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November 2021  IHIS ISSUE:

  Avoid Nine No No's for Successful Storytelling!
 
  
As a speaker, you know that stories serve as great anchors to make a message memorable. They are excellent for selling ideas, services and products, since they affect both the intellect and the emotions of the listeners. You have a message which you want your listeners to buy into and take action. They need to reflect and decide whether or not to take action, and they require the use  of both their thoughts and their feelings to accomplish this. As stated above, stories engage both.
 
Rather than discuss specific story techniques that need to be incorporated into the structure, content and delivery of your presentation, this month we will examine 9 No-No's to be avoided!
           
            1999 WCPS David Brooks defines an effective presentation:
 
"A great presentation is one that has the intellectual power to move listeners to a new way of thinking and the emotional power to move them to new ways of behaving.” 
 
 
I invite you to read the Nine No-No's and decipher which you already know and already omit for more effective storytelling! 
 
 
 
 
 
Quotations of the month:
 
“Good stories surprise us. They make us think and feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that a PowerPoint crammed with bar graphs never can. - Joe Lazauskas and Shane Snow, The Storytelling Edge
 
 
  
"Emotion is the fast lane to the brain." - Doug Stevenson
 
 
Nine No No's for Storytelling!
 
Which ones are you already utilizing in your stories and which you need to lose? 
 
 
 1.      Telling a false or untrue story, or someone else’s story that you tell as your own, thus instilling audience’s doubt, deception and denial of you as a credible authority on the topic. 

 
 2.      Taking a long time to get into the body or conflict of the story and losing them before you even get into your story.
 
 
 3.      Telling a story with too many characters, events, scenes creating audience’s boredom,  lack of interest and losing them in the details… ‘Condense to Connect’ … condense time, scenes, events, dialogue  to make it shorter and clearer for your audience and hold their interest… state only  what is necessary to drive your point home.
 
 
 4.      Telling a story with no inkling of a message, keeping the audience wondering why you are telling this story, what’s in it for them, and consequently, losing them.
 
 
 5.      Telling a story in narration sounding like a report and not create a balance between narration and dialogue (characters' actual words spoken) missing a natural opportunity for uncovering humour! Telling the audience your thoughts aloud on the situation at the time endears them to you.
 
 
 6.      Telling a story with no emotional change in a character and his/her life… listeners must hear and see a positive emotional shift in a character for them to want to take action themselves; demonstrate non-verbal body language in re-living those shifts because of the positive results experienced in their life.
 
 
 7.      Telling a story and never touching base with your audience by interjecting rhetorical questions with pauses for them to ponder on their own life situations, obstacles, struggles, as in: "Can you relate to that? or How do you think I felt at that moment? How would you have reacted?"

 
 8.      Telling a story and leaving unanswered questions in the minds of the audience causing them to remain stuck at that point in your story and not move on with you.
 
 
 9.      Telling a story without creating different physical scenes on the platform confusing the audience re where and when an event took place.
 
 
 Well, dear speaking colleague, of the above nine no-no’s in Storytelling, which essentials do you still need to adopt and nurture to become a masterful storyteller? Can you think of other no-no’s that you see speakers use and therefore create a disconnection with their audiences?
 
Until later, Successful Storytelling to you!
 
 Smile
 
 _________________________________________________________________________________
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Kathryn MacKenzie BA  M.Ed  DTM
Presentation Skills Instructor/Author
  Keynote Speaker/Coach

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