How To Tell A Great Story
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
— Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal
There are many reasons to write and record nonfiction stories.
• to share important events or moments in your family’s history
• to start or add to an autobiography or memoir
• to entertain an audience
• to offer cautionary tales to your grandchildren
• to learn more about yourself
• to promote a business or service
Almost anyone can tell a story. But not many people can tell a great story. Great stories inspire us. They are compelling, riveting. Great stories make us want to read and listen again. Great stories make us marvel at the author’s skills and techniques. How did she do that? we ask.
If you want to write great stories (and why else would you invest the time and energy if that isn’t your goal), you’ll probably need some guidance.
In their book How To Tell A Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, the authors (there are 5 of them) offer the following list:
• Hook us in.
• Make us care about you.
• Paint the scene.
• Clearly state your fears, desires, the dilemma.
• Make us invested in the outcome.
• Introduce the conflict.
• Make us worried for you.
• Impress us with observations that are uniquely yours.
• Rope us into the moment when it all goes down.
• Conclude as a different person: Triumphant? Delivered? Befuddled? Enlightened?… CHANGED.
No matter why you want to tell stories, you must grab and hold your audience’s attention. In fact, the success of your project depends on your ability to grab and hold audience attention because people (except maybe your mother) do not stick around for boring stories. They always have better options. Readers and listeners want to get caught up, be mesmerized, unable to stop reading or listening. They want to feel like they must know what happens next.
Storytelling, like every other skill, requires practice (unless you’re a natural). So, review the list above and get busy filling lots of pages with bad stories. And then, use the list above to refine those bad stories until they are great stories destined to become the stuff of family legend.
