Well hello again Reader,

I know it's been a minute, and several of you have told me the void in the inbox is obvious. I appreciate the compliment! I've missed being here. And now you know that I write these on the fly, for the most part.

I had a bit of a technical snag when the "super safe" power grid in Thailand fried my whole laptop following a power outage.

Now that I'm back stateside, all systems are go again. Thank you for your patience. And now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

The Winter Olympics kick off this week in Milan, which makes it the perfect time to take a look at an absolute classic: Cool Runnings. Yes, it’s one of my favorite 90s underdog nostalgia movies, but today’s lesson isn’t about winning, grit, or even being an underdog.

It’s about time. Specifically, how good storytellers compress it.

The montage that shows the team learning the push-start is a sequence of short vignettes, each revealing a little more about the team and its progress in learning this critical technique of bobsled racing.

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A montage helps the audience to see change without needing to navigate every detail. All you need are short vignettes that show snapshots in time.

When stitched together, we get to witness the arc that built the skillset of the team, while only seeing small glimpses into their development. The falling down, the failure, trying again, and again, and again, then finally sticking the technique. We witness weeks of growth in a few minutes.

What we see in this scene shows us repetition, improvement, and variation, without getting tiresome. It’s not Groundhog’s Day where the scene is the same over and over.

The result? We believe their transformation without needing it explained.

So how does that play into effective storytelling? If your story relies on growth, momentum, or evolution, you don’t need to narrate every step. You need evidence of change.

Montage-style storytelling lets you:

• skip the boring middle,
• show movement instead of intention,
• and let the audience connect the dots.

People connect more deeply when they feel that they’ve observed the change.

Try This

Take a section of a talk or piece of writing that’s about growth or change. Instead of narrating it word for word chronologically, rewrite it as a series of small snapshots. Keep the momentum that moves the frame clearly from “before” to “after.”

Let the audience witness the arc.

The work isn’t telling the whole story, but choosing the moments that best illustrate it.

As a nod to the Winter Olympics, tell me which event is your favorite, or which underdog team you're rooting for this year.

Until next week,