Liz Warren | Storyteller

A well-crafted story that you can tell in five minutes or less is one of the most useful things to have in your repertoire. Use the tips below to develop a compact and effective story from your own experience. You can always use it as the base for a longer one if the need arises.

1. Do you have an idea for your story?
   • If not, go here for the Big List of Story Prompts
   • Remember – you can choose any moment in your life that led to change or growth or learning
2. Have you structured your story? (Go here for more on story structures.)
   • Five Ps* (People, Place, Problem, Progress, Point)
   • Inverted World* (The normal world of someone’s experience, trouble comes, the world is turned upside down, something is learned and/or help is received, a new normal world is established)
   • How Something Came to Be (it used to be this way, then all these things happened, now it’s this way and here’s why that’s meaningful)
   • SOAR (Situation, Obstacle/Opportunity, Action, Resolution)
3. Bottom line: Does your story document change?
   • You learned something that made life easier, or helped you make sense of a situation, or gave you an insight that increased understanding
   • An “Aha” moment, a crucial piece of information that changed your perspective, or helped you reframe your experience
   • A funny or challenging situation that you figured out, survived, or got help resolving
4. Have you crafted a strong beginning and ending?
   • Beginning: You don’t have to announce what the story is about. Let the story do the work. Just start telling the story. (Announcing what the story is about is more like an essay or academic writing and can disempower your listeners and the story.)
   • Here are some tools to craft an ending:
     • After that I always . . .
     • After that I never . . .
     • That’s how I learned . . .
     • From that day on . . .
5. Do you know the most important or compelling “image” or visual moment in the story?
   • If not, think about it, decide, and develop that image for your listeners
6. Are you incorporating one or more of these best practices?
   • Body language
   • Facial expressions
   • Emotional resolution
   • Dialogue
   • Sensory information – size, temperature, color, sound, taste, smell, etc.
7. Can you tell it in 4-5 minutes?
   • Practice! With real people – not with the mirror.

*These two structures were developed by our mentor, Donald Davis.