Introducing Little Layovers
This is the question we look forward to the least when returning from weekend adventures and month-long sabbaticals alike. But why? Well, because most of the time we can barely remember everything that happened to us while we found new elements to be comfortable in, let alone recount the highlights of.
I want to tell you all the things, but I can’t remember.
So we try different frameworks that are familiar to everyone in hopes of telling our story in thirty seconds or less:
– Harrowing connection paths at the airport.
– Unexpected people we met.
– Our best meal.
Any my favorite:
– Here are a bunch of photos by which you the audience, has no context for but are hopefully shot beautifully enough to answer that question…
Well, it sounds like your trip was really amazing. K, bye.
But travel should be the easiest thing to talk about it. So how do we do that well in a way that creates a sweet reduction of the trip for our moms, friends, and co-workers? And how do you do you, honoring the people you met along the way, thankful for the chance to shake hands and smile?
Introducing Little Layovers
A personal framework for recounting our experiences in a a collection of sometimes-true accounts of people and landscapes both near and far.
Why sometimes-true? Well, because memory is a bastard, and sometimes your audience deserves better than the whole truth.
Seriously though, we never remember things as they were. We fill in the blanks anyway with bias toward what might be true, and what we hoped it would be.
Some things to think about:
Use photos
There’s a certain kind of tragedy about getting back from a trip and realize with some degree of certainty that you’ll probably never look at 95% of these photos again. These photos that meant so much to us at the time to take our camera out, carefully compose, think about lighting...
When combined with a little story, we can select a variety of im/perfect photos that, when combined tell the story you want to tell. The story of what it was really like to be there. Even better if they’re blurred, washed-out reminders of the place. Your audience is smart and can fill in the gaps.
Believe in the audience.
Use your words
Pictures tell a thousand words, or something. By creating reasonable little paragraphs to those pictures, we present what those thousand words actually are. Out of context, photos look very different to folks. We’re just creating context for our audience.
Talk about the people
It’s pretty amazing that even in brand new places, we see just how remarkably similar we are as human beings. We all get rushed, frustrated, and have things we’d rather not talk about. But we also have a tendency to all smile when we’re happy, use body language to help communicate more clearly, and show excitement in pretty familiar ways.
People are just more interesting.
Put a name to the place
By using real place names, we simultaneously create some small sense of mystery and little hooks of memory for our readers. We’re also being as accurate as possible in telling our story by creating a linear path that an audience can follow. Heck, you can include a map.
And who doesn’t like maps?
