What Makes Your Audience Hold Their Breath?

Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.- David Hume

I finished my previous article by expressing my belief that if organisations want to get serious about storytelling at the workplace, then they must train their storytellers to express vulnerability.

There are additional considerations, of course; today I'll try and focus on a particular one.

If companies and their leaders want to use story to build an emotional connection with their audiences through vulnerability, the one trait that defines us as compassionate beings, then story ought to express tension, not just conflict.

Let me start with the latter, conflict. It is intrinsic to story. We are often told, ‘No conflict no story.’ Which is true. Without conflict, a narration ceases to be a story and becomes an anecdote, a slice-of-life, a vignette, a meme. All of which are about observation and reflection over a given setting or sequence of events.

Furthermore, conflict is, at its core, a clash of interests or goals. Read these two words again and it will become clear why conflict is considered the foundational pillar, if not the Holy Grail, of business storytelling. Companies use story to articulate conflict between their own mission and external factors—a competitor, a product, a disruption.

Avoid Predictability—at All Costs.

Let’s now look at tension. It’s the feeling, the impression, that something decisive but somehow undefined is about to happen. Tension builds suspense, anticipation, ambiguity—the things that not only earn your audiences’ attention but also make them hold their breath. Conflict is often used to describe external forces being at play, whilst tension is the device to express inner turmoil and struggle. In a single word: vulnerability.

I’m not suggesting that tension is above conflict. What I’m saying is that if they don’t work together then both become less effective. In the context of business storytelling, the absence of tension makes conflict sound flat, devoid of drama, predictable.

There are many ways in which companies can energise their business storytelling so that it builds the tension that makes conflict truly resonant at the emotional level.

Do Not Rush Towards the Conclusion

Companies often use the Three Act structure, or beginning-middle-end, as their preferred model for story. In principle, this structure works remarkably well because it’s intuitive, direct, and, above all, elegant.

Another reason why business storytellers favour the Three Act structure is that it helps them plan their fight against one of the most pressing factors in corporate settings: time management. In the battle between engaging the audience, and not exceeding the allotted time or word count, which one do you believe rises as the winner? The latter, of course.?

Therefore, business storytellers are pressed to hurry towards the conclusion (call it CTA or takeaway message, if you will) right after the climax or core conflict of the story. The issue here is that, in both business and private life, there is often a great deal of uncertainty after the climax and before the eventual resolution.

The Pyramid, the Arc, and the Cycle

The Three Act structure can be reinforced by incorporating a few, equally intuitive, storytelling devices.

The Freytag Pyramid, which takes its name from German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag, helps storytellers structure their line of thought to introduce suspense after the climax, instead of jumping right away onto the conclusion. The element of suspense is a great resource for building tension, for example through acknowledging the events or outcomes that might still happen even after the conflict seems to be resolved. The skilled storyteller will throw in ambiguity, unknown factors, foreshadowing, open questions, etc.—all those unsettling things that linger after the climax, at that precise moment when we have every reason to believe the Good Guys have won, but we are not certain about how the story will end.

The Emotional Arc structure is similar to the Three Act structure but zooms in on the emotions that permeate the story. Aristotle’s Poetics (ca. 335 BC) gave humankind the concept of catharsis. It’s an emotional release that restores hope. And it can be miraculous.?

Storytelling in corporate settings tends to focus on plot. For good reason: plot is and will always be crucial. Plot is “what happened” at its purest. Businesses and managers love that. However, plot on its own does not create an emotional baseline for the audience to hang on to.

The skilled storyteller will be mindful of this and write stories in which the element that glues the plot together, are emotions—not only actions. This is how the emotional baseline is built up. Get it right and, upon reaching the conclusion, the audience will not think “I am here now, I was there yesterday”, but rather say “This is how I feel now, that’s how I felt yesterday.”

The Story Cycle is another useful model, developed by Dan Harmon. You’ve probably heard of it. It’s a representation of the Hero’s Journey model that emphasises the cyclicality of the story, i.e. how we find ourselves in similar situations (not necessarily the same places) but now we assimilate them in a different way because a transformation has occurred.

The Story Cycle goes like this:?

1.????????????A character is in a zone of comfort.

2.????????????But they want something.

3.????????????They enter an unfamiliar situation.

4.????????????They adapt to it.

5.????????????They get what they wanted.

6.????????????They pay a heavy price for it.

7.????????????They return to their familiar situation.

8.????????????They have changed as a result of their journey.

I particularly like point 6. Paying the price is not a personal choice, or an external condition. It is inevitable. Incorporating the notion of a ‘hidden price’ into business storytelling is not something that organisations take lightly. Nonetheless, it is a narrative device that builds tension and makes any story more relatable.

In conclusion – The strategic contribution of corporate communications to organisations is to build and protect their reputation, and in so doing help them earn more trust and generate more business. Business storytelling is organisations’ secret weapon to build emotional rapport with their audiences. And to achieve that, organisations should explore story models and narrative techniques that go beyond the traditional Three Act structure in their search for both conflict and tension. Audiences will remember what surprised them.

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If you think I can help you and your team become better storytellers, contact me. I’d love to hear your story.