# Plot Example Catalog

Worked examples of each plot from Chapter 6 of *Made to Stick*, marked up with arc elements and delivery notes. Use these to calibrate your own plot classification and story structuring — not to copy verbatim.

## Challenge Plot

### Jared Fogle — Subway
- **Old approach that failed to stick:** Subway's "7 Under 6" statistical campaign (seven subs under six grams of fat) was factually strong but forgettable.
- **Protagonist + stakes:** Indiana college junior, 425 lbs, size XXXXXXL shirts, 60-inch waist, father (a GP) warning him he might not live past 35.
- **Obstacle (daunting relative to protagonist):** Needs to lose ~245 lbs without surgery or a program.
- **Attempt + resolution:** Starts eating a foot-long veggie sub for lunch and a six-inch turkey sub for dinner every day, loses the weight.
- **Why it sticks:** Every SUCCESs dimension fires — simple (two subs a day), unexpected (fast food as diet), concrete (60-inch waist), credible (anti-authority — he's not a doctor), emotional (rooting for Jared), story (Challenge plot).
- **Mode:** Simulation + Inspiration. Listeners learn *how* (the daily sandwich pattern) AND feel moved to try.
- **Delivery:** Direct. One unambiguous action (try Subway).
- **Use for:** Inspiring personal effort, habit change, "you could take on your thing too."

### Rose Blumkin
- Nebraska Furniture Mart founder, postponed her 100th birthday party until an evening when the store was closed. Not famous, not dramatic — just daunting-relative-to-protagonist perseverance. Low-scale Challenge plots still inspire because the engine is the relative bar, not the absolute scale.

### Shackleton's Antarctic expedition (dual-plot)
- Classic Challenge plot at the top level (survival odds against a frozen continent).
- Wraps a Creativity plot inside: Shackleton assigned complainers to sleep in his own tent, containing their influence by colocating them with leadership. A creative solution to a social-dynamics problem.
- **Use for:** Illustrating that dual-plot stories exist; lead with whichever plot matches the intended action.

## Connection Plot

### The Good Samaritan (modern reframe)
- **The gulf:** Samaritans and Jews had tremendous mutual hostility. The priest and Levite in the story share the wounded man's in-group; the Samaritan does not.
- **Modern analogy required:** The Heaths suggest "atheist biker gang member" to make the gulf visible to a contemporary audience that doesn't feel the Samaritan-Jew distance.
- **Structural beat:** The point of the story is not "be nice" — it is "cross the gulf even when you could walk past." The priest and the Levite are in the story specifically to mark the walk-past option.
- **Use for:** Inspiring cooperation across lines of difference, compassion to out-group members, any case where the listener could walk past.

### Xerox lunchroom shop talk — as Connection? No.
- The Xerox lunchroom story is frequently miscategorized. It is *not* a Connection plot — it's a Creativity plot delivered as simulation (pattern-recognition training). The "connection" is incidental (two repairmen talking); the engine is diagnostic breakthrough. See Creativity section.

## Creativity Plot

### Ingersoll-Rand Grinder Team — the "Drag Test"
- **Old approach:** Industrial grinder product cycles taking ~4 years. Standard method for testing plastic vs metal casings: protracted tensile and compression studies.
- **Frustration line:** "It was taking us longer to introduce a new product than it took our nation to fight World War II."
- **Breakthrough moment:** Team members tied a sample of each material to the back bumper of a car during an off-site customer visit and drove it around.
- **Result:** Fast signal on durability, team culture shifted toward action over study.
- **Use for:** Inspiring experimentation, breaking procedural patterns, "what test could you run this week without permission?"

### Xerox Copier Repair — the E053 error (pure simulation)
- A copier salesperson tells other repairmen at lunch about chasing a misleading E053 error for four hours that turned out to be a bad dicorotron.
- No emotional uplift. No protagonist arc. Pure knowledge transfer through story — listeners learn a diagnostic pattern they can apply next week.
- **Use for:** Training, onboarding, how-to contexts. Shows that stories can be used for simulation alone without inspiration.

## Springboard Stories (Delivery Mode, not a plot)

### Denning at the World Bank — Zambia malaria story
- **Occasion:** Stephen Denning, 1996, 10-12 minutes in front of World Bank senior management to introduce knowledge management as a strategy.
- **Story seed:** A health-care worker in Kamana, Zambia (360 miles from the capital) logged onto the internet and found CDC malaria data, because there was no way to tap World Bank internal knowledge across siloed projects.
- **Why springboard (not direct):**
  - Each executive ran a wildly different project area.
  - Denning wanted buy-in across skeptics, not compliance.
  - A direct argument would have engaged each exec's "little voice" to argue back from their own context.
  - A seed story let each exec mentally substitute their own project for "Zambia" and generate their own version of knowledge management.
- **Key Denning insight:** "When you hit listeners between the eyes they respond by fighting back... with a story, you engage the audience — you are involving people with the idea, asking them to participate with you."
- **The little voice:** Denning's phrase for the internal critic in every listener. A direct argument wakes it up to debate; a springboard story gives it something to do (generate its own second story).
- **Use for:** Change-management kickoffs, cross-functional strategy introductions, any setting where diverse listeners must each apply the same core idea in their own context.

## Decision Quick-Reference

| Want listener to... | Plot | Mode (S/I/both) | Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Persevere, work harder | Challenge | I or S+I | Direct (most) |
| Bridge a social/functional gulf | Connection | I | Direct or springboard |
| Try a new approach | Creativity | S+I | Springboard (if diverse contexts) |
| Learn a diagnostic pattern | Creativity | S only | Direct |
| Kick off a change initiative | Creativity or Connection | S+I | Springboard |
| Open a keynote with emotional lift | Any (pick by message) | I | Direct |