Finding Your Way Into The Story

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This Week’s Episode:

Are all the Christmas or Holiday or Birthday gifts you receive… surprises? So often we make lists of “wishes” and our family and friends grant those wishes, exactly. While this is incredibly generous and kind, it leaves out one of the best parts of opening a gift: the surprise.

One year, I decided to start a family tradition and change things around with what I call the WTF gift. All year long we look for an item a particular person would love to have, yet when you remove its original packaging and give the gift wrapped, the receiver would have no idea what it was. Thus begins the game. When you unwrap this unpackaged gift, you think to yourself, “What the @#&% is this?!” and try to guess what it actually is. There’s a timer and scoring too, so it doubles as a competition. Hilarity and stories ensue.

Our WTF gifts have become a family-favorite event every Christmas now, with everyone trying to outdo the prior year. {My hot matcha tea almost came out of my nose this year from laughing so hard.}

Imagine, though, taking this crazy concept and applying it to other areas of your life… My special guest this week on the Storytelling School Podcast is a satirist who knows all about turning things on their sides.

What comes first when creating satire? How do you get rewarded as a writer before you actually get paid? How do you take the mundane and find the funny in it? What’s the real reason behind why someone would take the time to express anger about you sharing your authentic stories?

In this episode, my marvelous guest Andrew Briedis takes us behind the curtain and discusses his process for coming up with satire. He also talks about the anonymous actor parody account he ran on Twitter and demonstrates how he heightened, changed, and re-heightened a satirical sketch he wrote for Leslie Jones on SNL.

What you will learn in this episode:

  • What essential storytelling element you can learn from soap operas
  • How to find your way into the story
  • What it’s like to be in the SNL writers room

Who is Andrew?

Andrew Briedis is a writer and actor. He’s written for The Golden Globes and Saturday Night Live and developed a Netflix feature film. His book #SOBLESSED: the Annoying Actor Friend’s Guide to Werking in Show Business debuted as the #1 best-selling theatre and parody book on Amazon.

Andrew has also made appearances on the web series Turning the Tables and on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Currently, he does random stuff on TikTok in his spare time.

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Links & Resources

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