Pixar’s 22 Rules of Phenomenal Storytelling

August 22, 2012
9:00 am
Anya Smilanick

I’m a big fan of Pixar! I admire their creativity, imagination and their ability to tell stories that are truly timeless. The rise of Pixar is also an extraordinary story of determination and a life long passion to create amazing stories. Which is why when anyone at Pixar talks about their practices and rules… I listen.

Recently Emma Coats, a Pixar storyboard artist, tweeted 22 rules of phenomenal storytelling she learned from her senior colleagues. There are some great ideas in here that not only apply to animation, but to telling a story… which all of us marketing gurus need to be great at.

Here are a few of Pixar’s rules that can also be applied to phenomenal marketing:

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Here is the list of complete rules from the Twitter post…

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