THE STORY SOLVER BOOK!!!

The Story Solver: Solutions for Sensational Stories

Because so many people said they enjoyed the Story Solver in this format, then add that they would like “something to hold in their hands”. We have collected the articles in book form. This 164-page book will be available June 10th, 2009.

Story Solver the book is based on articles printed on this web site but with a few changes and some neat additions. One of  these additions is Alan Warburton’s “Peter Henley”. Alan presented this story at the District level of the Toastmasters International Speech contest held at Whistler, BC May 2009.

The best way to boost the quality of your speeches is by adding stories and anecdotes. Story Solver unlocks the secrets of adding sensational stories and anecdotes to all your speeches.

The Story Solver will help you to:

- Discover where to find stories and anecdotes

- Understand how to make your stories stronger

- Select your best stories

- Develop your stories and anecdotes from small incidents

- Increase the power of your stories

- Explore the depth and meaning of your personal stories

- Create a powerful speech

How to get the Story Solver book?

- Invite Val to your club to give a speech about it.  She will bring copies with her. vadolph@gmail.com

- Order by mail from:

Key Books

8376 Centre Street,

Delta, BC V4C 3X4

The price? (I’m glad you asked) $20. By mail $23 to cover postage and handling. Please make cheques payable to Val Adolph

Contest Speech Stories #3 ACTION

I’m going to make a movie. Lights! Camera! Action!

Notice that last word ‘Action!’ Hollywood is the epicentre of world story telling. If they place that much emphasis on ‘Action!’ then maybe we should follow that example.

A speech story, however, doesn’t need to be all action all the time.  Endless dashing around doing stuff loses impact very quickly.

Subtle action can work well but it needs to be tightly focused, otherwise anyone whose attention has wandered will lose the point. A little foreshadowing will build anticipation and give subtle action the impact it needs.

Once you have your story, or series of anecdotes, roughed out identify the high points of action. Note the quiet moments, the times of building tension, the reaction  after the action.  Fit these together smoothly to create a flow of ups and downs, action and quiet, that will maintain interest and keep your audience emotionally involved with the story and the speech.

You might not want to keep your audience in a state of sustained suspense for the whole 5 – 7 minutes. Give them an emotional break now and then to relax and prepare for the next tension and action coming up. Insert a moment of humor, to create an emotional contrast.

Often in stories you will find three action points, building from smaller action to the big bang of the climax. This is the classic format and it works well but it doesn’t absolutely have to be this way. The major action could happen early or in the middle of the story, with character-building follow-up. The danger here is that once the big bang has spent itself you spend the rest of the story mopping up details.

Details are usually the enemy of action. Think of the action movies – a gunfight in a city street. Do you notice (or care about) the architectural detail of the buildings? Or the fact that the tree on the corner is a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum)? No. You notice that the villain has a machine gun and the hero just got hit. Surely he can’t be dead?!

My own movie is more of a family video – grandchildren, dogs, back lawn. Hollywood has nothing to worry about from me.

Stories for Contests #2 Character

There’s a very good chance that the character in your contest speech stories is you yourself. Why not? You only know a few of another person’s experiences but you know all of yours. It just gives you more experiences, anecdotes and stories to choose from.

If the tales are about you, you need to stand back and view yourself objectively (well, as objectively as possible) as a character in a story.

Let’s look at a simple example. Your theme is ‘Peace” and you have decided on three stories. The first is you, as a child, fighting with your brother. Your mother intervenes and gives you the message  “Let peace start with you”  You shrug it off and give your brother a thump on the way out of the room.

Next story: You are all grown up and married and having your first serious row with your spouse. After days of argument you realize the importance of your marriage and you take the first step towards reconciling. You are starting to learn. Repeat of mothers words here.

Third story: You are a parent, and your child disobeys you and causes a problem. You are angry and open your mouth to shout words that will hurt and cause discord in your home. You remember your mother’s words and stop. You deal with the problem without anger. You have learned your important lesson. You repeat her words

These three tales are united by you, the main character in each of them. You are the focus, you carry the message. So, who are you? No point telling me you are a sales rep. for Blank corporation, shoot a mean game of golf and go to church on Sunday. As far as this story is concerned I don’t really care. Your theme here (to my way of thinking) is personal growth from anger to an attitude of constructive peace. Which aspects of your character are important here?

That you are rather hot-tempered and tend to lash out, but you’re trying to curb that? That you think family is important? That sometimes you carry work stress home? That you and your brother are very close now (or not close at all)? That your mother is dead now but her words of wisdom influenced you strongly? All of these are  aspects of your character that could be important in this series of anecdotes or stories. Are you forceful? Do you hold back your rage until it just boils over? Are you controlled? Controlling?

You will be doing some – possibly uncomfortable – self-analysis in order to give your character a strong place in your story. If you avoid or work around one of your truths you will weaken your story.

It’s much easier to be objective if the character is someone else. You can start off with the focus of the character. “He was the most…… man I ever knew”. Most angry, most forgiving, most positive. Slam, bang, focus. The story will be all about how that one strong characteristic affected his life and the lives of those around him. Could you say something like that about yourself?

