Storytelling: How do you Start a Story?
In my Storytelling Trainings and Workshops I often ask the participants, “What are the two most common ways we start a story when we tell stories to children?”. The response I get is, Once upon a Time and Long Long time ago.
Yes, that is correct and those are the two types of time stamps we should never use in a business setting to start our stories for obvious reasons.
What we do use in a business setting to start a story is *Date and Place. For example, “ In May 2013 in San Francisco.
Starting a Story with Date and Place signals to the audience that it is a True Story which is exactly the opposite of the signal we received when we started with Once upon a Time and Long Long time ago.
You can watch a 47 Secs Video of me explaining the same concept below
Source : The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling by Stephen Denning
