Masterpiece Theatre

All three of my children have a passion for the performing arts, so almost by default; I take an interest in the theatre. It’s not the only reason as I believe the job I do, sales, is all about story-telling, and some of the best storytellers come from the theatre.
I stumbled across a narrative technique that I thought was relevant to way we create presentations and proposals. .
It’s called Chekhov’s Gun, and it refers to the art of foreshadowing an event through a throwaway plot or line of dialogue.
If you’re interested, it comes from a loaded pistol mentioned fleetingly in Uncle Vanya, and used later in the play for an attempted murder.
The basic principle, in Chekhov’s own words, is that “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”
It’s a great discipline to sense-check the stories we’re telling, and check that there are no read-herrings or pieces of redundant narrative.
Often through the process of creation we are left with ideas and thoughts in the final document that are not propelling the story forward, so drop them.
That way, we’ll keep our audiences with us all the way, and demonstrate a single-mindedness that will mark us out .
Now, I’m ready for my close-up…