The Touching Story

As I have written these posts and gathered them into book form I have taken care not to research from the Toastmaster manuals. I read them a few years ago when I was working on the projects, but I have not re-read them for the Story Solver articles.

At this point, with both projects very close to completion, I have re-read the Toastmasters Advanced Communication and Leadership Series “Storytelling” manual. I’ll share my thoughts on each of the projects. These are in addition to what you can read in the manual and are in no way intended to refocus your approach to the projects.

This is one of my favorite projects because it empowers the speaker to spend time building a speech at an emotional level rather than at a mental or intellectual level. There might be information in the speech, but it is background, not front and center. Theoretically you could appeal to any emotion, including jealousy, anger, grief.  In fact, getting your audience riled up in anger or jealousy or treating them to every grief-stricken moment of the day your old dog died might not be a good idea.

So we all understand that the ‘emotion’ we appeal to in this speech is empathy. We want people to feel the poignancy of the moment rather than hard core emotion.  It might be the story of a grave miscarriage of justice, or the loss of a sibling. Either of these are difficult stories to tell without wallowing in anger or grief. Do you really want to burden your audience with these in addition to the burdens they already carry?

So the trick is to have your listeners feel some of the emotion without dumping all over them. It’s a fine line to walk and the keys to it are understatement and an oblique approach. If your story is about the loss of a sibling most listeners don’t need to be told the details of your pain and grief. They get it. You could even interject humor by saying that the Kleenex factory made a big profit that year. The contrast between that note of humor and the deep emotion is very effective in creating empathy.

The oblique approach works by using one unusual detail rather than hard evidence of emotion. “I was so sure I would win that settlement that I had planned dinner for six of my best friends.  It was going to be East coast lobster and French champagne.  Instead I had a Subway sandwich and a Coke. Alone.”

Allowing people to draw their own conclusions helps them to react to your story more personally. It’s the revealing details  that make them feel your story rather than just hearing it, it’s not the amount of emotion you throw at them. These details are shown, not told.  Don’t tell your listeners, “She felt embarrassed” but “She felt her cheeks flush and she carefully studied the button on her sleeve rather than look her mother in the eyes.”

Remember, too, that this is a story. It needs strong characters, a plot, action and a problem to be solved. The main character might be you or someone else. The tale might be fiction or fact. The personal characteristics and the problem to be solved need to be focused on getting the most emotionally poignant mileage out of the situation, the people and how they deal with the issues they face.

Last words: Avoid emotional cliches. “A tear glistened in his eye”,  “Her chin trembled” , “She leapt to her feet in anger”.  C’mon, you’re a story teller. You can do better than that.

Bringing History to Life

As I have written these posts and gathered them into book form I have taken care not to research from the Toastmaster manuals. I read them a few years ago when I was working on the projects, but I have not re-read them for the Story Solver articles.

At this point, with both projects very close to completion, I have re-read the Toastmasters Advanced Communication and Leadership Series “Storytelling” manual. I’ll share my thoughts on each of the projects. These are in addition to what you can read in the manual and are in no way intended to refocus your approach to the projects.

History is one of those black or white things – you either love it or you’re bored by it. But even those who don’t care for it may find there is one period from the past they connect with. Maybe their dad or granddad fought in World War Two. More likely there is a man or woman from the past that intrigues them. It doesn’t have to be the far away past, it could be an inventor, entrepreneur or social activist from the twentieth century – Martin Luther King or Steve Jobs, say.

It is the sense of connection with the era or the person that will bring your speech to life. The research is easy enough to do using the internet. What brings it to life is your fascination with it and your connection. Often you will discover something in your research that turns the light bulb on for you – allow it to turn a light bulb on for your audience too.

One of the dangers of this historical project is that you spend too long setting the scene, explaining the time or giving the necessary background information. Give a lot of that background to your toastmaster for your introduction. Otherwise you’ll be wasting your first couple of minutes on that, then having to omit a chunk of what you wanted to say or having to rush the ending. If your toastmaster does the heavy lifting of the dull stuff it leaves you with a neat, quick segway into the meat of the story.

The title of the project is “Bring History to Life”. Your job is to do just that. Pick something that appeals to you then fill your speech with tiny word pictures, incidents that tell the story, people that come to life under your touch. This is a project where your body language and tone of voice can make a huge difference.  Share your enthusiasm, share the neat discoveries from your research, not just in words, but in your expression.

Storytelling Project #3 – Moral of the Story

As I have written these posts and gathered them into book form I have taken care not to research from the Toastmaster manuals. I read them a few years ago when I was working on the projects, but I have not re-read them for the Story Solver articles.

At this point, with both projects very close to completion, I have re-read the Toastmasters Advanced Communication and Leadership Series “Storytelling” manual. I’ll share my thoughts on each of the projects. These are in addition to what you can read in the manual and are in no way intended to refocus your approach to the projects.

