rather than the result.

In the quest, we’re constantly focusing on the end, the goal. In the adventure, it’s kind of a journey and we just have this vague goal to kind of keep cohesion there.

The second thing that’s different about the adventure and the quest is that in an adventure, we honestly don’t care too much about how the hero grows.

It’s really just an excuse to have lots and lots of action. You’ve already practiced the whole action stuff before, haven’t you? So this is all about developing action and if you want twists and turns in terms of what you’re doing.

Now the story all of you are going to be telling is getting up from some kind of time when you were asleep. Maybe in the morning, maybe you had an afternoon nap, but your getting up is going to be an adventure. Ready, one minute apiece. Off you go.

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved How are these stories beginning to develop? Interesting? Do you notice how you have exactly the same topic and exactly the same plot, and yet very different things are happening? Is that fair to say? Some of you are going, yeah, right. You are freaky, the stuff that’s coming out. We like that.

All right, story number three is going to be about setting the alarm clock.

The plot line is a perennial in terms of human experience.

3. The pursuit.

Now the pursuit is not just a car chase in a big car movie. Pursuit is something that is kind of built into our DNA. Kids play cops and robbers, hide and seek, go and chase. We have dogs running for a ball, hunting for a chicken or a whatever. Cats running after a ball of string and so on, so this idea of pursuing is pretty much built into us.

Pursuit comes out in many different forms. For example, how many romances have you read or seen that are about pursuit? So pursuit is really the drama between escape and evasion, versus the other person trying to trap. Will they get the prize or will the prize escape? It depends on whose point of view you’re looking at in terms of who people are rooting for and so on. Does that make sense?

Any questions on that one? You have a minute each to tell someone a story about how you set the alarm and it was a pursuit. No, no, no, yes. Off you go. Good. Did you enjoy that? Did you have a little pursuit and chase going on here? Okay.

Now let’s move swiftly onto the next one in the category. This is the idea of:

4. Rescue.

Again, rescue is a perennial theme, shall we say, of human experience. In rescue you have someone going after someone else who’s trapped or stuck somewhere and pull them out.

Typically, but not all the time, there will be a kind of action triangle between the hero, the villain and the damsel in distress, although it could be a

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved damson in distress in the modern version. It doesn’t matter who is being trapped and who has to be rescued by whom. The point is that the hero is the one that has to go after the prisoner to somehow rescue them. Does that make sense?

Of course, rescuing does not just have to be a physical rescue where someone’s trapped in a room or in an environment that they can’t get out of.

There can be emotional rescues too – someone is trapped in their emotions, someone is trapped in their past, someone is trapped by social circumstances, someone is trapped by drugs. These are all stories of rescue, aren’t they? You have one minute to tell someone about an event where the trash got picked up, which of course turns into a dramatic rescue.

Off you go.

How are you enjoying these so far? Any interesting things coming out? Do you notice how different themes start evolving when you put your unconscious to creative use? You’re telling it I can only put these things together to make it happen. Does this start happening? I would like you to just realize this because this is where all your stories will come from. You’re building some very interesting inner muscles, shall we say, in the storytelling realm.

The next one – and I find it ironic some of the situation you came up with because you’ll see they are very interesting in terms of how they match up.

The next one is kind of related to the rescue, only you’re doing it in reverse.

The focus is going to switch from rescuing something that’s stuck to:

5. Escaping.

The great escape is a theme of scratching that itch. Now I don’t know what’s going to be escaping, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be a very interesting round of storytelling. You all have one minute apiece. Off you go.

How are the great escapes doing? Interesting? Shall we carry on? Who’s enjoying themselves, by the way? Are you finding this a useful way of developing skills within this storytelling format? Rest assured all these things will come to a point very soon in terms of using stories for influence.

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved However, before we do that, we want to talk about what feeding your pet is going to be around in terms of plot line. I have to say, you guys have chosen some of the most amusing pairings. I could not have come up with this if I tried to be as creative as you guys. The plot line that follows, the sixth on the list is:

6. Revenge.

Now revenge stories hold a very important position in our psyche in our minds because it’s not just about getting your own back. Essentially, what a revenge story is it teaches people how to deal with anger. Think about it.

What does it mean when someone gets angry? It means that your personal boundary or self-respect or distance or whatever it is has somehow been violated.

Someone has attacked your personal boundary, either by attacking your property, attacking your personality, attacking your identity or attacking your family. Do you see where we’re going with this?

Anger is designed to push them right back. So revenge stories aren’t just about getting revenge; they are ideally around the idea of restoring boundaries. Of course, some revenge stories go the other way. They show what happens when people don’t know where to stop.

In other words, when they’ve re-established their boundaries or, when there’s such a small knick in the boundary it’s not worth engaging the whole revenge fantasy because they’re out of proportion and the consequences suck.

There’s a very famous story, which I think was called Michael Kohlhaas, which is by one of the famous German authors. I think it was Michael Kohlhaas, but I could be wrong about the author. It essentially tells a story about a farmer who got wronged by the local Lord. I think it was a Duke or something. He gets so obsessed about getting justice and in the process he loses everything – his family, his children, his farm and respect. He ends up being condemned to death in prison because he’s just going nuts about getting justice out.

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Conversational Hypnosis Mastery ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved Revenge stories hold a very important place because they teach people that importance of personal boundaries and the consequences of being too adamant about the whole thing. In other words, when do you stop? How far do you go? What’s reasonable? What’s unreasonable? All those things get explored in the storyline. Does that kind of make sense?

Go ahead.

Student:

♦ Can there ever be a time when a revenge story is more like a vengeance story?

Igor: Absolutely, but remember, the main thing here is in order to be about revenge or vengeance, there has to be some kind of motivator, some reason. A lot of these will be positive. Anyone hear about this little thing called the Civil Rights Movement in America? Would it be fair to say that some kind of revenge or push back energy was included in that?

We’re not saying revenge in terms of I’ve going to make you suffer. The revenge we’re talking about here is I’m going to make things right. You can’t stop me. Revenge stories really, the other way you could look at them is as justice stories, but justice doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not like, oh,

In document Conversational Hypnosis Mastery - Part 2 (Page 134-154)