Information and Stories are totally different. Yes, we use information in the telling of a story, but in coaching talent on storytelling, I’ve often found that they often do one or more of these three things:
- overshoot, trying to dress up so-called stories from Facebook or the internet that the listener may not care about at all,
- choose “stories” that are too full of factoids and details, or
- invent not-quite-plausible scenarios as a way to get in a line they thought of and were determined to use.
So here’s the deal:
Everything you and the listener have in common has a story behind it, and new stories get added to that memory pile every day – if you’re smart enough to capitalize on them.
“Just the facts, ma’am” is a police report. What happened, and the emotion(s) generated by that = a story.