I have to admit that I like listening to speeches that don’t just tell a personal story, they also tell what the speaker learned from it or got out of the experience. You could possibly look at these kinds of speeches as fables or parables. Really the only difference between them and Aesop’s fables and Jesus’ parables is that they are your own personal stories featuring you and other real people and events. You are not inventing stories about animals and birds who talk and act like people, you aren’t telling a story of happenings two thousand years ago in a desert corner of the Mediterranean region. Your story is about the here and now. You got involved in a certain situation and you learned from that. YOU.

If the focus of the story – the learner – isn’t you, if you are just telling the story because you think it illustrates an important issue, then you run the risk of sounding a tiny bit holier or wiser than thou.

But if you show what you went through to learn the message yourself you can generate empathy in your listeners.  You share your slip-ups and errors; you are not just pulling this tale from your infinite wisdom. The way you guide your audience to have empathy with your situation and your struggles will help get your message across. Your feelings of failure or fear will carry the message at the emotional level.

What if you can’t make it a personal story? What if it is the message that great men should show humility, or that nations should not go to war? You could tell a story about Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. This would be a biographical incident rather than a fable or a parable. It can still have a moral, but implicit rather than stated.

Our beliefs generate very strong feelings within us. It’s tempting to make doubly sure we’ve driven the point home. I personally believe strongly that all our cats and dogs should be spayed or neutered. I foam at the mouth when I get started on the topic. This is not good speech material for me. I could do a strong story about a little cat I saw at the Animal Shelter, how it was an unwanted kitten dumped in a park, chased by dogs, starving, tormented, having a litter of kittens itself, hit by a car while foraging for food for them.

Way, way too much emotion. I’d be dumping an overwhelming heap of sadness on my poor unsuspecting audience. I’d feel compelled to re-state the  “Spay” moral at least three times. Humour would be missing in action. So I will leave that topic alone until I can temper it with some calm logic.

Let’s Get Personal Story Telling Project #2

As I have written these posts and gathered them into book form I have taken care not to research from the Toastmaster manuals. I read them a few years ago when I was working on the projects, but I have not re-read them for the Story Solver articles.

At this point, with both projects very close to completion, I have re-read the Toastmasters Advanced Communication and Leadership Series “Storytelling” manual. I’ll share my thoughts on each of the projects. These are in addition to what you can read in the manual and are in no way intended to refocus your approach to these projects.

A personal story, to me, is the tale of you or me facing a problem or issue and overcoming or resolving it. The size and scope of the problem don’t matter here – it could be the day your daughter fell off the swing set or one step in overcoming an addiction. What matters is how you spin the story. Sometimes it seems that the ’smaller’ stories work best for me because I can’t rely on the drama to carry them. I have to work harder to fill them with the emotion, humor or action that the audience will be looking for.

What can be difficult for me is taking an incident, often a major incident, and making it into a story. The key seems to be – did  get myself out of the incident or did someone else solve it for me? If someone else solved it, then it doesn’t matter how dramatic the incident was it still remains an incident. Perhaps I could twist it or adapt it to show how I could possibly have solved it – that might work. On the other hand I hesitate to show myself heroic or creative when in fact I just sat there and let someone else do the work.

I have been marooned on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean and a passenger in a canoe that almost capsized in the Amazon River. Great story material, right? Nope. A ship came and took me off the island and the crew worked us off the sandbar in the Amazon.

Dramatic? Yes.

Story? No.

I did nothing much to help myself; there was no life lesson, no teaching point. I was no wiser afterwards than I had been before. There was emotion. (Yes, I was scared.)  There was action and even some drama but nothing really changed for me.

In a Toastmaster personal story, it seems to me that some aspect of yourself  needs to learn and grow, at least a little bit. It could be a major revelation or decision point that changes your life, or a small realization that makes you change your behavior, however slightly,  for the better. It could be a moment of greater understanding or acceptance.

Drama is an optional extra. You just need to show personal growth through interesting experience, together with some action and emotion or humor. None of this needs to happen with an earth-shaking crash.

The Folk Tale

As I have written these posts and gathered them into book form I have taken care not to research from the Toastmaster manuals. I read them a few years ago when I was working on the projects, but I have not re-read them for the Story Solver articles.

At this point, with both projects very close to completion, I have re-read the Toastmasters Advanced Communication and Leadership Series “Storytelling” manual. I’ll share my thoughts on each of the projects. These are in addition to what you can read in the manual and are in no way intended to refocus your approach to these projects.

The Folk Tale

I notice that the manual includes tales often considered to be fairy tales in addition to folk tales. Sometimes we blur the definitions and even include fables.

To me the choice of tale in this project should be one you enjoy and feel connected to.  For me it had to be a Robin Hood story because that’s the part of the world I come from. Someone from the US might choose a Brer Rabbit story and a Dane might choose a Hans Anderson tale. This is only one way of choosing but it certainly gives a deeper connection to your telling of the story.

