5 Secrets To Attention Grabbing Stories

Nothing in life connects like stories.

@@Stories are how we create meaning from life.@@ We infuse our stories with lots of emotion and we make them mean things about ourselves and our lives.

Think about it:

This [story] happened and it made me understand this [meaning].
This is my [story] and it taught me/helped me to realize [meaning].

There is also that feeling when someone lets their guard or persona down to share their truth with you. You know that feeling? The empathy. The human connection.

The stories we each tell give us the opportunity to experience life in a different way and through different perspectives. When you tell your stories you gift others the opportunity to understand you or to empathize with you - and also to learn from you.
 

All these things: Story + Emotion + Meaning + Empathy + Connection = The things we love in life. The things we crave in life.

We look to others for inspiration and for proof that if they can something we can do it too. If they can overcome a fear, we can! We know they can through their stories so we feel we can too.

Our stories are unique to us. Nobody in the world is quite like you are and how you have experienced something is unique to you and how you tell it is too.

It's important to infuse story in whatever you are creating in the world - a book, a blog, a song, whatever it is. Story is also important in your brand, even if your brand is a personal brand. What's your personal story that backs up your message?
 

So let's talk more about elements of compelling storytelling.

In a recent blog I wrote about How to Make a Real Difference With Your Writing, I gave tips for how to write with a clear, strong voice and shared why it is important to speak your simple honest truth.

In this blog, I want to do deeper into storytelling and share with you some ways to really heighten your storytelling, so that it can resonate even more with your reader.

These tips work whether you are writing a book or a blog or a guest article.

Before you begin sharing your stories a few things are important:

Be clear. Know what you want to say. Know the ultimate point you want to make and know what story you want to tell to illustrate this point.

Be aware of why you are telling your story and make sure your motivations are positive ones. Be sure that you will stand behind your decision to share whatever it is you are sharing over time or if it is reprinted or if you are challenged.

So, with all that in place, here are some ways that you can play with your storytelling:

1.     Share The Internal Details

Did you ever experience a moment where something ordinary is happening in life, but your internal feelings are absolutely extraordinary? Or don’t match the situation?

One moment pops to mind from a few years ago when I was making a really expensive flight purchase. I had postponed buying the tickets because the idea of spending so much money was uncomfortable to me - I had never spent so much on a flight before – but also because I felt anxious about the trip I would be making.

When the moment came to pay I held my hand over the computer mouse and as I did so I noticed I felt weak and that my hand was shaky. I noticed the knot in my stomach, the extreme tension and discomfort. I noticed my heart beating hard in my chest.

If you were a person looking at me from the outside, you wouldn’t have known anything extraordinary was happening, but internally I was feeling a lot of distress.

Juxtaposition is interesting in storytelling, because it adds interest. Also, as readers, we know what it's like to perform ordinary tasks but have a contrasting feeling under the surface. We can empathize with that feeling of tension and we know that there is more to the story than just girl-sitting-at-computer-buying-plane-ticket.

This creates a perfect springboard to lead into the meat of your story – the why? “Why was she I feeling this way?”
 

2.     Share The Pictures In Your Mind

A similar approach is to describe the places your mind wanders to in certain moments – or to create a visual analogy.

What do I mean?

Well, have you ever been in a situation where something is happening in your present and your mind focuses in on a tiny and ordinary and seemingly insignificant detail?

Like raindrops on a window or a spider making a web outside?

I remember a few years ago when I was talking on the phone with a boyfriend. We had been together for a couple of years, he was in a different country and we had been back and forth across continents multiple times. A phone call was usual, but this phone call was different. We were breaking up. Those conversations are upsetting anyway. He was being very gentle and kind with me and I was crying.

As we were talking I had the strangest, random image in my mind. I had a vision of a wooden pier beside the sea somewhere nonspecific. Nobody was around and the boat was attached to the pier by a long rope, which was loosely fastened. As we talked I had a sense of water gently moving the boat out from the pier until the rope was stretched. It was still attached but was just holding on.

As we decided in our conversation that the best thing was to break up, in my mind I saw the rope detach and the boat slowly but surely move out to sea.

Somehow my inner vision matched up what was happening. The reluctance, the holding on, the letting go, the ending, the no going back.

Sometimes visuals analogies are used particularly well in songwriting, but they are things that can be included in all stories to illustrate and reinforce a point being made.

How might you use visual analogies in your storytelling?

3.     The Action Movie Element

Think of an action movie. You know the way they start an action movie on a high? There’s a dramatic explosion or geological event or an attention-grabbing something-or-other that happens. Larger than life. Exciting.

Straight away you are taken from your ordinary life and you are placed right in the moment of whatever is happening in the movie.

That!

Ok, you’re probably not writing an action movie, but what I mean here is to adapt the action movie principle for whatever it is you are writing.
 

“So there I was in the darkness of night on a Gondola in Venice, the water gently lapping against the sides of the boat and a Gondolier standing ahead of me, expertly guiding the Gondola around the corner of the canal as I deeply sighed…”
 

Straight away, people are in a new place and time and you’ve got their attention.

Next, you can lead in to the meat of your story and the reason you are telling them all this.

4.     Play With Time And Perspective

Details like tense and perspective can make a story or a memory all the more impactful or poignant for your reader.

Play with the tenses.

Does your story work better if it’s told in the present tense? Or if you tell the story in the third person (as he or she) rather than the first person?

What works best for the message you are trying to share through your story?
 

5.     Share Specifically And Personally.

It’s better to tell one particular story well and illustrate a specific point. This is clear and easy for your reader to read, understand and, in their own time, fully process, rather than overshare and overwhelm them.

We can only ever guess and assume what others are thinking or feeling, but when we speak personally we can speak authoritatively. We can say “In that moment, this is how I felt” or “All of a sudden I realized exactly what this meant for me” or “This is what I then made this mean for me.”

Life is all about perspective anyway and the filters we each experience our lives through. That’s what makes stories so fascinating to us, really. They give us the opportunity to learn about and experience life through different filters.

Even a book is really a collection of a whole load of stories that interweave.

So there you go! I hope these tips have been really helpful for you.

Please, please link me to your writing as you use this guidance! I would love to read your stories and your work in the world.

Thank you for being here and for reading and, as always, I wish you lots of happy writing!

Aoife

xo

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