THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR STORY
This is well worth your reading time.
“But, inevitably, you come to the middle of the story. Suddenly, things get difficult. You’re working hard, but you don’t feel you are making progress. You feel trapped: You’ve come too far to go back, but you aren’t sure you have enough resources to finish.
Eventually, you push through and reach the destination. But then you realize that the destination isn’t that important. Instead, it is what happened to you on the journey—how you have changed and what you’ve become.”
“Storytime is an important part of a child’s bedtime routine, and children love nothing more than a story that Daddy or Mummy has made up.
My kids’ favourites include a spider who climbs to the top of a tall tree, a rabbit who won’t eat his carrots and the cow who would never wear the right clothes. RM Cole is an author who has many years’ experience of telling stories to his own children. In this book he offers a beginner’s guide to creating the kind of stories that young children love.”
This is a nice storytelling initiative from The Australia Council for the Arts.
Walking to Mexico: An Experiment in Cross-Cultural Storytelling
A worthwhile endeavor that clearly got a lot of support in a hurry. Shows what a story well told can do for fund raising efforts.
“I have a dream of travelling through life as a pilgrim. To me, that means walking slowly, thinking about big ideas, and connecting with people in order to learn, share and grow. This August, I’m going to follow my dream by walking 1,800 miles down the Pacific Coast of the USA, from Vancouver, Canada to the Mexican border.”
Retooled is a place to find and share experiences of the rollercoaster of redundancy.
Nicely done.
“This site was begun by a group of employees who were all made redundant when our company MG Rover closed. We hope by sharing our experiences, Retooled will be valuable to anyone who is going through redundancy.
Start by exploring the stories below, which are real people’s accounts of every part of the journey.”
Don’t Forget To Leave A Gap In Your Storytelling
“In order to have an “Aha” moment in your ad, the story can’t be fully told. There has to be a small gap in the storytelling. A small chasm that a listener has to fill in herself. It can’t be too big, and it can’t be so small as to be insignificant. A great ad tells the viewer a story, takes her on a journey, then just near the end, the writer stops writing. A tiny, important piece of information is held back. But when the reader gets to that gap, she finds herself saying “What!?! I don’t get it. I really don’t… wait… wait…AHA… I got it!”
What Marketers Can Learn from Storytellers
“B2B marketers are storytellers of a different kind. Our customers are heroes and heroines. Our competitors are all treacherous villains. Dramatic tension arises when our customers’ companies run into a major challenge that our handsome heroes and fair heroines overcome by wielding our trusty products.
So what can B2B marketers learn from the time-honored, tried-and-true techniques of great storytellers?”
“Digital Storytelling Projects seen by an old-fashioned oral storyteller. The author writes about old storytelling techniques and the influence it may have on future programs, about the psychological background of folk tales, their origins and their purposes. Also included is a brief view into the future of both oral and digital story and fairy tale telling.”
Sniffing out Washington stories in a coffee house
“There’s a truism in journalism that says stories are everywhere, that every person contains the material for a story that can reveal to readers some essential truth about who we are and the pressing questions of our time.
To test that theory, six Washington Post reporters this Wednesday will fan out to coffee houses in Virginia, Maryland and the District to find stories that tell us something about the way we live today.”
Making Storytelling for Business Easy: Add the Element of Surprise
“I love it when a story surprises and captivate me. And I know you do too.
I love it when I think a movie or a song or a story is going in a particular direction only to find out it’s more like that Monty Python sketch, “And now for something completely different.”
Anytime you’re telling a story, you want to add an element of surprise. A twist or turn that the reader may not anticipate. That’s how you capture someone’s attention and captivate them.”
An absolutely unbelievable resource from Shawn Callahan and his gang!
“Do you need a business-related story for an upcoming presentation? Click on the topic and read through the post to find one or more stories to tell.”
“Everyone’s talking about curation. I danced inside when I found this from Frank Chimero:
Curation is storytelling.”
Brand Narratives – Marketing, Meaning & Stories
“Real-world brand storytellers speak to the changing climate in story-based marketing & the power of cohesive brand stories.”
What’s So Important About Storytelling?
“At NPi, we believe storytelling and knowledge sharing, both online and on the ground, is a major part of the solution. Storytelling enables learning and dialogue and helps to build and strengthen networks, thereby speeding up the process by which people, organizations, and systems improve the world we live in.”
“We don’t read sales pages with as much interest as we watch movies. But we do scan them. We’re optimists at heart. “Maybe this sales page will be the one for me.”
And, if your headlines look as dramatic as a soap opera plot, people might actually read that sales page. And then they might do something about that call to action at the end. We can hope, right?
As the director of your own sales page, you get to create your story, and you get to decide what happens next.
So, you want to direct. Let’s get started.”
Very nice.
“The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the group, tribe, or civilization.”
Write So They Will Listen (Rule 4)
Short, sweet and spot on.
“Storytelling has existed since we as a species have been talking. Stories communicate our emotions, lives, and ideas. Everyone loves a good story. They elicit emotion and compel action.
You are in a room, crowded with friends and family. One person begins to talk about a crazy debacle with their hairstylist. What happens next? Ears perk, conversations trail off – people get interested. They want to listen, get incredulous, share their experience – they want to interact with the story.”
Storytelling as sales tool? Seriously?
“What makes a good story? It’s relevant, authentic and intriguing (or at least interesting) to the listener.
What makes a great story? When the teller isn’t always the hero. It’s a lesson learned the hard way. Sometimes there are twists and surprise endings that don’t make the teller look good at all, except for the fact s/he is telling it, to underscore that lesson learned.”
The Florida Storytelling Association.
“Since 1985, we’ve been fostering the growth and development of oral storytellers and storytelling in Florida by promoting and providing educational, networking, and performance opportunities throughout the state. Our goal here at the Florida Storytelling Association is to nurture storytellers and expand storytelling.”
