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Comment by 1337biz | Hacker News Reader

My question is: How do you make boring things interesting on the fly.

For example:

If you are asking me - how was your day ? I will tell you: Well, I switched on the computer, did some x and y, ate lunch, continued and switched it off again.

Some coworkers of mine can go you on and on about their day and it stays entertaining. There are some things that they do differently, eg focus on people and emotions. But still I have such a hard time drawing out the banalities of everyday into an exciting adventure.

This skill is super valuable - anyone having similar problems and ideas on how to improve it?

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Some things to consider:

What made today different from another day? What, as someone asking, would I not know? I know you probably went and typed on a keyboard and ate lunch, but I don't know that you finally solved that bug in production and feel awesome or that Steve from accounting turned up late, giggling, with Dave and they've been making excuses to see each other at work for the last few weeks.

What's different? What's changed? Over time these things fit into a larger story, the buildup of Steve and Dave's romance has been happening for weeks.

What's relatable for the person asking? If I'm another dev then telling me about that new library you got to use that's fun might be interesting, for others maybe not. Although you can often find interesting ways of talking about it to someone who is inquisitive, I talk a lot about bits of tech to my wife and explain how things work and why things are as they are, sometimes it's relevant to what she's doing. In return she's explained a lot about NMR machines and biology to me.

For practice, perhaps, I'm a developer but probably not using the same tech stack. How was your week? Since I don't know anything about your office or things, imagine you'd already told me what had happened the week before. What's changed, what's new?

Finally, it's also OK if not much really happened. But if nothing really happened, was that good or bad for you? Why? Was it a quiet week and that's different, or are the quiet weeks becoming less interesting? Is it quiet but there's a buildup of expected work coming in a few weeks?

This is the only answer to the question that was asked. And it's a good answer.

What 1337biz might also want to consider from the other answers is the attention to detail. To both find detail in your description of the day, as well as in the details of the person you're talking to. Facial expressions change, breathing changes, eyes shift. There's a constant flurry of happening upon which you react, by altering your story. In IanCal's case about talking about bits of tech to their wife, for example, the wife could be seen trailing her eyes away slightly, meaning she might now already understand what a framework is, or she might frown, when it's just a little bit too technical, or her eyes might shine, when she wants to know more.

I am probably underestimating that there are a million and one different ways to convey something with just one eyebrow, and luckily the human mind is quick to extra-, and interpolate these meanings.

Jack Hamm has an excellent book. This [0] has a copy a page on muscles of the face ( "Muscles of Expression")

[0] https://terahdrawing.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/facial-express...

Fascinating! Any experience in training expressions? I already fail most of the time putting on a decent smile for pictures...

Mundane actions need interruptions to become exciting and there have to be references to stuff you've mentioned earlier have somewhat of a story.

Lame: I was going to school as usual. After I had arrived the bell rang and our biology teacher entered the classroom. He showed us a movie about wolfs.

Better: I was going to school when all of a sudden a wolf started hunting me. It almost got me the second I entered school but fortunately I managed to close the door behind me just in time. When the bell rang our biology teacher entered the classroom and showed us a movie about wolfs! Can you believe it? I grew incredibly nervous when the narrator began talking about wolfs attacking humans. While the movie was still running I turned my head away from the screen for a second and glanced through the door's window. At first I wasn't sure what I was looking at. I only sensed movement. But then it became clear that the wolf which had followed me earlier this morning was strolling down the hall. Somehow he must have managed to sneak in....

Of course, you don't need a wolf chasing you to have material for an exciting story but the general principles still apply I think.

cJ0th. This is so spot on

Well, so what do you do if there was no wolf chasing you around?

Because the question of your parent is: How do I tell mundane things in an entertaining way if nothing entertaining or exciting is happening in my life?

One could argue: Then do something exciting, but I think what your parent poster wanted to say is: Some people still manage to tell stories about everyday things but make them interesting nevertheless. They don't experience something exciting in particular.

Your example is good, but it actually only works because of the wolf chase.

> They don't experience something exciting in particular.

yes, but that's (somewhat) besides the point. The trick is to look for value in what you've got.

A more mundane example:

Lame: It was so hot this morning that I didn't want to go to work but I knew that I had to. During lunch I heard from my colleague from the other team that their boss had bought ice cream for them this morning. Too bad I wasn't on their team.

Better: It was so hot this morning that I didn't want to go to work but I knew that I had to. The bus I was sitting on drove past an ice-cream vendor. "Man" I thought to myself, "it is so frustrating that I can't get off the bus right now to buy some ice-cream". During lunch I heard from my colleague from the other team that their boss had bought ice cream for them this morning. Too bad I wasn't on their team! When I then finally got out of office the ice-cream vendors were long gone but I still had an an ice-cream hunger to satisfy. So I went to McDonald's and ordered a McSundae. The guy behind the counter sighed and told me "Sorry, we're out of ice-cream since 10 am" I then gave up on my quest for ice cream and thought to myself: "For tommorrow, I need a plan..."

In the "lame example" you just complain about two things (the heat and you being in the "wrong" them). In the "better example" you turn your appetite for ice-cream into a story instead.

