Before you go too far in planning what camera you’re going to use for your next video, or deciding on what you’re going to wear when you give your next speech, figure out your story.
Chew on it, shape it, poke holes in it, have fun with it, first. Get it to a place where you’re dying to tell it. Otherwise, you’re wasting your budget and your time, and no one is going to be interested in it.
In this article:
7 Step storytelling workout for maximum story impact in public speaking, video, and scriptwriting
- Choose a great idea
- Rough draft of ideas and structure
- Get some skin in the game: add a personal story or two
- Be creative
- Re-work your structure, including your new ideas
- Practice with your new structure
- Editing your story
- Conclusion
Everyone has stories that they know are good. When they’re good you tell them more than once. You may even catch yourself re-telling it to the same person, and then get embarrassed because you’ve embellished and polished it since its last telling.
This is all to say, your audience knows a good story when they hear it, and you know a good story when you tell it. Successes in public speaking, video, theatre, and social media all have good storytelling at their core. So, if you’re hoping to create maximum impact, give your story a good old fashioned workout before going any further.
1 Choose a great idea
Choose an idea you’re excited about. Audiences know immediately whether or not you’re interested in your story. If you’re not, they’re not, it’s that simple.
Ask yourself these questions about your idea:
- Is it a good story?
- Will you like telling this story?
- Can you interest your audience in this topic?
- Are you excited enough that even though you’re not trained in public speaking, drama or video editing, you’re already imagining a dramatic pause or two?
I was given a show to produce, write, and direct for the Discovery Channel about black boxes in airplanes. I barely knew what a black box was at the time and wasn’t immediately interested in the topic. Once I learned more, I became completely fascinated about everything about black boxes: how they’re built, how they’re used to digitally recreate plane crashes and how they save lives. This is all to say, if you’re not interested in your topic at first, start researching to gain interest.
2 Rough draft of ideas and structure
Once you’ve settled on your topic start jotting your ideas down without editing yourself. Write down anything and everything you think you may want to include.
- Get a sense of what your theme is
- Figure out your main ideas
- Arrange your ideas into a structure with a beginning, a middle and an end
- Check to see if your ideas are supporting your main theme
3 Get some skin in the game: add a personal story or two
Audiences love personal stories because they draw people in and help them to both connect with you and care about what you’re talking about. It’s often personal stories that audiences remember the most.
- Do you have a personal story or experience that will help illustrate your ideas?
- Look to stories that you tell over and over to friends, family, and work-mates that are relevant to your subject.
- If you don’t have a personal story about the topic, find someone who does. In the case of my Discovery Channel show about black boxes in airplanes, I told the story of pilots who landed a plane after being attacked in mid-air by a hammer-wielding co-worker who was trying to hijack and crash the plane. Telling their story helped me personalize black boxes while highlighting how a black box can help recreate an attempted attack. Their harrowing personal story illustrated how an inanimate black box can save lives.
4 Be creative
It’s easy to clam up and restrict yourself when working on stories. In fact, you can get so preoccupied with “getting it right” that you miss out on the creative phase.
This creative phase is not the time to edit yourself or perfect what you’re saying. It’s the time to explore different ways of approaching your story.
If this is a speech or on-camera appearance, play with your story out loud. Try different accents, imitate people, try to tell your story as different characters. It’s amazing how much fun you can have when you let yourself. Once you start having fun, you’ve broken through a barrier, and you can carry that creativity and play into your story. This is particularly helpful for public speaking. The more you can bring a sense of play to a live audience, the more interesting it is for them to watch you.
To get the creative juices flowing, you can get inspiration from:
- TED talks
- Books
- Movies
- Music
5 Re-work your structure, including your new ideas
It’s important to reap the benefits of your creative session above. Incorporate the new and relevant stories, nuances, and different approaches you discovered into your structure.
- Did you find a better way to approach the topic?
- Can you include any new and interesting analogies?
- Does your story have a new or more effective theme?
- Maybe you discovered new and fun language that helps you more comfortably express your story?
It’s possible that after your creative session, you decide you want to take your subject in a whole different direction. This happened to me when I was preparing for a speech. I was all set on talking on a subject in television that I’d spoken on several times before. Once I started preparing for my talk, I realized I was bored with the topic. Instead, I discovered that what I really wanted to talk about were ethical questions that arise when interviewing people for national television and how to navigate those difficulties.
I had never even thought about speaking on that topic, but my creative session helped to steer me in this entirely new direction. I was much more excited to take on this new challenge, and it made my talk a lot more fun.
6 Practice with your new structure
Now that you have a new structure, it’s time to practice. At this phase, a lot of people practice to “get it right”. That can be harmful to your story because it puts limitations on how you present it. This is the time that you want to pull out the creativity again and practice out loud in a variety of ways and in a variety of different settings:
- While your walking
- While you’re in the shower
- After watching a movie you’re really inspired by
- While you’re at the gym
- While driving
7 Editing your story
Now it’s time to pull it all together and edit the story. Ask yourself these questions:
- Am I being too factual?
- Am I missing an opportunity to entertain?
- Am I boring myself here?
- Do I have a good beginning, middle and end?
- What extraneous information I can cut?
Make adjustments accordingly.
CONCLUSION
Getting to the story you really want to tell can be frustrating. When I start on a story, I usually feel like I’m jumping off a cliff. It’s scary. But, it’s a process that can be broken down into small steps, and knowing that means there’s an end in sight.
It really is so much more fun to tell a story, release a video, give a speech, when you know it has legs. You know it and the audience knows it. They’ll be engaged, they’ll understand why you’re telling them this story and that you intend to keep their attention the entire time. After all, everyone loves a good story, and everyone loves being heard.
Go ahead, give your next story a good workout. It’ll improve your executive presence, engage your audience, and help them connect with what you’re trying to say. If you’re having a hard time getting started, writing the story, or presenting it, please reach out to me, I’d love to help!
For additional blogs on this topic go to:
Stop Wasting Time and Money: Connect With Your Audience Using these Five Script Writing Tips
What a Rock Band Can Teach Us About Electrifying An Audience
