Seven Rules for Telling Stories

I can train you to engage the seven rules for telling stories

1. Keep your stories short.

There is no such thing as a long story and a short story. There are only long and short versions of stories. For our training purposes and to develop the discipline of tight stories, we keep the maximum length down to two minutes.

2. Begin where the story begins.

This takes training and discipline. We are naturally inclined to introduce a story or explain what it is about before we tell it. The story is much more powerful when your audience discovers what it is about as you tell it.

3. Get to the Action.

The “Action” is where specific people are in a specific place at a specific time where specific things are happening. Action is visually oriented and emotionally engaging.

Generalities, where people “sometimes used to go here or there and do this or that” are boring, useless and pointless.

4. Stop where the story ends.

Something in our culture drives us to explain or state the moral of stories we tell. You know what happens to a joke that needs to be explained. It is the same with any story. If it needs to be explained it means was either the wrong story or it was poorly told. When you have to explain it, your listener is forced to make a judgment about whether it is true or not. When they discover truth from your story, they bypass judgment and they own it.

5. Know the opening and closing lines.

The two most critical points in a story are getting in and getting out. Getting in is easy. Just make it a habit of putting three important pieces of information in the first sentence: Answer the questions: who? when? where? Example: “In the fall of 1971 my wife and I drove a Chevrolet van from California to Quito, Ecuador…”

Getting out takes a little more thought. Think of how the punch line of a joke has to be exactly right. The “power line” of a story should be thought through and memorized. I don’t recommend that you write it out, just think it through and memorize it. It is the power line that ties the whole story together and portrays its full meaning

6. Don’t just say it; portray it.

According to research, words alone account for only seven percent of the total impact of a talk. The rest of the impact comes from your voice and non-verbals like face, gestures and body language. You can engage the other 93 percent of the impact by putting your whole person in the scene. You see the action; feel the emotions and re-live every aspect of the story.

7. Use visual images.

We all think and remember in pictures. Every story needs a scene that people can picture in their minds. Let your eyes move to see the scene; let your hands help shape it in their imaginations. React physically with your whole body to the action taking place in the story. Create imaginary props in your hands. Where there is dialogue, practice playing the role of each speaker and simulate their voices.

Avoid adjectives that don’t create mental pictures. Adjectives like “wonderful, awesome, beautiful, interesting,” are next to useless in stories. Use visual imagery like, “struck like a cannonball, “gorgeous like a fresh rose”, “more annoying than a hangnail”, “angry black storm clouds”.