How To Tell A Story People Will Never Forget
5 rules for deep storytelling that go beyond the obvious.
I already write a lot about what makes a good story. Equally as important, however, is how you tell it.
If you’ve ever told a good story but failed to get an engaged response, it’s likely because you weren’t opening the world of that story wide enough so that the audience could step inside of it.
The stories we carry with us are carefully wrapped and sealed memories in our minds. We create mental frameworks and language structures around them in order to preserve what’s inside.
But if you want others to experience that story the way you did, you’ll need to pry away some of those layers in order to let them in.
The stories people remember — whether they are brand stories, personal tales or cultural narratives — are the ones that reveal something about the listener, and you can’t do that if you‘re stuck in the perspective of the teller.
Memorable stories also follow some common patterns:
- Repetition: Themes, poetry, recurring feeling… these are the things we are often left with in a good story. If you ever read Love You Forever as a child (or parent), I guarantee the repetition of that book stayed with you for years later…
