How do you present your storytelling work?

Crafting a captivating storytelling presentation demands strategic clarity. Define your purpose - inform, inspire, or advocate. Frame your narrative relatably and engage with your audience. Structure with anticipation, employ vivid imagery, and relatable characters. Evoke emotions aligned with your purpose, master pacing, and incorporate multimedia judiciously. Inject authenticity, conclude reflectively, and iterate for refinement. Merge these techniques to amplify your storytelling's creativity, craftsmanship, and impact.

Presenting your storytelling work effectively involves combining both the substance of your story and the way you convey it. Craft a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience’s emotions and interests. Use vivid language, well-developed characters, and engaging plotlines. To showcase your creativity, consider creating a portfolio or website that features your best stories along with your thought process, inspirations, and behind-the-scenes insights. Incorporate visuals, such as images or illustrations, to enhance the visual appeal and immerse the audience further. Lastly, highlight the impact of your stories by sharing testimonials or anecdotes that demonstrate how your storytelling has influenced or connected with people.

When I am finding the story I want to tell, here's what I do: 1. What is the lesson or take-away I want my audience to understand at the end of the story. (Why am I telling it in the first place?) 2. When did I learn that lesson? Or...when can I show someone else learning that lesson. The key is deciding your message then finding the moment when someone (ideally you) went from not understanding that lesson to "getting it".

Actually, I think I often use a mixture of the approaches mentioned here. I definitely want to inform. I would consider educate to be similar but I always aim to entertain and often persuade. Perhaps speakers need a selection of purposes to appeal to the varied selection of people that make up their audience.

Storytelling in simple words should have beginning with a hook, middle with drama and end with call to action or some intended message/messages for the audience to take home or to heart! Don’t fall for format perfection in the start. Just try to capture the story first. Also, follow KISS ( keep it short and simple.)

Don't get distracted by the format questions too soon. First, understand the story...what's the before, what changed, what's the after? Then once you understand the story, you can adapt it, shorten it, make it more detailed, make a video, draw a series of cartoons, record a spoken word version. The story is first, then the format.

I would suggest that don’t fall for the format in the beginning. First get a solid grip of the story and then decide which format suits you the best and also the one one on which you are most comfortable. In case you wish to experiment with format, then give ample time to yourself to get comfortable with it and then practise the format.

I can say that pivoting from live storytelling to recorded audio, and then later to live virtual storytelling has shown me that format is actually relevant. The listener wants the story, and the teller would do well to consider their experience, whether they are listening only, watching from afar, in the same room while a hybrid platform is used, all the details. Empathy and reading the room - even if the room exists nonlocally and in the future - has been useful to me.

To know the right format you need to know your "Audience First". If your audience is inclined to reading then use a blog, articles, ebooks, etc. If they prefer video then a livestream, edited video or short video is advised. But there are audiences that prefer a combinations like live webinars, quick quizzes, supplemental articles. By using an integrated approach on how you present your story. Choosing the right format to your audience initially will help you segment your audience further.

In my experience I think it’s important to craft our stories around what is the key takeaway for our audience. Ask yourself “What is the point?” When we develop our story around our key point it ensures that we don’t meander into tangents and we leave the audience with a valuable takeaway.

You are already using the basic principles in crafting your narratives from a clear topic, a hook, resolution to a conflict and your story delivery-style. Adding to this would be the tools you are going to use (this is just a supplement but will turn leads to customers). There are available tools in market that would help you make a more compelling narrative. The tools that you can use must be based on the type of (reader) audience you are targeting either in words, visuals or better combination of both. These tools will help you make your message pop and make it more interesting to your audience. Turning them to your ambassadors to share your content to their respective peers and networks.

I do think there are more variables to add to the "crafting narrative" stage of development. We tend to put all our ducks into the content pond, when there is so much narrative happening with gestures and presence and facial expression - even touch if that is a part of your storytelling. Vocality is key, yes - but so is the way you stand. Coherence in crafting your narrative is important, in my opinion: lining up all the different streams of communication - verbal and nonverbal - can be rocket fuel to your storytelling.

We are often so focus in honing and crafting our narrative that we forget that we also need to focus on delivery. One great way to rehearse is to record yourself on the phone. When you review your video - turn off the sound and watch your body language and facial expression. Then play it again and this time don’t look at the video just listen to the sound. Pay attention to your intonation, pacing, etc. Noting and observing this makes it easier to review your delivery and improve your performance in telling the story.

Use the practice stage to plan when you will pause, to experiment with varying your pitch and pace, and to adapt your tone to engage and connect emotionally with your audience. Practise and polish the opening, the transitions from slide to slide and the conclusion as a minimum. If you can find a trusted collegaue to listen to a run through, it will help to appreciate other perspectives and some of the challenges you might face from your audience - it is always helpful to prepare for questions.

Here's the part that I find most presenters and speakers forget: the content is only 10%. The rest is how you speak, how you stand, how you gesture, the look on your face, the environment around you and your appearance. I don't wan't to sound like I'm promoting that all these variables be polished, instead I think they just need to be considered and placed in alignment with the content.

To get feedback and evaluate your impact, tou can share your story to a friend or colleague and ask: What did you like? (Verbal / non verbal) What was unclear ? (Content) What would you like to hear more of? (Content) What did it make you know/ feel/think/do?

Engagement is Key. After every story you present. Always ask for feedback this will help you improve your storytelling and learn more about your audience. Engagement is better applied with data analysis. If you have some insights on your articles or videos and through feedback. Then you can identify areas to improve or simply what works that you can apply to other works.

Having a colleague video tape your presentation and you then studying your delivery can be extremely helpful. You can quickly identify strengths and weaknesses in your organization and performance.

It's important to have a concrete evaluation but one of my favourite ways to evaluate is one that would never pass the scientific method. Listen as the audience files out. Are they thoughtful? Talking with each other about your topic? Then you've managed to connect with them and they were truly listening. Are they silent and anxious to leave? Their minds were somewhere else and you didn't manage to connect.

Repetition, repetition, repetition. Discipline and practice are the foundation of growth in any field. I’ve found videoing my talks and rewatching it with a critical eye is a great way to reshape my approach to storytelling.

Take a class, try things out. Choose what you will practice and leave time for it. Separate your learning into playing and refining. Play and allow yourself to swing big and fail. As much as possible, don't refine, just discover the possibilities. Then refine. Select the best, clearest, emotionally resonate bits, cut away sloppy technique and polish the unclear until you feel comfortable with the end product. Find someone whose opinion you trust to test it out. Ask concrete questions: Was anything confusing? Boring? Exciting? What was your favourite part? Your least favourite part? Focus on how well you are communicating what you intended to communicate instead of dwelling on what someone may think of you personally.

I do agree with Ashwin - practice over preparation. Keep practicing. Tell yourself stories. People don't blink an eye because they think you are on your phone. Just keep doing it out loud and get better with every telling.

I find that a combination of fun, facts and feelings makes for the perfect recipe to have an engaged audience in your storytelling. Emotions touched the heart, facts reached the head and the fun or humour keeps audience engaged. One of the most important things we can learn to do is to tap into our personality and share from that place. Too often we try to orate in someone else’s style and this generally comes across as stiff and inauthentic. Be you. Everyone else is taken.

Storytelling works in multiple ways to grow ourselves, have a solid brand, build executive presence and have a successful negotiation with a stakeholder. Based on the purpose and the audience, our content, delivery and closing need to be designed to optimise the influence. I teach these skills as essential leadership skills to possess in this time.