On Structure

When we designed John Mills’s TED talk, one lesson made itself felt almost immediately:

Not everything in a story should be a plot point.

I.

Much is said, of late, about borrowing Hollywood story structures to give business narratives shape and momentum.

They work — beautifully.

They engage emotion directly. They create propulsion. They offer the listener a path to follow.

And yet there is a misunderstanding to be cleared.

In a five-minute talk, one does not wish to follow the template slavishly. If every moment is converted into a plot point, the talk becomes predictable — and, paradoxically, less moving.

Sometimes one needs exposition.

Sometimes one needs a pause, a quiet stretch in which the world is built — so that what comes after may strike with greater force.

Robert McKee once argued that every beat must move the story forward. I would qualify the rule.

Exposition is permitted — provided one knows precisely what is being prepared.

Well-placed exposition deepens the tension that follows, sharpens the reveal, and lengthens the emotional reach of the moments to come.

II.

One of the most underrated elements of the short talk?

Transitions.

How an idea hands itself over to the next determines whether the audience remains with you, or quietly withdraws.

There is a simple device the writers of South Park keep close at hand:

Then… But… Therefore…

The discipline is to forbid oneself the easy word and then between any two beats of a story. And then is accumulation: one event after another, with nothing binding them. Replace it with but — which introduces a complication — or with therefore — which introduces a consequence. Each connection then obliges the next beat to earn its place: by conflict, or by consequence.

Used carefully, the rule does three things at once.

It enforces causality.

It builds momentum.

It creates suspense.

Most short talks fail not because the content is poor, but because the ideas do not connect with sufficient tightness — they accumulate, when they should compel.

III.

The Hero’s Journey — Campbell, Vogler — is a useful map.

In John’s case, several moments aligned, almost naturally, with the classical steps.

But not every one. And that is the point.

To force a story into a rigid form is to make it feel manufactured. Audiences sense these patterns; they feel, with surprising precision, when they are being marched through a template.

Predictability is the enemy of attention.

IV.

A word, also, on artificial intelligence and story templates.

It is remarkable, the speed with which a model can map a narrative onto a structure — three-act, Hero’s Journey, whatever one selects.

But it has one weakness here:

It wants to please.

If asked for more structure, it will give more structure — even if it must invent tension, or fabricate moments that did not occur.

This is where speakers find themselves in difficulty.

Manufactured tension reads as manufactured emotion.

And the audience senses, almost at once, that something is not right.

V.

In the short format, story structures serve one essential purpose.

They help everything connect to everything else.

They oblige the writer to ask, again and again:

How does this detail support the main idea?

If we open a thread, are we closing it?

Does this moment prepare what is to come?

In John’s talk, for instance, we had originally written:

“There was no warning. No sirens. Nothing on the news.”

Later, in the editing, we realised one further line was needed:

“…and no alerts on my phone.”

Why?

Because much later in the talk, John introduces the solution — the application.

Adding phone early creates a bridge. A structural anchor. A setup that pays off when Watch Duty appears.

This is how story structures earn their keep — they help us join the dots with intention.

VI.

A summary, then.

Use structures — do not obey them.

Let them guide your thinking, your transitions, your setups and payoffs.

But never permit them to force a story into something predictable, or artificial.

In short talks, clarity is a matter of connection — not of ticking the boxes of a narrative model.

Use structures to illuminate the message, not to imprison it.

And, always, prefer authenticity to architecture.