Having the skills to tell a compelling story can be incredibly powerful for your communication
skills and even more importantly, can help you make points that people understand, respect
and buy into.
So in this video, we look to give you 5 tips to improve this skill and be a master storyteller...
1.
Use the 5 Cs - A great story needs the 5 C’s, or Circumstance,
Curiosity, Characters, Conversations and Conflict to help compel the audience
- You need to lay out a circumstance, giving context to your audience, while adding curiosity
to help engage them further and keep them compelled in the story
- From here, have characters and conversation, where you introduce those in the story and
have them interacting through events, which will prevent your audience losing interest
- In addition, add conflict, which is whatever is preventing the hero of your story going
from the starting point to the end point of the story, identifying their progress over
the course of the story
2.
Focus on Key Points - People, especially in today's world, have
short attention spans and therefore don't usually want long drawn out stories that have
seemingly little payoff - To avoid people dropping off or losing interest
when you tell your story, ensure you focus on the key points you wish to get across,
without focusing too much on the detail - While detail can work for narratives that
people invest into, such as a good book, people rarely want the same level of detail when
you talk to them in normal conversation - So focus on the point of the story, without
stretching it out unnecessarily that might lose the interest of your audience
3.
Use Emotion - People are far more likely to engage in
a story that's emotionally engaging than one that they don't feel personally invested in
- Therefore, if you can engage someone at an emotional level, it's worth incorporating
it to make for a more interesting and particularly memorable story
- Not only are stories a great way to connect emotionally, but emotions are a powerful way
to connect with other people - ...and when you think about it, most of
the stories you remember in your life are likely to have had an impact on you at an
emotional level, proving this technique works
4.
Use Other Senses - When you tell a story, use the power of
describing how your other senses felt in the moment you are describing
- This might be the use of talking about smells, sounds, sights or how objects felt and the
environment, all of which serves to engage the listener on a more personal level
- This is because it serves to help them identify with the circumstance more easily, meaning
it's easier for them to picture or even feel the moment being described
- This process engages the entire brain, rather than specific parts of the brain when listening
to the story, helping the listener to be more focused on what you are saying
5.
Don't Make it All About You - When you tell a story, focus on relating
to the audience and not your accomplishments, which only serves to distance you from them,
working against you - Therefore, while the end of the story might
be to say how you achieved a phenomenal feat, the story itself should focus on the challenges
you faced to reach the result - Doing this helps people relate to you, as
we're all flawed and people feel they connect more to the failures of others, than their
successes - After all, the "happily ever after" always
comes at the end of a good book, but the majority of the book will focus on the journey of getting
there
Are you working to apply any of these tips?
If so, which one?
Let me know in the comments section below.
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