Storytelling Secrets: Grabbing Attention in Seven Seconds

Mastering the Art of Storytelling: The Power of the Opening

 In this episode, Mary emphasizes the critical importance of a captivating story opening. 

She introduces the 'stand and start' technique, urging storytellers to dive directly into the story to immediately hook the audience. Avoid generic thank yous and small talk that can lead to disengagement. Instead, start with compelling, descriptive scenes or thought-provoking questions. 

Mary also touches on the ethics of storytelling, aiming to inspire rather than manipulate, and teases future episodes covering voice techniques, pausing, and more to enhance your storytelling prowess.

00:00 Introduction to Storiespire Podcast
00:20 Newsletter Announcement
00:56 Starting Your Story Effectively
02:48 Engaging Your Audience
05:34 Using Questions to Captivate
07:08 Conclusion and Upcoming Topics

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Storiespire podcast. I'm Mary R. Snyder. I am your host and storytelling strategist. I'm here with expert advice, actionable tips, and frameworks to create the stories that will inspire hearts and minds because stories change the world. Let's get into it. Hey there, before we dive into our story telling tip today, let me share with you something I have for you. It's a newsletter. It's short. It's sweet. It comes once a week. It will not clog up your email box. It is the Story Spire News, and it's a tip from me, a link to the podcast, and then an inspiring story. I love to find a fun story to share. Now you can find that at storiespire. com. Just click join Mary. Let's start at the beginning. How do you open a story? How do you start talking when you step on a stage? Now, many of you know, I'm a fan of what is known as stand and start. Now that is not easy for everyone, but that is walking onto the stage, taking a deep breath and diving right into the middle of your story. And what does that look like? What does that mean? What does that feel? It can feel awkward. I'm going to be completely transparent and honest with you. It can feel a little bit jarring to you, but it also is the most effective tool you have. To connect and to captivate your audience. And that's your job. Now you're walking out there. You've got this incredible message you want to share. You have this great story of the fabulous work that you are doing in your nonprofit. You're sharing a story of hope and resilience and you walk out there and you start talking about all kind of Thanks. You're thanking people for inviting you. Oh, thank you so much for having me here. We're so appreciative that you would allow us to come and thank you so much. And isn't the weather great? And the traffic in Dallas is awful. I mean, it always is. I don't live in Dallas and if you do, God bless you. But you are talking about all the things and people are doing this. They're picking up those phones and they're going. Oh, well, they're not saying anything of interest yet. And so you've lost them before you've even have a chance to catch them. When you walk onto a stage to tell a story, or you click open a video to tell a story, you start in the middle of the story. It was a house. It looked like something you probably wouldn't even have in your yard. The ceiling was falling in. There were only three corrugated metal ish type walls. They were rusted, water leaked in. But this was Ronaldo's house. This is where he lived. And it was unsafe. And it was unsanitary. And it was not okay. With me. Immediately, I have dropped you into the middle of a story. I'm somewhere, we don't know yet, but this is where Rinaldo lives and I have told you that it is unsafe, unsanitary, and not okay. Do you want to know the rest of the story? I hope you do. And if you're telling a personal story, it could be something as simple as that was it. This is the last straw. I'm not going to do this anymore. I packed up, I walked out, and I never looked back. First of all, I want to know where you went. Who was, what'd you leave for? And there's one that one of my speakers does that I love, and she says, I ran away from home at 50, and it took my husband three days to realize I was gone. Don't tell me you don't want to hear the rest of that story. Captivating people with an opening is what brings them in. Now, you've captured their attention, you've got them. Now you've got to take them through the journey you are going to take them on. But if you don't get them in the first seven seconds, is what all the experts say, we have seven seconds to capture their attention. And if we don't capture it in the first seven seconds, we don't have it. How will you captivate your audience in seven seconds? What will you share? You could do a startling statistic. It could be something like over 5, 000 children died in the last six months due to unclean water. You saw that startling statistic. Maybe it's something as simple as imagine you have the power to create peace, or you can create love, or you can create discernment among the people. Which one will you choose? That's a question, isn't it? But do you see what those startling questions do? Questions are a great way. If you are not comfortable with dropping somebody in the story, Then is there a question you can ask? When I worked in the nonprofit sector I did appeals for people and I helped script them and some people just weren't comfortable with starting. And so I would tell them, why not start with a question? What if you had the power to change one person's life? Would you do it? Everyone's like, yes. Let me tell you about one person who changed the life of Susan, I unpack the story of a sponsor that sponsored Susan and changed her life, and then at the end of that, I would flip that to now, are you willing to raise your hand and be the one person to change a life for another child? I'm very careful not to manipulate. I always want to inspire, as speakers, as communicators, we have the ability to manipulate and we don't ever want to do that. So we want to captivate. We want to capture attention. We want to inspire people to action, but none of that happens. If we don't open well, so opening well, creating the opening that is going to lean. Everyone will lean in. Now we're going to talk more about other parts of helping people lean in. We're going to do work on the power of the pause. We're going to talk about all manner of how you use your voice, the speed of your voice the timbre of your voice, whether it's really high or really, really low, whether it is incredibly loud and upbeat, or it is soft and quiet. We're going to talk about all that over this next few episodes as we really lean into what it means to be a powerful storyteller. All right, you have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.