They may then share stories about how unhappy they were working for someone else’s dreams and empire rather than building their own. How they got fed up, and quit their jobs and how it’s the best decision they’ve ever taken in their life. They’ll go on about the financial freedom they currently enjoy, where they have plenty of money and the time to enjoy that money. When you know more about the listener or your audience, it is easy to weave stories around characters and situations they can relate to.
Drama – A good story almost always has an element of drama. It can be a conflicting situation or a dilemma that matches your listener’s situation or dilemma. It can be an event or experience they went through.
You can weave an element of drama in your stories by identifying your audience’s or listener’s needs, journey, experiences, and problems. They will find it tough to connect with the story if the drama doesn’t fit their needs, desires, conflicts, and experiences. Listen and tune in to their desires and problems of your target audience or listeners. An element of drama or conflict helps create a powerful emotional connection with people.
In the above example, people identify with a situation where a person has lost his/her job and is unable to care for their family at an emotional level. They will think about their own family, and their desire to give their family a better life. This helps them establish an emotional connection with the narrator. Ensure your story has drama, but it should also be realistic and genuine. Notice how salespeople or marketers make preposterous claims in their sales pitch stories come across as fake, and have you running for cover. Drama should be genuine, and not overdone. Keep it natural, realistic and relatable.
Resolution – Where there is drama, conflict or a challenging situation, there has to be a resolution. It’s the way a story flows organically. Powerful stories are meant to surprise us even if they do not always end on a happy note. The resolution should provide a logical conclusion to the story, and ideally should move people into action. A good resolution is the one that gets them thinking. It makes them feel about something and inspires them to take action in the same direction.
Going with the same example, as a person who has just lost their job, after reading about how an unemployed person went from being penniless to a multi-millionaire, I may feel hopeful and inspired about accomplishing the same. It may get me thinking about how “I can make big money too.” This may get you to act on starting your own business.
Before you narrate or create a story, model your character on your target audience, build a powerful emotional appeal, be genuine while creating a conflict situation and finally tie it all together with an authentic resolution. A clear, easily understandable and concise story almost always wins the day.
“Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.” – Dale Carnegie
Chapter 3:
Weave Stories Effectively in Conversations
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser
In the mid-18th century, British politician John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich enjoyed playing cards in his free time. He also relished snacks, keeping a hand free for holding the stack of cards. Eventually, Montagu hit upon the idea of eating his slice of beef by putting it between two toast slices so he could keep a hand free for his cards. This meant he could comfortably enjoy his snack and play cards together.
Eating his newly created “sandwich”, the name given to two bread slices with vegetables and meat placed between them became one of the world’s most sought-after inventions. Now, it’s very likely that you will never forget this story about the invention of the sandwich. Imagine having a conversation about a person at a party about sandwiches, and slipping this story in between. Doesn’t it make you come across as an interesting and compelling communicator? Now, contrast this with simply stating facts about sandwiches. Is the person likely to remember it? Slim chance.
I always recommend having a nice bank of these trivia stories ready as party conversation starters or a way to impress people with your knowledge. It can be a lifesaver when you have nothing else to speak. Some topics are safer than others. For instance, good food! Everyone loves good food, and when you don’t know much about a person’s preference or their personality, these stories make you come across as an interesting and engaging conversationalist.
Who remembers bullet points and information-based content in conversations? Striking a rapport with the other person becomes easy and effortless with stories and anecdotes.
The left brain communication style, which appeals to people’s sense of logic doesn’t work very effectively in today’s world. If you wish to communicate your point in a compelling, persuasive and powerful manner, you more or less have to employ the right-brain communication approach. People today communicate through the medium of stories, which is easier when it comes to conveying ideas, feelings, and emotions. Stories lend more authenticity to your message. Authenticity, genuineness and a human connection are what most people and brands are looking to establish in a world marked by frenzied competition.
More than 27,000 years ago, since cave paintings first came into being, narrating stories have been an integral part of our communication process. It is a science and art. It remains one of the most effective ways to start, build and end a conversation until date. Here are some tips to use the power of storytelling to make your conversations more effective and impactful.
1. Tell stories with a clear a takeaway – The listener should be able to take back something valuable from the interaction. This will only come once you know what is relevant and crucial for the listener. For example, someone talks to you about a fear of switching careers, you narrate a story about someone you knew switched careers successfully and are today glad about their decision. The story ends on a happy note with the protagonist being happier and more successful after switching careers. It gives your listener a clear takeaway – this may be a risk worth taking or people have done it successfully before me. Take time to think of, or create stories that will have the intended impact on the listener. The emotion or feeling should stay behind with the listener long after the story has ended. Have a clear purpose of narrating the story and give your listener something valuable and interesting to take back.