Speech strength in a character comes from tightly focused, visually presented characteristics…. so angry the veins stood out on his temple…so relaxed I thought he had fallen asleep….so cool he had different sunglasses for different events.

The characteristics strengthen the character, who strengthens the story, that strengthens the contest speech.

(Now I know how to spell ’strengthens’. It’s not as easy as it looks.)

Stories for Contests #1 Theme

When I enter a contest I select my stories and anecdotes as I would select a dress for a very special event. An ordinary, nice dress won’t do, I need a dress with the Wow Factor.

When it comes to contest speeches I believe the Wow Factor comes from a combination of a powerful theme, an intense event or situation and a dynamite character.

I’m going to look at each of these elements separately and suggest ways to build them into your story. This will take your stories from being fairly strong to being a forceful element in your speech.

First is your theme

This is the underpinning of the whole speech. This is the message you want your audience to take away. In a regular club speech you can do very nicely with a theme like ‘Be kind to animals’ or ‘Eat locally produced food’. In a contest you need a much stronger, more universal theme. ‘Peace’ for example, or ‘Individual Action can Change the World’.

One way to test the universality of the theme is to go to www.amazon.com and see if there are a lot of books published recently on the topic.

Or keep an eye on the motivational speakers when public television has pledge days (watch and learn!). Which themes and topics are being presented? If a theme appeals to you take it, give it your own spin and use it. If the theme is strong enough for this professional to select then chances are that it is a powerful and universal theme.

Don’t copy the television presentation, or the text from a book. Just pinpoint the bedrock theme and construct your own stories to carry it.

A strong theme such as ‘Peace’ has many facets. Don’t even think of covering more than one of them in a 5 – 7 minute speech. You’ll spread yourself too thin and dilute the message.

Maybe, as you are playing mentally with your theme, focusing and refining it, certain stories will come to your mind. It’s quite possible that your stories will help select your theme. If you can come up with three well-aligned stories they will carry your message very powerfully.

In a contest it’s good if your stories have more in common besides just the theme. Try to find linkages at other levels in addition to the theme – it will make a stronger speech. If one story is about your holiday in China, one is about a garden club sale and the third is about your mother’s new boyfriend there is very little alignment. This might not matter in a club speech but in a contest where you are squeezing out every last point it makes a difference.

When you think you have a good theme, test it. Ask yourself, is this theme important to other ages, both sexes, other nationalities, other religions? Would it appeal to them? Would your stories make them feel the way you want them to feel? Aim for universality.

Each of your stories should relate strongly to your theme and support it. They are a living, colorful representation of your theme. They focus your audience directly on the heart of your theme and its meaning.

Work on your stories until that focused clarity of meaning is vivid and inescapable.

Story Arc

We all have events in our lives that we call “learning experiences”. The more interesting (and less embarrassing) of these we call anecdotes or stories. I have a favorite personal story that dates back to my first year as a teacher. I had a decision to make about one of my Grade Two students. Let’s call him Gary.

All the evidence pointed in one direction. Despite my lack of experience and confidence I went with my gut and chose the other option. To my huge relief it turned out to be the right decision. My own confidence was boosted and, more important, Gary avoided being labeled a trouble maker throughout the rest of his school life.

Opinions vary a bit on how best to define story arc. For me it’s enough to say it goes from the situation or person as it/he/she is at the beginning to the condition they are in at the end of the story. The arc of a story takes in the change that happens in the story. You can have more than one change. The more changes, and the stronger the changes the intense the story becomes.

My story starts with me being faced with a rather difficult to handle boy and finishes where I choose to trust him in a situation where he could cause me problems if he let me down. Gary comes through for me and in that one action my confidence in my judgment is boosted and, even better, Gary proves he can be trusted and as a result he is well on his way to erasing his previous reputation. Two story arcs; two successes in one. Two people who have moved along a little in life.

Think back to the fairy stories. The farm boy struggles against all odds to marry the beautiful princess. He starts out poor and ends up rich and important. That’s the story arc. All that happens in between – that he must travel through a dark forest, beat the evil magician, complete three impossible tasks, and whatever other hoops he must jump through – all contribute to a strong story arc. If there are only gentle woodlands and easy tasks you have a weak story arc.

If your personal story or anecdote shows you have a lot at stake, the problem is a tough one and the result might be potentially either very satisfying or fairly disastrous, then you have a strong story arc. It’s simple enough but it carries a weight. You, the writer, have to make clear your situation to start with – whatever foible or weakness is in play, what external factors or characters may influence events and the importance of a good result.

It also means that any description should support or deepen the story. When the farm boy travels through the scary forest, don’t bother mentioning the pretty flowers along the path. Mention the darkness, the sighting of a bear or wolf and the brambles tripping him.

Look at your story. Has the main character moved or changed at all? Sometimes even the smallest change can only happen after a great struggle. Sometimes the change can be made humorous or dramatic. Your story arc is the package of your story. When you open it up for your listeners what wonderful events will they discover?

