Don’t make these 5 storytelling mistakes

Standing down the back of the room, I feel like my heart is going to burst.

In front of me are the backs of 120 people, all sitting in reverential silence, and in front of them, there he is — GLOWING on stage. Joy soars in my chest. I *knew* this is what he could do.

For over 13 years, I’ve been running my show True Stories Told Live.

As well as organising, hosting and promoting the show, I also coach all of the storytellers in advance. Some of them come to me with experience on stage; most of them don’t. One of my absolute FAVOURITE things is working with someone whose story has good bones but would have fallen flat without coaching, and taking it to a place where the audience is RAPT. Just like Steve in the story above (who made people CRY! My #1 metric!!!).

Over 13 years, I’ve seen the same instinctive mistakes happen over and over again when people bring me a story.

Here are the five mistakes people make the most, and how I help point them in a different direction:

1) Shrinking the story down

Most people come to me with sprawling epics. Those are great one-liners, that might get you a podcast interview in a short pitch (“I climbed Kilimanjaro, then ran a marathon, then bumped into my ex-girlfriend and now we’re married!”). But as a story in ten minutes? They’re all voiceover.

When you’re telling a story, you’re making a movie inside your listener’s brain*. This means, if your story is all facts and opinion, or flashbulbs of pictures with no detail (“I went skiing”), it’s like a movie that’s made entirely of voiceover or montage — aka, not very engaging.

Instead, as much as possible, you want your stories to be made up of ACTION SCENES. Go deep. Describe sensory detail. Cover less ground in more time. More on this (plus me reenacting the Rocky Training Montage) here: YesYesMarsha.com/moviescenes

And to write those action scenes? Just keep answering the questions:

What did it look like?

and

How did you feel?

2) Turning it into a lecture

Some people are very keen to include their opinions on whatever was going on for them. But, unless it was being said by someone or thought by you as the story was happening, *opinion does not belong in a story*. As soon as you add opinion in, it turns into a lecture.

Also, it’s patronising to the audience — who usually don’t like being told what to think. If there is a message you want to get across (like “be sensitive when asking someone whether they have kids” or “sometimes you need to advocate hard for yourself with doctors”), make the point through the “show don’t tell” rule. Make it obvious through the actual story that you tell, so that we can come to that conclusion ourselves.

3) Not including emotion

Emotion in stories is EVERYTHING. Without, we DO NOT care about your story. More on that here [blog] and here [instagram post — you can watch if even if you don’t have an account].

4) Including emotion, but outsourcing it

It’s amazing to me (though, given how emotions aren’t really allowed in our culture, not *that amazing) how many storytellers say “you” instead of “I” when describing their emotions.

Me (coaching): “How did you feel?”

Them: “Well, you get anxious and you worry that it’s going to get even harder…”

Me: “Do I? I don’t think I was there…”

When describing your emotions, watch out for that tendency!

5) Starting in context

When we tell stories to our friends, we usually begin with context (“a few years ago, I had this boss who was horrible. Every day, I’d come into work and try and avoid him…”). But context, by it’s nature, has to be voiceover and montage — because it tends to have to cover a lot of ground — and is therefore, less interesting to the listener.

When you’re speaking one-to-many (and to people who aren’t your close friends), you have to grab them immediately. So, start in action, pull out and give context, then go back to the action. And make sure the way you start makes them want to keep listening.

The easiest way to do this is to answer those two action scene questions from above. Tell us what it looked like (where are you? What’s happening? Eg “I’m 22 years old, standing in the street in Paris”), tell us how you felt (“And my stomach is in a tight knot”), BUT don’t tell us *why* you felt that way. Instead, go into the context. We’ll be so keen to find out why you felt that way, that we’ll keep listening through the (by it’s nature) slightly less interesting context.

Wanna hear all those lessons in action? Each one is present in the five stories I picked for the (in person AND online — the latter almost never happens!!) BEST OF TRUE STORIES TOLD LIVE show. It happens:

Sunday April 12th

Online & in-person at The Burdock, Bloor near Dufferin. 8-10pm (ish on the ending! I’m not super-strict with time because I firmly believe there’s no such thing as a too long story, just a too boring one)

Tickets here for both the in-person and online shows:

So, which of those lessons resonated with you? Is there one of those you tend to do? Or has it confirmed some good instincts you have and are using? Let me know in the comments!

You rule!

xx (Yes Yes) Marsha

*credit to my storytelling teacher Sage Tyrtle. who first said this sentence to me and, like a

PS Want me to help you make sure your next talk, presentations or keynote is AMAZING? Or do you work somewhere that might want to bring me in to run a training on writing excellent presentations or storytelling? I’d love to! Book in a free chat here: yesyesmarsha.com/call

PPS LET’S HANG AT THE SHOW (or enjoy the very rare online version of it). Here’s the link for tickets.

PPPPPPPS want my free guide to the magic bullet for captivating storytelling, along with free coaching via email on storytelling and writing captivating presentations? Join the Yes Yes Family — it’s FREE! Just pop your details in below and I’ll ship the guide over**:

**you can unsubscribe whenever you like because, clearly, I am not the boss of you