Here’s how I do it:
Design your story.
Take notes throughout your life of stories that are relevant to your message. Or just to things that make you have an emotion. Anecdotal tales are fantastic but not necessary.
Whether they’re able to take notes or not, I ask my clients to record themselves rambling on about their topic. I mean it. I want your first story to be a terrible representation of your message.
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Just like when you’re in college & you know you have a paper due in 3 months, but you don’t work on it until the day before it’s due.
My advice to you is to start in September and shoot for a C paper. Write that in September. Then sit down again in October & make it a B. By November, you’ve got an A+.
Then we listen to the recording & pull out all the essential elements of the story. We organize them most effectively. You start with something that’s going to tie into the ending. To draw people in.
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Focus on the ending.
Make sure your ending packs a punch. Don’t be compelled to say, “That’s my story.” or “That’s all I have to say about that.” Make sure you’ve weaved in your call-to-action.
If the ending comes full circle from your introduction that’s a win-win.
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Great information there, thanks a lot for sharing. But sometimes in telling the story, I for one find it challenging to match what I’m saying to what I’m writing when it comes to telling it. Most times the mental picture of the story I have in my head and written on paper seems off from what I end up saying. And that’s my biggest challenge.
Thank you, Gertrude!
It’s so true. Everyone talks about needing to tell stories but no one ever explains how to do it. But I still am not sure what stories I should tell.
I start to tell a story and as I’m going through I just can’t remember the words I want to use. I tend to ramble a little bit. Then I see people’s eyes glaze over. Ugh! Disaster!
You’re not alone! This happens to everyone! Take The Voice Spa and/or one-on-one sessions with me. We’ll get you telling gripping stories in no time flat!
One frequent speaker in my church has mastered the art of speaking in a storytelling manner. Everything he says is relevant to his overall message and he ties everything up beautifully. Each time one of his talks concludes, I am left speechless and entranced.
Love that!
I always use too many details!