Choices for a Humorous Speech

I can’t be  the only person who has weird stuff happening to them. Yesterday I took my grandson to a large specialty ice cream shop in a seaside town. Big shop on a high rent sea-front corner. Fancy awning, indoor and outdoor seating. The hard-faced teen behind the counter told us right off,  “We only have vanilla flavor.”

Say what? it reminded me of Henry Ford who would sell any color car as long as it was black. Experiences like that become part of my collection of oddball happenings. It might one day become the basis of a speech or an anecdote within a speech. Humorous speech time is when this collection come in handy because your basic choice is one long five-to-seven minute story or a group of funny anecdotes relating to one overall theme.

If you go with the selection of anecdotes, be sure each one is funny in itself as well as contributing to the overall humor of the theme. It’s quite possible to have a topic that is not usually considered funny. I’ve heard several wonderfully funny speeches about husband/wife disagreements. Now marital discord is not, in itself, funny. Marriage counsellors can tell you that.

However, in the mind of a creative person there are several slants on man versus woman that are quite hilarious. They may not be hilarious when you first germinate the idea but with a bit of mental juggling, an incident from here, an anecdote from there, an exaggeration or two and a couple of ‘what if’s’ you start to build a humorous speech.

Another choice might be three stepping-stone anecdotes that, along with an opening and a conclusion, address the topic. Your focus is on the topic and the anecdotes move from funny to funnier and funniest. If an earlier anecdote is funnier than a later one there can be a sense of let-down.

You can also do a series of jokes or one-liners, rather like a stand up comedian. The problem with this is that all those one-liners are hard to remember, especially if this is a contest and you are nervous.

Another choice is a tall tale – a story so far fetched with characters and situations so far beyond belief that the ridiculousness of it makes people laugh. It takes the audience far away from the real world.

Opposite to this is a story or anecdotes that point out quirks and foibles we had not really noticed, but we recognize as soon as they are mentioned. This can be a very subtle story or anecdotes for a fairly sophisticated audience. It is very much in the real world, and will be very close to home for many. The trick is to be funny without being cruel or pointing a finger at any one person or group of people. It helps if you are a part of the group you are needling. I could get away with stories of older people who like to eat their evening meal very early, or who read with the book at arm’s length. A young person making the same points might be seen as rather cruel.

And lastly, test your jokes on friends, adjust them as needed, before you try them on an audience.

Humorous story

“Like nailing Jello to a tree” my brother-in-law used to say when he found elements of a task to be vague, unsubstantial and now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t. He liked things to be practical, concrete and reliable. He loved to tell jokes. He would have hated putting together a humorous speech, though, because so much about them is “if’s” and ‘maybes”.

To start with what is funny to one person may not be funny to another. Teenage boy bathroom jokes come to mind. Humor varies with different ages, sexes, education and backgrounds so at each step of the story I need to check for the ‘get it’ quotient of this particular audience – not too much chick stuff if there are a lot of men present. Then when I’ve finished my first draft I check to see if anyone of any race or religion could possibly be offended.

If I find the answer is, “Well… maybe, just possibly” then I remove that section. A humorous story is intended to lighten the mood, not cause offense or hurt.

A humorous story is funny because of the basic situation or by an interesting combination of people and happenings. You have  the setting, the action and the characters to work with. The setting can be bizarre or unusual, or it can be very ordinary – a classroom or a bus, somewhere that we all feel familiar with. The action can be very dramatic or something quite ordinary that escalates out of control – you might be marooned on a desert island or throw an apple core out the car window.

The character (s) – well, what a rich array we have to choose from. There’s everyone from the up-tight lawyer to the toddler in the sandbox.  Stay away from the cliche character – the prim schoolteacher for example.  Originality is funnier than cardboard cut out. Look for odd characteristics and quirks (and if you can find them in yourself, so much the funnier). Think of people whose traits seem contradictory – the woman who is fussily neat about her appearance but who has a messy desk, for example.

Any of these odd quirks of character can be enlarged, step by step, until they are out-of-control. A tiny characteristic, amok  after what sounds like a perfectly ordinary series of events can almost always be made funny. Put people in situations that confound them – maybe the prissy saleswoman finding herself in a muddy farmyard. Escalate from  slightly muddy shoes to face down in the manure. Naturally her dress will start off white.

Many of the funniest speeches are either based on something that happened to you or they happened to someone else but you ‘borrowed’ them. Few people expect truth in your humorous speech, they just expect to laugh and the more laughter the better. Laughter is your goal. In order to reach it feel free to exaggerate, twist and tweak to get the maximum humor from every happening. If you need to change the small boy to a teenager, do it. If it’s funnier set in a grocery store than on the bus, move it.

Your presentation of the story is the icing  on the cake. Try to lose the nerves so that you can give the maximum expression with your face and your body. This will underline your points and enlarge your humor. This is your best chance to make a fool of yourself so don’t waste the opportunity. There is no better butt of jokes than yourself.