You might choose a story because you feel connected to the main character – let’s say Cinderella if you felt your family was unsympathetic and not supportive. You could select the tale because you relish the particular drama  – think of the evil and vanity you could put into “Mirror, mirror on the wall…”. Whatever the personal connection it will help you bring the story to life.

You don’t have to stick with traditional tales of your own culture. You could look for a tale told by native people in your area of North America or Australia. You could find one of the African folk tales from Nelson Mandela’s book. You could choose one of the amazing Jewish folk tales. Think of the creation myths from different cultures.

The pleasure of doing this research lies in discovering how different cultures explain their world and teach the younger generation what they feel is important for people of that culture to know. Somewhere in your research you will find a tale that really resonates with you.

Try to understand what makes it resonate, what the point of the story is for you, where the emotion, humour and delight lie. Try to make it a part of yourself, with a phrasing and rhythm that feels right to you. Imagine the telling of the story hundreds of years ago – a bard in the firelight rousing warriors; a tribal elder gently, hypnotically passing along the wisdom of generations; a mother in a thatched hut entertaining a fretful child.

What tales the world has to tell! Dip into the treasure chest and find yours.

Memories

I have memories of my childhood, unique memories that once in a while I share with others in my Toastmaster audience. Sometimes I mention them in Table Topics, sometimes I develop them more fully in a prepared speech. Other times I listen to and enjoy the memories of others.

The important thing about memories is the feelings and emotions they evoke – first in the speaker and second in the listener. It’s up to the speaker to project his or her feeling across the dividing space to the audience. This happens with your choice of words and the tone and pitch of your voice. These should be congruent with the feelings that the memory story evokes in you.

If you say “My father beat me every night” we expect to hear pain or anger in your voice. If your voice is flat or projects “I didn’t care” people will find that hard to believe or they will charitably think that you aren’t ready to deal with it yet. Either way you’ve lost the chance to connect with them at an emotional level.

Sharing a memory by itself is good but it is even better when you show what you have made of it and how you have used it to live your life more effectively. Your decision about the event might be “I’ll always do it this way” or “I’ll never do that again!”. It might be “There’s an example I’ll always try to copy” or “I’m determined that I’ll never go down that road”.

You might show that you have gained understanding, or experienced a complete change of direction, changed your thinking or matured. You take it from being a cute or warm or scary event and add your own meaning to it.

You are revealing yourself to the audience and this can be difficult. You want to tell the tale clearly and accurately but you shouldn’t go into too much detail, especially not anatomical or medical detail. Tell just enough to allow people to understand without getting into the juicy bits.

Your memory is a gift to your audience. I’ve heard memories of childhood in India, life under Communist rule, of refugee camp life and a childhood spent in a wheelchair. I’ve learned so much from these. Not facts, but the feelings and emotions behind the memories.

Presenting memory stories is your chance to share a piece of your unique life experience with others who want to hear about it. Give them the three valuable things – the physical experience, the emotional experience and your moment of learning and understanding.

Right-Sized Action

When someone tells me it was an action-packed movie I know there were lots of explosions, gunfire, high-speed chases, fast cars and planes. Action is important in a movie, but your story doesn’t all have to have the subtlety of a tank.

Your story might feature a grandmother in a rocking chair gazing down at her baby granddaughter. The room is quiet, with low lighting and a glowing wood fire. It would clearly be shocking to have a gang of gun-toting thugs burst in through the window.

It’s a matter of scale. The grandmother scene is a 2 on the Actionmeter Scale, the armed thugs are a 9. They don’t match.

You might have the baby’s mother rushing into the room, upset about something, but that’s as violent as you’d want the action in that story.

You could take advantage of the strong contrast between the peace of the initial scene and the disturbance brought in by the mother. If your objective was to create a contrast that would work.

But perhaps you want the peaceful initial scene to be sustained through the whole story, in order to maintain a feeling of gentleness and loving. In that case you have to leave the disturbing woman out of it. Once she comes crashing in, it’s almost impossible to go back.

You can still have action, but at a more subtle level. The grandmother touches the baby’s head, pulls the blanket tighter around the wee one, eases her back in the chair. A log drops in the fireplace, a clock ticks. These tiny actions punctuate and reinforce the grandmother’s thoughts as she contemplates her past, the baby’s future or both.

To heighten the sense of protection and calm in the room you might create contrast by having a gale blowing outside. To reinforce the calm you might have a curtain open to a full moon or a flower garden. You might hear crickets or coyotes.

The grandmother might notice the smell of wood smoke or the softness of the blanket. She might snag a finger nail in the tiny knitted jacket. All of these prompt her thoughts and bring action into the scene.

All the action in the story, however subtle it might be, supports your theme and your plot and is tied tightly to it. Subtle action is every bit as evocative as pow-pow and vroom-vroom.