Sometimes a scary story doesn’t spook the listener – it scares the storyteller. It happened to us!
We were keynote speakers at a convention in Canada, and we’d been asked to give a talk about persisting in spite of difficulties. We had a really, really great story about a time we really, really wanted to give up. It was risky, though—to get the full impact of the story, we’d need to take nearly twenty minutes to tell it. It was a third of our time, and we wondered if the organizers would think we should have done more teaching and less storytelling. We decided to take the risk and tell the story right.
Thankfully, the audience loved the presentation and laughed and cried with us at our travails. When we stepped off stage, though, our host came rushing up to meet us. Our hearts beat just a little more quickly while he made his way through the crowd, but he soon reached us and blurted out, “I’d forgotten just how powerful a story could be in driving home a point. That was amazing!”
Whew!
We should have known that would be the reaction, though, because we’d learned the power of story through our writing. Over the years that we’ve been blogging, we’ve come to realize several things.
We’re all curious about other people and can hardly resist listening in on their tales.
Stories bypass the reader’s reserve. We all have a tendency to go “Shields up, Mr. Sulu!” when we encounter something we struggle with, but readers get lost in the story and relax their defensiveness!
Stories drive the point home, powerfully. Teaching explains an idea; stories illustrate it, and readers get to live it with us for a few minutes. Now they can see the why and the how of the topic, too.
Stories make our writing more entertaining. That makes it more enjoyable to read our blog and that’s a win. Sometimes when we speak and the workshop is story-heavy, people say, “I can’t believe the hour is over! It went by so quickly!” We want them to feel that way when they read us, too.
Opening with a story as an attention-grabber or closing with one to make your point is very effective. But how do you choose a good story, though?
Clarify the points you want to make, first. The story is a distraction if it doesn’t advance your message.
Brainstorm real-life incidents you know. Look at your own life, your family’s lives, and the lives of your friends, if they provide an example that makes one of your points for you.
Always get permission to tell the story, though. There ought to be flashing red lights around this point. There is no story so good that it is worth damaging the trust your family and friends have in you. We always ask permission, even acting out how we plan to tell the story, to make sure it’s okay with our loved ones. If they’re uncomfortable with it, we ask if it’s okay if we anonymize it, “One boy we heard of…” or change it enough no one can recognize it. If they agree, then we proceed. If they’re still uneasy with it, though, we slice it right out. Relationships come first.
After you write the story, read it aloud. Awkward phrasing is so much more evident when we hear it rather than read it.
Save it, close it, and come back later to reread it a few times. In story-telling, a sentence or two in a different place can be the difference between a story that falls flat and a story that’s never forgotten. Write the second kind of story.
Resources:
If you love telling stories or you keep thinking, “It’s time to write a book,” we have a DVD series you will love! It’s called the First Time Author Seminar. We walk you through getting your book out of your head and into a manuscript, getting that manuscript published, and marketing your book so that it gets into readers’ hands. Check it out here.
Your friends,
Hal & Melanie Young
Hal & Melanie Young are the award-winning authors of Raising Real Men and My Beloved and My Friend: How to Be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses. They are publishers, writers, bloggers, and popular conference speakers internationally, known for their Christ-centered focus and practical, real-life stories. They are the parents of six real boys (four grown!) and two real girls and live in noisy, messy happiness in North Carolina.
