Inspiration through Storytelling
Storytelling is the process of using fact and narrative to communicate something to your audience. Storytelling is an art to present the story you have to the audience. Some stories are factual, and some are embellished or improvised in order to better explain the core message. It requires a deep understanding of human nature, psychology, human emotions, motivations and a lot of other things to truly become the best storyteller.
Furthermore, storytelling is all about making human actions come alive. Their growth, emotions, aspirations, conflicts and everything are considered to become the best storyteller. Listening adds another benefit when it comes to storytelling. A good listener not only understands what is going on or what someone is saying, but they can initiate a conversation well and can become great storytellers as well. And often, when people are indecisive, it is simply a result of needing more information in order to move forward. So even though it might take a bit longer to hear or tell the whole story, in the long run, it leads to faster and better decisions.
For great storytelling, there needs to be a specific structure and a clear purpose. If you begin your story with an eye-catchy hook; a question, an anecdote, or a quote, then it makes the reader read more because you are now able to captivate their attention to a larger extent and are able to make them read more. And to find out if your story is great enough, you can tell your friends or family members to read your story or simply recite to them if that is the story they have never heard before.
Next up, the most important thing for a great story is timing, pauses, and silence. These add variety to your story—often bringing more power than the words can. Pauses give listeners the opportunity to participate in and process the story. When it comes to comedians, they have great storytelling ability because they provide pauses, giving you ample time to “get it” and also laugh. They don’t want the next punchline lost in residual laughter. On the contrary, if you listen to an audio book, you cannot grasp the thoughts the storyteller is trying to portray in their story, this exemplifies how frustrated your listener can get if you do not use pauses wisely. Silence also can provide you with the opportunity to command more.
Other things such as tones, notes, facial expressions too matter a lot while storytelling. They ultimately can override every other aspect of your communication. But the trick is not to work on your tone; work on your feelings. If you can convey something with the best feeling, your expressions also tend to be the same as your tone. This allows the listener to concentrate more and indulge more in the story you are trying to portray.
Therefore, storytelling has a great way of moving the audience. It can make them laugh, live, love, angry, it can motivate and inspire them and it all depends on the storyteller as to how they want to do it. So, they have a huge task to do and that is not possible without any hard work.