Storytelling: How to Emotionally Engage Your Audience

A Story is an Emotional Experience

Laughter, tears, exhilaration and inspiration: we all experience them in the stories we read, see and hear. This is not an accident. Stories have evolved, over thousands of years, to engage audiences emotionally, to hook them, keep them hooked, and be talked about for generations to come. Livelihoods and lives have depended on it, from the oral storytellers of antiquity to the multi-media behemoths of today. It feels like magic, but it isn't.

Just like the 12 stages of the Hero's Journey - set out in my last article - there's an emotional structure to a story. Each stage is more than an opportunity for you, the storyteller, to communicate information; it's an opportunity to tell your audience how to feel about that information. With the right emotional beats, you can optimize your message and unlock irresistible powers of persuasion. Here's how:

Stage 1: The Real World

What happens: A story involves a transformation. Beginning in The Real World, it shows the Hero in his/her initial context. Change is needed but how/if that change can be implemented is not clear.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should feel the frustration of the Hero and quickly appreciate the need for change.

Stage 2: Call to Adventure

What happens: Although how the change is implemented is not clear, the final needed/desired outcome begins to emerge - at least in broad strokes - and is set out in this stage of the story.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should be excited at the opportunity to disrupt the status quo, inspired by the final outcome set out by you, the storyteller, and confident that the Hero is the best person to take on the task.

Stage 3: The Refusal of the Call

What happens: Emphasizing the gap between what is and what could be, the task ahead of the Hero appears substantial - almost impossible, but not quite.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should have a palpable sense of the scale of the task ahead and feel daunted for the Hero.

Stage 4: Meeting the Mentor

What happens: The mentor needn't be an active character in the story, as long as s/he/it equips the Hero to complete the task. It could be the arrival of a new resource (information/tool/person) or an inspiration that spurs the Hero into action - possibly a story of another individual/group of individuals who achieved something the same/similar.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should feel heartened, while still wondering how/if the task can be accomplished in line with the vision of the final outcome set out in the Call to Adventure.

Stage 5: Crossing the 1st Threshold

What happens: The Hero is spurred into action and goes beyond a point of no return. This stage could also incorporate the overcoming of an obstacle e.g. buy-in from a skeptical stakeholder who has finally been convinced by the Hero's vision.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should feel that the Hero has no choice but to move forward. If they're wondering what the big deal is and whether there's really going to be a return on effort then the story will not be effective and revisions of the previous stages will be necessary. If an obstacle has been overcome by the Hero then your audience should be impressed by the Hero's resourcefulness.

Stage 6: Tests, Allies & Enemies

What happens: Increasingly difficult challenges are faced; mistakes are made and overcome; relevant resources are organised towards the outcome: information/tools/people.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should understand how the Hero is setting about her/his task: how resources are being used, the strategy/approach and how/why it's being implemented. They should be impressed by this approach and become optimistic that the desired outcome can be reached.

Stage 7: Approach to the Inmost Cave

What happens: The greatest obstacle to achieving the desired outcome (anticipated or unanticipated) is encountered/perceived/understood: obstacles could include technical challenges, interpersonal conflict, curve balls from stakeholders, shifting/conflicting priorities or deadlines. The Hero will experience doubt about his/her ability to complete the task and will need to reflect on/plan for what lies ahead.

What your audience should feel: Your audience should understand the difficulty of the task and wonder how it can ever be accomplished. They should also be interested to hear high-level details of any planning that was undertaken - as long as it's relevant to the rest of your story.

Stage 8: The Ordeal

What happens: This is the 1st major confrontation for the Hero with the main challenges s/he is setting out to overcome or has encountered along the way. This stage could include a seemingly decisive failure/obstacle

What your audience should feel: In addition to relating the 1st major confrontation for the Hero, this is the 1st major test of your storytelling. If the preceding stages have hit the right emotional notes, your audience will be hanging off your every word, emotionally invested in the efforts of your Hero, and willing him/her to succeed.

Stage 9: The Seizing of the Sword

What happens: Good news! Your Hero survived The Ordeal, and feels pretty good about it. Here, the Hero gains the momentum/resources/new mindset needed to complete his/her task. The Hero's evolution is complete and s/he now has everything needed to achieve the desired goal. Although challenges and hard work still lie ahead, this can be a decisive moment in your story.

What your audience should feel: This is a positive emotional beat. In many stories, this is the moment when the Hero finally acquires that which s/he has been seeking all along. It can be an almost euphoric moment in which your audience may like to reflect on how far the Hero has come.

Stage 10: The Road Back

What happens: This is the beginning of the final act of your story and is usually the relating of the final challenge/obstacle for the Hero to overcome. It can be a dramatic scene that goes right down to the wire: for example, although the Hero now knows how the task must be completed, a deadline is fast approaching and extraordinary measures must be taken to succeed.

What your audience should feel: This is it. Squeaky bum time. Will they make it? What's going to happen? I can't even look right now!

Stage 11: Resurrection

What happens: All the Hero's efforts have paid off and the goal has been achieved. It could be as dramatic as a last-minute plucking of success from the jaws of failure or it could be as contemplative as the recognition of one's reality and the use of the power to change that reality.

What your audience should feel: This is the emotional climax of your story and your audience needs to have a cathartic experience that will endure long after you have left the room. 

Stage 12: Return with Elixir

What happens: The transformation needed at the start of your story has now been completed. That vision set out in your Call to Adventure has become a reality. The Hero has finally returned to his/her comfort zone to find that it has changed and expanded, just like s/he has changed and expanded. This is an opportunity to quantitatively articulate the scale of achievement i.e. before we began this process, we were achieving x results; now we are able to increase this to y.

What your audience should feel: More than anything, your audience has to feel that the effort and investment your Hero applied to accomplishing this goal was worth it - this will be helped by quantifying the achievement as emphatically as possible. They must also feel that their time was well spent listening to your story.

Plan for Emotional Outcomes

People love hearing stories but attention spans are short. If your audience is not emotionally engaged, they may forget you entirely or, worse, feel you've wasted their time. If, however, you can keep your audience emotionally engaged at every stage of your story, they will remember, reflect on, and talk about you and your message - a big success! Before planning your story, try thinking about the emotional outcome you want to achieve and working back from there.

Next Time

My next article will focus on how to depict characters in your story. The following articles will then put the structure, emotional experience and character depiction together to set out unique story templates

Happy to Help

Would you like to discuss how to apply a Hero's Journey structure to your stories? DM me and we can schedule a time to chat.