Author
Matthew Dicks
The schoolteacher who wins storytelling competitions and says everyone already has the stories they need.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Matthew Dicks is an American elementary school teacher, novelist and storyteller. He has won The Moth's live storytelling competitions many times, StorySLAMs and GrandSLAMs alike, telling true five-minute stories from his own life on stage without notes.
He has written several novels, including Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (2012), and in Storyworthy (2018) he turned his storytelling practice into a method for people who believe they have nothing worth telling. The book is written for the stage but aimed at everyday use: at work, at dinner, in an interview or a toast.
The signature
Dicks starts from finding, not inventing. His daily habit, Homework for Life, is to write down the most story-worthy moment of each day, because ordinary days hold the material. A good story, in his account, is about a five-second moment of change, so it should start as the opposite of where it ends, begin in motion, and tell the audience early what is at stake. Everything else is cut.
The questions they work on
- Where are the stories in an ordinary week, and why do we fail to notice them?
- What single moment does this story actually exist to deliver?
- How do you make an audience care before they know why they should listen?
Thinking tools
- Homework for LifeUses and explains it
Homework for Life is Matthew Dicks's daily habit for finding stories: at the end of each day, write down in a sentence or two the moment from that day most worth telling, so that a life that feels uneventful becomes a growing collection of real, small stories.
Learn it: Tell Better Stories, Station 1 - The Five-Second MomentUses and explains it
The five-second moment is Matthew Dicks's idea that every good personal story is built around a brief instant of change, realisation or transformation, and that the storyteller's job is to find that moment first and then choose only the details that lead the audience to it.
Learn it: Tell Better Stories, Station 2 - Begin at the OppositeUses and explains it
Beginning at the opposite is Matthew Dicks's advice for shaping a story of change: open the story with you as the opposite of who you become at the end, and open it in motion, in a specific place and moment, rather than with background, so that the audience can feel the distance the story travels.
Learn it: Tell Better Stories, Station 3 - The ElephantUses and explains it
The elephant is Matthew Dicks's name for the clear signal, given early in a story, of what the story is about or what is at stake: a need, a problem or a question the audience can see from the start, so that they know why to keep listening while the story unfolds.
Learn it: Tell Better Stories, Station 5
Limits and fair objections
Anyone can tell a compelling true story by following a short set of structural rules.
The method comes from competitive live storytelling, where a five-minute, carefully rehearsed personal story is the whole task. At work the format, time and audience differ, and not every point needs a personal story. The habits of noticing moments and cutting to the change travel well; the stage rules need adapting.
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