While chatting with my sister and her former coworker, Cathy, Cathy regaled us with a positively hysterical story about a recent evening that began with one son babysitting the neighbor’s cat and ended with the other son taking a tennis lesson.
“What,” you may be thinking, “is so hysterical about that?”
Nothing.
Unless, of course, you heard the details of the entire evening as told by one vigorously animated, storytelling mother.
Cathy’s chronicling of the evening’s events created what psychologists would call “narrative transport.”
Plain and simple, Cathy took our minds somewhere else. She gave us specific, relevant particulars that we could imagine and identify with.
The net result? We quickly and fully became caught up in and captivated by her story. What came naturally to Cathy—storytelling—needs to come more naturally to the rest of us.
Storytelling is simply creating a visual image through words while connecting with your reader on a real and personal level.
Stuck telling your story on paper? Then don’t. Instead, share it with a friend, colleague or coworker. Pretend you’re trying to entertain someone at a party. Say what you really want to say rather than what you think you should say (or what your legal department or boss would like you to say). Then record your story, transcribe it and use that as your first draft.
Remember, it doesn’t matter how you get to the story—only that you get to it.
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