So like: Getting the ice cream is the goal, work is the conflict, other team has ice cream makes the craving more intensive and hopefully, there's some resolution to this journey.

The other thing that makes the anecdotes better is avoiding thinking/emotional statements. Also using smiles and metaphors to give the listener something some color. Try to tie it back to an experience they’ve probably had.

----

How can it be so hot in the morning that you sweat right after the shower? My first shirt? I immediately sweated through it. On the bus I sweated through the second one too. The only open seats were the ones in the sun. That plastic was on fire! I had to shift around in my seat until it cooled enough for me to sit still. At one of the stops I spotted an ice cream cart. The smoke from the freezer floated out as the dude was reaching in to grab one of those drumstick cone. I would have bailed on work, bought the cart, and took a nap inside if we didn’t have that meeting scheduled.

A couple hours ago I saw John walking with an ice cream cone. I was like “Where’d you get that?”. Turns out his manager has an ice cream social every week. I tried to crash it, but the break room had nothing but empty cartons in the trash. At this point, it’s like God himself is telling me “Go forth my son, find some ice cream.”

So I went to Dairy Queen to get some Blizzard action. You know what? They were out of ice cream! I’m like “How can you be out of Ice Cream? Dairy is in your name!”, He’s smirks and said, “We still have cheese.”. CHEESE?!?!. So I ordered cheeseburger. It’s was good.

Interrruptions are an easy way to increase attention. But it can't be the only thing. Or how do you explain a person studying a painting for hours. There is not the slightest change happening (to the painting) and yet it can be fascinating.

One tactic is to insert a challenge that had to be overcome, the conflicts that arose in the solution and then the final resolution.

This is standard fare in Nova documentaries where the topic can often be fairly dull. eg: documentary is about dinosaurs, they find a dinosaur fossil, extract it from the surrounding rock and take it back for cleaning and research. Pretty dull stuff.

But if you blow up some minor crisis: Scientists are extracting the large fossil but oh my, the plaster-cast looks like it may break (crisis). What can they do ? They gather in a room to decide, there are conflicting opinions (conflict). Finally one person makes a decision - they will wrap the plaster-cast in a wooden cage and use a fork lift. But will it work !? (drama). Tension builds as the forklift truck raises the plaster-cast - and, sigh of relief, it works. The fossil is safe (resolution).

The above scene is completely unnecessary for the documentary but inserting it grabs the viewers attention.

This formula works when giving fairly dull presentations - find something that blocked you in your research, explain the options you had and the choices you had to make and how you finally overcame that minor crisis.

Knowing this formula will, unfortunately, ruin your Nova viewing experience since they use this technique every time.

Sorry for the generic answer but that is the best thing you can work on to improve that skill: focus on the journey, not the end result.

Another way to put it, and I think it was a quote by Stephen King but I cannot find it back at the moment, is that if you want to convey something don't spell it out, make the person listening/reading your story see/feel it for themselves by the way you describe it.

>> This skill is super valuable - anyone having similar problems and ideas on how to improve it?

In my very limited experience, I think this skill is made up of two components: finer details [1] and emotional expression. [2]

I find drawing to a be a great way to learn the art of going into finer details. For emotional expression in animation, you will need to study the classic principles of animation. [3]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/d...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_expression

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Tradigital-Blender-Animators-Principl...

That question is also fascinating me. If you experience a very random, normal event, like waiting in a queue, it is boring as hell. But if you watch it in some artist's work (e.g., a Tarantino movie) it's so fascinating. There is more to it than the details of what happens itself.

I think you'll find once you're excited about something, the story telling comes naturally.

A truly boring day can't be exciting. Honestly, I think the only answer to this is the most obvious. Stop having boring days.

Do things you enjoy and you'll gather talking points for people who also enjoy those things. Explore and enjoy more types of things, and you'll be able to interact with more people.

Maybe read an article/book or watch a video at work about something new that you'd enjoy sharing. Personally, I'll sometimes watch PBS Space Time on Youtube and share what I learned with people who also have their mind blown easily. It's a ton of fun.

For me, when I started keeping a simple journal (3-4 lines mostly), daily, it assisted me in not being boring. I made sure if there was a conversation I jotted it down, names of people too. When I write the next day I often read a few pages prior. My "changes" day to day can now be seen by me and thus become top of mind and make good conversation content.

My nature is to not think anyone is interested in my day cause it is boring as hell to me.

I also found my listening ability greatly improved by simply jotting stuff down..

This thread is awsome by the way.

Thank you for bringing that up. I really need to start doing this to become better aware of the 'material'. Do you just note dow the occasion or also highlight emotions etc?

Sex and violence. Every good story has it. I am not referring to the obvious of "having sex and fighting," but every piece of conflict has some element of one or the other and sometimes both. And obviously, that means conflict is essential to every good story.

Nobody wants to watch The Village of the Happy People.

The mundane becomes exciting with conflict.. either physical, emotional or both.

But how do this on the fly if you are telling somebody about a work project or some idea you have been tinkering about in your free time? Or when they are picking some random time in your life ("how was highschool for you?"). I have read quite a few books and a bunch of videos on YouTube but they always focus on prepared story telling.

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