11/03/2025
Yesterday at The Photography & Video Show, I heard something that really stuck with me: the best stories don’t tell you 2 + 2 = 4 - they just give you the 2s and let you figure it out.
Andrew Stanton (the bloke behind Finding Nemo and WALL-E) calls this the "Unifying Theory of Two Plus Two." Basically, don’t spoon-feed your audience - let them put the pieces together. The more effort they put in, the more it sticks.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realised this is exactly what makes my favourite stories hit so hard - Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.
📖 Harry Potter never straight-up tells us that Harry craves love and belonging. Instead, we see it - his cupboard under the stairs, the way he watches the Weasleys like an outsider, the way he stares into the Mirror of Erised. No one needs to say it - we just feel it.
💍 The Lord of the Rings doesn’t go, "The One Ring corrupts people." Instead, we watch it happen - Frodo slowly changing, getting more rigid, snapping at Sam. We see Boromir wrestle with himself long before he ever reaches for the Ring. No exposition, no heavy-handed explanation. We just get it.
And it’s got me thinking - how often do we over-explain when we should just trust our audience? Whether it’s storytelling, marketing, or just day-to-day conversation, maybe we don’t need to spell everything out. Maybe the best messages are the ones people figure out for themselves.
What do you reckon? 💭
Got a favourite example of "Two Plus Two" storytelling? Drop it in the comments!
