Storytelling for Influence part iv

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably interested in how you can expand the use of stories in your communication beyond the simple situation-action-result into something more complex or ambitious.

There are two really important elements any story needs, even the simple ones. And by beefing up these two elements, you strengthen the whole thing.

The first is an OBLIGATORY QUESTION.

This is the question the audience intuitively understands will be answered by the end of the story. It doesn’t need to be explicit, but if it’s not clear what the question is, your audience will either be confused or bored. This is because the answer provides the point-of-wisdom they will squirrel away in their repository of knowledge. “Ah-ha. So when faced with situation X, I should (or should not) do Y in response”.

To take some of the simple stories I have used previously, in the story about the calendar app (Storytelling for Influence part ii), you want to know whether I recommend the experience of trying new software. Because I didn’t name the calendar app, you understand that my story is not about that one app specifically but software in general. If, however, I had named a specific Microsoft product, you would probably be listening to know whether I recommend that specific product.

Whereas in the various versions of the story about the vegan pizza (in part iii), the obligatory question is whether the pizza was nice. (And the answer will lead the audience to conclude whatever I am offering as the moral of the story e.g. Should I take advice from experts? Would you advocate trying the vegan option? Is taking risks a good idea?)

In the wonderful story Ken Robinson tells, in his TED talk, about the choreographer Gillian Lynne being taken to a psychologist as a child, you want to know what happened to her. This broad question – what happened? – underlies all stories. But usually it revolves around something more specific e.g. what was wrong with Gillian Lynne and how did they fix it?

So if you’re incorporating a story into a presentation and the set-up (situation) does not project an obligatory question, see what you can do to introduce one.

I once knew someone whose idea of conversation involved giving detailed descriptions of mundane activities, which had no point whatsoever. She once took 3 minutes to tell me how she had made a cup of tea that morning: filling the kettle, putting the teabag in the cup, fetching the milk from the fridge etc. Initially I was waiting to hear what had gone wrong in the tea-making process, but after a minute or so I realised nothing had. The original obligatory question - what happened? – was replaced by a new one – why are you telling me this?

The story duly ended with her drinking her tea, at which point she finished her anecdote and passed the conversational ball to me. (And in that little story, the obligatory question that you wanted answering was whether her story had any point.)

What was missing was some OBSTACLE OR DIFFICULTY. This is the second element a story needs and it’s the area where you can most easily improve things. Generally the bigger the obstacle, the more interesting the story.

The obstacle can be external (e.g. money, technology, circumstances) or internal (e.g. doubt, anxiety, lack of confidence). The most interesting stories contain both.

In the story about the calendar app, I could enlarge the obstacle by describing the terrible interface, the badly translated instructions, the hopelessly unclear YouTube demonstration. Or I could intensify the time pressure – “it was year-end, I had three reports to write and half my team was off sick”. As the external obstacle gets bigger, the story becomes more interesting.

But the internal obstacles are often the most powerful. In particular, doubt is a real driver of narrative. If the protagonist is certain of what they’re doing, it’s not much of a story, because it’s just a question of time before they succeed.

So you can significantly improve your stories simply by introducing, increasing, or emphasising, the protagonist’s doubt. By ratcheting up my uncertainty about whether I will get anything useful from the calendar app – “I’ve previously wasted hours on software I couldn’t make work. I don’t really trust the judgement of the cousin who recommended it and I wasn’t at all sure it would solve my problem” – then the moral of the tale, the point-of-wisdom about perseverance, becomes stronger.

Similarly in the story about the vegan pizza, I can raise the stakes by making me hungrier, making the pizza more expensive and generally making me agonise for longer about my order.

E.g. “I really struggled to make a decision. I know my daughter is right about the need to eat less meat and dairy and I didn’t want to insult the waiter by asking his advice and then ignoring it. But I was also really hungry. The vegan pizza was actually more expensive and I had had several previous vegan pizzas, every single one of which was disgusting - I mean completely inedible.”

So in conclusion, if you plan to use a story in your presentation, check that the situation implicitly creates an obligatory question. And see if you can beef up the obstacle(s) that had to be overcome, especially doubt and uncertainty. Ideally, your story will be compelling enough that if the fire alarm goes off as you are telling it, your audience will follow you down the stairs pestering you to tell them how it turned out. Good luck!

bill BrittenJanuary 9, 2023