Specific Moments - Structuring Your Story with a Jaw-Dropping Moment!

One of the things that make stories so effective when structured and told well is they are memorable. What makes them memorable is framing and expanding on specific moments. Building out the 4 drivers of a story

Physical

Social

Personal

Inner

Making it real and relatable for your audience. It's all about finding that specific moment recounting in detail what drove the decision to make the choice. Here are several different structures you can use.

Here's the most popular structure - The Monomyth (also called the hero's journey), is a story structure that is found in many folk tales, myths and religious writings from around the world. It's also been the favorite and sometimes the only model used in many advertising campaigns.

In a monomyth, the hero is called to leave their home and sets out on a difficult journey. They move from somewhere they know into a threatening unknown place. After overcoming a great trial, they return home with a reward or newfound wisdom – something which will help their community. Lots of modern stories still follow this structure, from The Lion King to Star Wars.

Using the monomyth to shape your presentation can help you to explain what has brought you to the wisdom you want to share. It can bring your message alive for your client by centering them as the hero and yourself as the ‘guide’ like Yoda in Star Wars or Mufasa in Lion King.

Yet there are so many ways in and through a landscape of story so many richer and poignant ways to tell a story. Stories are a series of events that trigger choices that may be positive or negative but whichever direction they go they change our lives and move them forward. Don't get stuck in the rut of one story.

Here are several other ways to structure a story :

The False Start is a quick attention hack which will disrupt your audience's expectations and surprise them into paying closer attention to your message.

It opens up the possibility of Retroactive continuity is when a storyteller goes back and alters the 'facts' in their story. If you are a character in the story you're telling, you can use a false start to go back and retell your own story in a surprising way. JK Rowling talks about the gifts of failure in her Harvard commencement speech. She’d failed at everything but had this one idea so focused on it. Harry Potter was born. 

The Mountain structure is a way of mapping the tension and drama in a story. It's similar to the monomyth because it helps us to plot when certain events occur in a story. It's different because it doesn't necessarily have to have a happy ending. The first part of the story is given to setting the scene and is followed by just a series of small challenges and rising action before a climactic conclusion.

It's a bit like a TV series – each episode has its ups and downs, all building up to a big finale at the end of the season. It’s especially good for showing how you overcame a series of challenges, slowly building tension and delivering a satisfying conclusion. My Client whose violent marriage led her to have unnecessary knee surgery as she continued to shoulder the load in flat orthopedic shoes finally pulled the plug on Christmas Day and ran out of the house in her wellies with her rescue dog. We then follower her through a series of vignettes featuring different footwear (remember the metaphor to weave through like a gleaming detail from article 8?) Now she advises businesses on suicide prevention, started a dog rescue charity and wears beautiful high heeled shoes with ease. 

In Medias Res storytelling is when you begin your narrative in the heat of the action, before starting over at the beginning to explain how you got there.

By dropping your audience right into the most exciting part of your story they'll be gripped from the beginning and will stay engaged to find out what happens.

But be careful – you don't want to give away too much of the action straight away. Try hinting at something bizarre or unexpected – something that needs more explanation. Give your audience just enough information to keep them hooked, as you go back and set the scene of your story. Another Client who worked with me on their signature story had a job she hated but didn’t realise she how much she was sucking it up until a near-fatal car accident, when she fell asleep at the wheel, caused her to wake up! We started with the visceral image of blaring horn and sideswiping a car and realising with cold shaking fear how she had allowed her situation to numb her out to the extent she was sleepwalking through life. She then went back through and filled us in on how this dissent into blurrrrsville happened and how she dug her way out by allowing the thorns of what she hated about the job keep annoying her until she found a new one that brings her joy. The first episode of Breaking Bad does this exceptionally skillfully with the opening shot of a crazy Walt in his whitey-tighties at the wheel of an RV barreling down the road, breaking the serene silence of the desert. It leaves you guessing, wondering exactly what is going on, almost dizzy and disoriented by the whiplash of emotions, from fear to laughter to confusion to even sadness. In a way, the very beginning of Breaking Bad Season 1 is a perfect encapsulation of what the entire series was.

When skillfully held your story opens up possibilities and new perspectives. Stories with jaw-dropping moments. Ones we’re not even aware of until we tell them and receive the reaction of our listeners. Telling your story lead you to new discoveries about yourself. Your situation then becomes compelling enough to share. In every story, there is an Inciting Incident that radically upsets the balance forcing the protagonist (you) to change their life direction and move the narrative forward. Either negative or positive up or down your life, your story must progress, or you stagnate. 

A good business story is one that takes you and your listeners into the personal space between the big events and amplifies how and why you made the choices you did in the gaps. When you take time to reflect on these choices and how you came to make them, you come closer to the beating heart of your story and uncover your value and clarify your purpose – your WHY. It identifies exactly who you do it for –which helps to locate and focus your story on just the people who need to hear it. 

ACTION STEP

Take an experience of yours and apply the False Beginning structure by asking yourself this: What's the worst thing that happened and how did it turn into the best thing? Conversely, what was the best thing that turned into the worst thing?

Or

Dump us into the middle of the action and then fill in the particulars like building a jigsaw. 

Finally 

Take the same story and try it out in several different structures and see how different perspectives and elements are revealed.

Your Story Needs to be Heard! It is the matrix to use as content for your business communication, your brand, your life story is the most powerful tool you have. We need to hear your powerful story warts and all!

Watch this space for more information about a 6-week group incubator in September. Nail that PITCH and 3 essential stories every business needs to tell. I’ll be sharing highlights of content in a series of 30-minute webinars throughout August so be sure to stay tuned. SIGN ME UP

Get in touch and lets unpack your Signature Story! Yes Let's Talk