Telling Tales©

Stories at the office? Why not? Be uncommon. It’s a lot more fun than stringing boring words together. Start your articles with a story or anecdote, and you’ll hook your readers so they’ll want to read all the way through. Same thing with newsletters, blogs, essays—anything you’re writing. Wake yourself up—and your audience. The results will speak for themselves.

People buy with their emotions. They may learn something new with their intellect, but to buy—or buy into—what you’re selling (just about everything we write is selling something), their emotions need to be engaged. Stories go straight to the heart. They tap into our emotions and don’t require the processing that more formal writing does. That’s why people remember stories from around the campfire years later. In the business world, even without the fire and marshmallows, we can engage our readers’ memories and emotions with good stories. Once that door has been opened, your job gets a whole lot easier.

“Show, don’t tell” is a storyteller’s tool. When the hero faces danger, rather than writing, “She’s scared,” the novelist tells us about her sweating forehead and shaking hands. “Show, don’t tell” works in business writing as well. Set your readers in a situation; share a story about someone who benefited from your product or service.

Share a story that is likely to conjure some emotion from your readers. A bad situation you can fix. A recurring problem you can solve. Stir up a little pain, and readers will begin to identify with you as a probable solution. Or just get them fired up about a situation that needs their attention. We’re a storytelling culture, and we like to learn by example—rather than lecture.

Kindof like the famous “Wall Street Journal” letter. They just go right into a story and you can’t stop reading it until “checkout” time. lol.

Kenney