How to tell a great story for a great result

No matter how simple or how complex, every good case should have the elements of a good story. The better the story, the more likely that you will succeed at mediation, arbitration or trial. It is remarkable that in my mediation practice I so rarely see effective story telling in both written and verbal presentations.

Professional writers of dramatic novels, screenplays, teleplays and theatrical plays will tell you that there is a formal structure to dramatic storytelling that is nearly universal. One structure works something like this:

As you can see from the chart, the story begins with the central character living a normal life on the "A" to "B" line. As the story unfolds, an event occurs that knocks the character off the "A" to "B" line. As events continue to unfold, each one pushes the main character further and further downward and away from the "A" to "B" line, usually by imperiling the character. At each moment of imperilment, the character struggles to return to his or her "normal" life on the "A" from "B" line, but cannot do so, and ends up being pushed further downwards and away from the normal life-line. This is shown in the chart as a series of loops that move in a steady downward arc. These incidents of imperilment provide dramatic tension to the story.

At the moment of greatest imperilment, labeled as point "C," one of two things happens: The character either triumphs over adversity or the character fails (and usually dies). If the character triumphs, he or she starts again in a normal life, but at a higher level than the "A" to "B" line because the character has grown through the experience. This is the "D" line on the chart. If the character fails and dies, the "growth" is usually transferred to another character. Either character, the main protagonist, or his or her "growth transferee" then continues on the new horizontal "D" line, but that's a new and different story.

Of course, in addition to structure, it helps if you have a believable and likeable protagonist, an evil villain, a love interest and some snappy dialogue.

How does this translate into a "story" in the context of a lawsuit? The answer is that the structure fits surprisingly well.

Here's an example: Let's suppose that the plaintiff has a construction defect lawsuit involving poorly compacted soil under a house. There are many technical reasons why the soil was poorly compacted, and the house has suffered substantial damage as a result. The repairs will be difficult and expensive and they, too, require much technical detail. Your "story" of this situation could easily become bogged down in a mire of spreadsheets showing relative compaction levels, cost of repair estimates for the installation of caissons, a lengthy analysis of who is at fault and myriad details of the scope, method and cost of repair. It would all be technically true, and at one level it's all important, but it's not very interesting and probably not very compelling.

Instead, how would you tell a simple but effective story about this situation? A story about your unhappy homeowner might read something like this:

"Patricia and Paul Pickering saved for years to buy their own family home. They searched carefully for just the right location and for a home built by a builder with a good reputation. When they bought the home at 1234 Happy Valley Lane from Duf Fus Development, they expected to live there for many years.

About a year after the purchase, cracks started to appear in the walls of their beautiful home. At first, they were small and Pat and Paul thought that they might be the result of some "settlement" or "shrinkage," as sometimes happens in a new home. They were upset, and they hired a painter to fill the cracks and repaint. A few weeks later, the cracks came back. They tried again to fill and paint. Within a month, not only were those cracks back, new cracks started to appear, this time in the floors. Now they started to worry. They called the builder, who sent someone out to look and they were assured that there was nothing to worry about. They were told it was "normal."

But Pat and Paul were worried. As it turned out, they had a right to be. Within a few weeks of the visit from the builder, Paul walked into the garage and saw a crack that was nearly an inch wide in the floor. He moved some boxes away from the garage wall and saw that the crack ran right up the wall. Paul started to panic. When he went inside the house, he saw that the crack was inside the wall adjacent to the garage and starting to travel upward to the ceiling. Paul noted the location and walked into the next room. He took a careful look at the ceiling and saw a new crack in line with the crack in the wall next to the garage. He walked into the next room, then the next, and Paul realized that the crack was traveling right through the center of the house. His dream house was turning into a nightmare.

Paul contacted an engineer to inspect his house. The engineer walked through the house and recommended that Paul get some samples of the soil under the house. When the engineer got the results, he went to the house with Paul and Pat. He said, "I hate to tell you, but your house is breaking in half. Half of your house is on good dirt, and the other half is on bad dirt. The break is right in the middle."

The engineer told them it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix the house and that major work would be required. Pat and Paul were devastated. Their entire savings were in this house. What would they do? They had relied on the builder's reputation and now they found out that their house was breaking in half. Unless it was fixed, it would get worse.

The defendants in this case are responsible to make this right. Only they can give back to Paul and Pat what they bought in the first place, a home of their own that they could enjoy while they raise their family and receive the value of their investment."

I will confess that the dialogue in our little story might not be snappy (you can't have everything), but the other elements are certainly there. The reader is brought into the drama and brought along as events unfold. A dry, technical case has been transformed into a story with a human face, where the reader can empathize with Paul and Pat, and the reader can see how the story should end.

Best of all, this story will stick in the mind of the listener, whether that listener is a mediator, arbitrator, judge or jury. That listener will remember: "This is the case where the house broke in half." It's a beautifully simple and effective means of summarizing an extremely complex subject and transforming it into a compelling narrative that should, everything else being equal, result in a good settlement, a good arbitration award, or a good verdict.