Three steps to writing a story for the stage
My least favourite way to be introduced is, “This is Marsha, she’s a professional storyteller!”
I always jump in quickly with the correction, “—Storytelling Coach”. There’s a good reason for that.
As a storytelling coach (please pretend for a moment I’m not British or Canadian and don’t expect humility), I am excellent. Part of how I can say this with confidence is because I don’t totally know how I do it — my brain just constructs people’s stories for me in a way that works. The other reason I say this is from 13 years of doing it, and people telling me (or telling me how hard the audience cried when listening to their talk).
But actually being the storyteller? Not so much.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m fine. When it comes to actual keynotes or teaching-style talks, I’m great! But as a storyteller who is just telling a story on stage, I’m… average. Which is why I don’t do it very often.
BUT for reasons I can’t totally fathom, I have agreed…
Well that’s depressing
I’m on a zoom call, looking at the man with a big smile and blue glasses, feeling the familiar buzzing in the pit of my belly, when he says something and I’m like, “Wait, WHAT? Why aren’t we talking more about that?” I get that fizzy feeling in my stomach every time I’m on a call…
How to keep people engaged in your presentations
As we sit up in the gods (section 512 row 10) my kid is on my knee. I lean down so my mouth is close to her ear — I need her to hear me over the noise of the crowd.
“Ready, baby?”
She nods, and we lift our right arms into the air, making our hands into fists at the top.
There’s a trumpet sound before the voice on the PA, the two of us, and 38,000 other people in the stadium yell,
“CHAAAAAAAAAARRRRGE!!!!!”
Having now been to four (count them!) baseball games, I am a fan — but mostly because of a regular thing that happens…which is also something that makes the best presentations engaging.
In instructional design, these are called “Colorful Activities”. Before I explain what they are, I’m going to explain why we need them.
This is what people remember from most talks, keynotes, TEDx’s and workshops….
How to sneak in your agenda when you’re given a platform (as a speaker or anything else)
It’s last Monday at 8am. I step out of the elevator and, as my feet hit the carpet, my heart is suddenly pounding and my breathing is short.
As I notice what’s happening in my body, I think, INTERESTING.
This week, I got to do one of my FAVOURITE things:
GOING ON THE RADIO. In this case, CBC Radio 1 (for non-Canadians: this is our National Public Radio’s speech station, and the one I listen to every morning of my life). I was a guest on the breakfast show, Metro Morning with David Common. Going on the radio is one of my favourite things for two reasons:
1) my first career was in radio, so stepping into a studio kicks up warm, familiar feelings
and
2) i *LOVE* playing at being famous.
Like, I think being ACTUAL famous would be a kind of…
One of my greatest ever naps (and my most important Storytelling lesson)
“I can’t eat! If I eat, I vomit!”
Lucy, the old lady I’m sitting with, is upset.
I’m at the day centre for seniors with dementia, where I volunteer once a week. Lucy is my favourite. Six foot tall and rake thin, with short, scrappy hair and clothes that hang off her, she’s usually very sweet. A big smiler. And she loves to sing.
LOVES.
It’s clear that, in her younger days, she was some kind of professional. You can tell from the sharp, clear vibrato she randomly lets out at various points in the day.
Her memory is almost completely shot. She asks if her daughter is coming, and is placated when I tell her, “Later, Lucy”. Then she asks again in thirty seconds time.
Lunchtime is always stressful. And always the same…
Genuinely the funniest moment of my life (up until that point)
I’m 13 years old, I’m on the couch at home, and I am HORIZONTAL with laughter. Laughing so hard I’m crying. Laughing so hard I can barely breathe.
On the screen, a man with glasses is leaping about, saying things like, “can you imagine the sheer joy of an empty bin in your kitchen, a new fresh bin liner in the swing top bin? It’d be like a bin in heaven, wouldn’t it?”
What i don’t know at that tender age is that, for the first time in my life, I’m watching observational stand-up comedy.
I love it more than I’ve loved almost anything else I’ve ever seen.
