A quick storytelling lesson from an eight-month-old baby

Photo by Valeria Zoncoll

Looking for an easy way to make a baby laugh? Check out this video:

If you’ve ever seen paper rip, chances are you wouldn’t find it quite so funny as Micah, the boy in the video. But for him it’s fresh and unexpected. This kid is seeing ripping paper for the first time. It makes a cool sound. Ripped paper changes size and shape in an interesting way. Everything is suddenly different than it was just a moment before. It’s more than enough to attract and retain his attention—it fascinates him.

If you’re telling your story to an audience of babies and you want to be funny, you can rip paper and get away with it.

What’s your audience’s equivalent of a baby watching paper rip?

If your audience has seen paper rip, they are probably not going to be in hysterics if you do it. (You probably noticed that even the baby’s giggles diminish within the span of the video.)

If you ripped paper for your audience last week and the week before, and you do it again this week and you expect a response, you should stop expecting.

Can you make your audience forget that they’ve seen you rip paper? Can you rip the paper in a new and enticing way? Can you rip the paper in the exact same way and have it make a different sound? How can you take what everyone has seen a million times and make it new?

This ad is the same old car ad we’ve all seen on TV—until it isn’t. Where’s that moment in your own story? Where does it go from being what it’s always been to becoming something better?