2. Great stories are about challenges or struggles – Let’s go with the above example where you are talking to a person about switching careers. If you simply list the pros and cons of switching careers, he/she won’t be likely to listen to you or may not recall the conversation. Chances are he/she has been offered several opinions and views. However, when you tell a powerful story about how someone transformed their life by overcoming a challenging situation or conflict by swapping careers, he/she will relate to the conflict as if it is their own, which will make the conversation even more impactful and memorable. There has to be an element of conflict that the listener will identify with to offer him/her hope that he/she can tackle the challenges in his/her life as well. People identify easily with how other people reacted to the conflict or challenging situation they currently find themselves in.
3. Keep ‘em short – This is especially true if you are conversing with a person for the first time. When you don’t know much about a person, do not bore them with long-winded and wordy accounts. Grab their attention and spark their curiosity with short, concise and powerful stories. They shouldn’t be longer than four to five minutes.
At times, in a bid to not give up conversing with the other person you tend to go on and on with the story. You make it much longer than they need to be in your zest to be in-depth. A compellingly summarized 500-word account can be more impactful than a superlatively written 3,000-word essay.
Don’t use stories to fill tip or make up for awkward gaps. Use them to drive home the intended point. The objective should be to entertain, e
ntice and captivate your audience. I am not asking you to omit crucial points from the narrative, but don’t spend an hour needlessly establishing the background. No one has the time to listen to long-winded stories, especially in one to one or group conversations.
4. Always imagine your story to be a motion picture – You are the screenwriter of the movie with the intention of conveying your message powerfully to the audience or listener. Much like movie stories, your story should have a clear beginning, middle, and an end. It will most likely begin with the protagonist and his/her challenges. This will be followed by intensifying the reader’s interest and curiosity by including vivid descriptions about people, places, characters, and human emotions.
5. Get creative – No one likes to listen to stories which have been narrated a million times. Your stories have to be unique, interesting and creative. I know a person (a fun and engaging conversationalist) who creates storyboards for every occasion, so he has a story to narrate for almost every situation or emotion. In his free time, he’ll draw characters based on something he observed or read. He’ll then create highs and lows around the character, basically, the full-fledged emotional arc that is integral to the art of storytelling. He knows exactly when to pull his listeners into the story, introduce elements of tension and conflict (much like those fairy tales with monsters and princesses/damsels in distress). Needless to say, he is the center of attention at most parties and social gatherings. If you are creating your own stories to suit specific situations, ensure they sound realistic and authentic. Build your stories a manner where they are able to convey the intended meaning.
6. Deliver the story powerfully – The best stories will fall apart if they are delivered in a weak and monotonous manner. Include variation in your voice. Use intonation, pitch, and volume to your advantage. This is where your narration skills will come into the picture. How you deliver or present a story is as important as the story itself. If you have to touch the other person’s raw emotions, you’ve got to use your verbal and non-verbal communication skills effectively.
For example, when you want to make an important point about how something won the day for the protagonist or how he/she overcame a particular challenge, you may want to say it and then pause. Pausing allows the other person to process and ponder over the impact of a powerful message you just conveyed. Contrast this with following up quickly by saying something else instead of pausing. You haven’t allowed the magnitude or intensity of what you said just to sink in. Allow the other person the time to feel the intended feelings and emotions if you want the story to have the desired emotional impact.
Pepper your stories with metaphors and idioms to make your language even more vivid and sensory. Allow people to visualize and experience your stories at a sensory level. Metaphors, similes and other figures of speech convey an idea more vividly because they activate a person’s imagination which is integral to the process of listening to a story.
Include richer imagery, more detailed descriptions. A “short, stocky and chubby woman with gray hair, wearing red stilettos was walking towards me” creates a more detailed visual imagery than a “fat, old woman wearing heels was walking towards me.” Create a detailed and more descriptive imagery to keep your listener hooked. They’ll most likely hang on to every word you say and seldom leave the conversation until you’ve wrapped up the story.
As far as possible, use direct speech while narrating the story. Avoid reported speech. She screamed, “What are you doing here?” sounds much more impactful than, “She asked me what I was doing there.”
7. Be a reader and observer – It isn’t a secret that you need to be a highly resourceful, creative and imaginative person to be a master storyteller. You need to have a rich and colorful vocabulary of words. In addition to this, you must be able to know how to use phrases, expressions, idioms and other language elements to your advantage while narrating stories. This comes with reading books and observing people/other speakers while they are speaking. Observing people also helps you sketch characters in your mind in a more detailed manner – with their typical mannerisms and quirks.
For example, if you observe how musicians, rock stars or live performers typically behave when they are meeting or greeting their fans, you’ll be able to create a more vivid and detailed account of their character while narrating stories about rock stars or live performers and their interaction with fans. Being a good observer and reader is integral to being a master storyteller. Start observing things, people, places, and situations around you if you want to develop your storytelling skills.
Reading helps you develop your language, narration and imagination skills. When you read stories, you learn not just new and clever ways to convey everyday ideas, but also different narrative styles and ways to trigger the listener’s imagination. An author who is articulate and has a brilliant sense of expression inspires you to create your own vivid imagery while narrating stories.
Details are important in a story. However, as a narrator, you’ll have a take a call about how long or short you want the story to be. If you are conversing with a person you’ve just been introduced to, you may not want to bore them to death with lengthy accounts. However, if you are addressing a group of mentees and trying to teach them a powerful business lesson, you may use long and detailed stories. In personal one to one conversations, keep your stories brief and impactful, unless the listener is demonstrating a keen interest in listening to detailed accounts. You’ll know through their verbal and non-verbal expressions whether they want you to go on or stop. Use these clues to cut short your stories or make them more detailed.
8. Practice storytelling sessions and conversations with a familiar person – One of my favorite tips for being a master conversationalist and story-teller is narrating a story before a mirror. It allows me to focus on the delivery or story narration. For example, how I sound while saying certain words, the voice and intonation, my body language, expressions, pronunciations and articulations, and much more.
You can also practice narrating these stories to a friend and a trusted person before using them in social scenarios. Test it with a friend or family member to gauge their reaction. If they are blown away by your narrative, it’ll most likely impress others too. Urge your friends and family to be honest and genuine in their feedback. If a story doesn’t move them or have the desired impact over them, drop it.
Get feedback about your narration pace, while making a note of the story’s length, language and narration style. Do not be discouraged if your storytelling is a bit raw and rusty initially. It comes with practice because below the surface, humans are born storytellers. It’s the way we are wired. Once you get into the groove of things with practice and effort, storytelling will become second skin – smooth and effortless.
9. Begin with a hook – Understand that storytelling in conversations in different than sharing stories as part of a public speech or official presentation. It’s more informal and laid back in a conversation.
Begin by hooking your listeners with the main point. The beginning and end should include the main idea. Get people engaged with your basic point, before they feel compelled to hear the rest of your tale. In technical terms, it is referred to as a hook. It helps the listeners or audience determine if it is worth investing time and effort listening to the story.
For example, “My boyfriend went to the car wash day before yesterday. He normally does the car cleaning chores himself, but this time he wanted a more professional job done and was also running short of time.”
What is the problem with this hook? It doesn’t manage to captivate the listener’s interest. As a listener, you wouldn’t want to listen further. What’s so extraordinary about a guy who normally washes his own car getting it professionally washed for a change because he running short on time? There’s no hook and no one’s listening. Tough luck!
Now, look at this opening.
“You should have seen my partner’s car interiors after it came back from the ca
r wash day before yesterday. He usually cleans it himself, but that particular day he decided to…”
You are more or less saying the same thing, but the second introduction is more hook-worthy. It entices the listener and makes them want to listen further. The beginning also conveys the essence of the fundamental point of your story. Without a powerful hook, you fail to grab your listener’s attention. They’ll quickly move on to talk to someone else.
Quick, fast-paced sentences are effective story openers. Think something dramatic and swift such as, “I almost died after that car rammed into me”, or “I saw something really peculiar last night.” It’s like a signpost that’ll convey to your listener that you may have a story to tell or something interesting to share. At times, people may not show a keen interest in hearing your further, nor may verbally/non-verbally offer clues revealing their unwillingness to listen to you. Don’t stress about it too much, and stop. It may not necessarily mean you are an ineffective narrator. The listener is probably tired or is uncomfortable discussing a particular topic. This may not be the best time to share your story or anecdote. Leave it for a more appropriate time or switch to another topic.
Also, learn the art of responding to people’s anecdotes if you want them to respond favorably to yours. When a person shares a story or anecdote, acknowledge it by injecting more feelings into your reaction such as, “Oh dear, I can’t believe you were abducted by a gang a few days ago. It must have been terrible.” Or, “Wow, the way you saved the day for your boss and organization is commendable.”
Storytelling Page 7