The routine was by Ben Elton on his show The Man From Auntie. It’s still on Youtube (and still holds up) on re-watch, I was once again crying laughing. His delivery! The physical stuff! The fact that he seamlessly brings the point back to politics at the end! How you can hear people SCREAMING in the audience!] And while, yes, I was being introduced to Ben Elton and to stand up in general, what I was more specifically being introduced to was one of my favourite concepts in comedy AND presentations, which is…
When you’re an expert at something, you ruin it for everyone
Reading the spines of the CDs in Mike’s bedroom, the thrill of anticipation I’d been feeling slid, instead, into confusion.
He and I had been dating for a couple of weeks. In London terms — certainly, in the mid-2000’s — that meant a lot more than it does these days. I often joke that when I lived in the UK, rather than dating, it was more like we had arranged matches — except, instead of the matches being made by your parents, they’re made by booze. You’d get drunk and then wake up in a relationship.
The getting drunk that Mike and I had done happened at a new bands live showcase. Like most of the people I dated when I worked in radio, he was in the music industry. An A&R Scout, it was his job first to go out to gigs every night looking for new bands to sign, and then to have opinions on the records being recorded for release. I was a radio DJ at a well-respected indie station. I liked him for his trifecta of being charming, funny and hot, but I can’t say I wasn’t also romanced by the idea of us being a junior-level, music industry power couple.
The first time I picked him up from his house before a gig, I was excited to look through his CD collection. Would we like the same bands? Would I learn from him about new bands I’d soon love? Would I find any guilty pleasures?? It was often my favourite part of any new relationship.
But as I flipped through the titles and artists, I was…
How to tell stories about other people
You have three options:
1) Get Their Permission
Where I can, I try and do this as a matter of course — and ALWAYS with former clients. Not least so that potential future clients don’t get spooked that I’ll share all their secrets! If the story subject matter something heavy, you could offer to send a draft to the person before you publish/perform it. But usually, a simple,
“Do you mind if I tell the story about [thing we experienced together] on Facebook/on my blog/in my talk?”
should do.
2) Change identifying details
As I’ve talked about before, one of my storytelling rules is “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” By this, I don’t mean “lie to make yourself sound good,” but rather, “do whatever you need to do to make the listener feel the way you felt in that moment.”
You can also use it when you need to protect someone. There are a bunch of reasons why you might want to protect them. Maybe they…
How To Tell Great Stories — the MOST important thing you need to know!
If you want to be good at telling stories, there’s ONE thing you need to know above all else, and it’s what I talk about in this video.
Also, I dress up as Rocky, a hacky Parisian tourist and as everyone in The Graduate. So if you’d like to see (no exaggeration) the MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO I’VE EVER MADE , you’re in luck! Click on the play button here or read the transcript below!
Quiet The Beast: How to deal with the part of your brain that says mean things to you
When I was growing up, I just thought certain things were truths. Being messy is bad. Not having cool clothes (a puffball skirt, say, or a stonewashed denim jacket and matching skirt) means people won’t like you. Being fat is my fault and something I should be ashamed of.
In my teens and early twenties, the list grew. Going too far with a boy makes you easy. Wanting to kiss a girl is weird and gross. Smoking makes you cool. Especially if you’re not drunk. Especially Benson and Hedges.
Twenty years, countless self-help books, hours of journalling and — thank you, privilege — a LOT of therapy taught me that those ideas were just that, ideas. They weren’t truths. When I believed them to be true about me, and used that to judge myself, it wasn’t because this was a reasonable conclusion to make. These thoughts were just the “inner critic.” One part of your brain that sometimes (often) lied.
But then, I faced a new problem: if I had figured this out, why was it still happening? If I’m so evolved, why do I keep saying such awful things to myself?
Since becoming a storytelling and speaker coach, I’ve spent a lot of time with brilliant, successful people, listening to their personal stories. One thing that I have come to understand is that having this voice that says mean things about you to you — a voice which I call your Beast — is part of the human experience. And that the trick is not to squash it, and not even to love it. But just to do what you can to reduce the volume and frequency with which it speaks to a level where you can start to tune it out. When you can, you have have a nicer life, and you can change more lives.
This year, I was asked to give the closing keynote at the penultimate (ever!) World Domination Summit. Instead of talking, as I usually do, about Storytelling or Sales Pages or even my I Don’t Have My iSht Together, Either project, I decided to write a brand new talk, where I shared the four steps that have helped me figure out how to master my Beast.
To watch it, click on “Read more” then on the big play button on the vid: