The story spine

Kenn Adams’s story spine is a wonderfully simple and flexible backbone for creating or analysing stories.

I learned it from Dan Klein at Stanford as a fun improvising game: standing in a circle each person in turn takes on the next step of the story spine making up what happens. You’ll effortlessly produce some fascinating and amusing stories. We would extend the middle section as many times as felt natural to lead to the climax. An optional extension to the original spine was to add a final step of stating the moral of the story.

I have found the story spine very useful for coming up with on the spot bedtime stories. Also a fun game at the pub.

Why not give it a try now?

Like improv? You might like:

Watch Dan Klein in action at TEDxReset 2014

Published 27 Apr 2019

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Whose job is it?

Kintsugi

Be open to be changed

The improv attitude

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

There’s an old short story called “Whose job is it?” that goes like this: This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done. It used to be up on the wall in my secondary school many years ago. Its message of taking ownership and responsibility and not assuming others will do what you don’t want to do has stuck with me ever since. It’s rather like the famous advice to be the change you wish to see happen. Litter doesn’t clean itself up. Broken things don’t fix themselves. It might be up to you. (see the Bystander effect) The story seems to be a condensed version of a longer piece by Charles Osgood called "The Responsibility Poem," though I couldn't find an original source anywhere. Also see: For want of a nail, the story spine, the Accountability Ladder, RACI…There’s an old short story called “Whose job is it?” that goes like this: This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done. It used to be up on the wall in my secondary school many years ago. Its message of taking ownership and responsibility and not assuming others will do what you don’t want to do has stuck with me ever since. It’s rather like the famous advice to be the change you wish to see happen. Litter doesn’t clean itself up. Broken things don’t fix themselves. It might be up to you. (see the Bystander effect) The story seems to be a condensed version of a longer piece by Charles Osgood called "The Responsibility Poem," though I couldn't find an original source anywhere. Also see: For want of a nail, the story spine, the Accountability Ladder, RACI

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