When you’re crafting a story to use in public speaking, it’s important to keep your audience in mind. You want them to be able to visualize what you’re talking about, so that they can really connect with the story.
To do this, focus on using sensory details to paint a picture for your listeners. Describe the sights, smells, and sounds of the story, so that they can feel like they’re right there with you.
It’s also helpful to use specific and concrete details rather than abstract concepts. This will make your story more relatable and easier for your audience to follow. By using these techniques, you can ensure that your stories will be engaging and memorable for your listeners.
So what’s the secret to telling great stories to use in public speaking?
The secret is to evoke the minds of your audience
You want to stimulate their senses and create an image that they can visualize. To do this, focus on using sensory details and specific, concrete examples. By painting a picture for your listeners, you can ensure that your story will be engaging and memorable.
When creating a story for public speaking, always keep in mind how you can best invoke the minds of your audience. What sensory details can you provide that will help them to see, touch, taste, and feel the situation you’re describing?
The more interactive your story is, the more effective it will be. Remember to show, not tell, by using small details that paint a vivid picture.
Speak from experience
When you’re telling your story, try to speak from within the experience, using your personal perspective to help the audience feel, see, and hear what you feel about your topic. This will make a much more dramatic impact than memorizing lines and speaking from outside of the experience.
For example, if you’re talking about a dramatic experience you had traveling in India, you would hop into your jeep, heart pounding, fumbling with your keys, palms sweating as a tiger tries to attack you and your trusty jeep just simply doesn’t want to start.
As you tell your story, you bring your audience with you on your trip, experiencing the three dimensions together as if they were just happening.
There’s a very big difference (and the audience can always tell) between reliving your experience and reading from a script. Sharing your story from a multi-dimensional angle means that as you tell it, you can go into any little side detail at any given moment.
The audience can see, think and feel what you’re feeling because it’s YOUR story, your perception, your senses that are being shared.
Know how the story ends before you begin
When you know how your story is going to end, it gives you a much better chance of being able to control the way that your audience perceives it.
For example, if you want your audience to feel hopeful after hearing your story, make sure that the ending reflects that. You don’t want to give them false hope, but you also don’t want to leave them feeling discouraged.
Endings are important, so take the time to figure out what you want yours to be before you start telling your story. This way, you can ensure that your audience gets the message that you’re trying to send.
The Bottom Line
When it comes to storytelling for public speaking, the most important thing to remember is that you need to focus on evoking the minds of your audience. You want to stimulate their senses and create an image that they can visualize.
To do this, focus on using sensory details and specific, concrete examples. By painting a picture for your listeners, you can ensure that your story will be engaging and memorable.
