Have you ever had someone launch into a story that made you throw your hands up and say, “Wait, when and where did this happen?” or “Who was involved?”
It’s not because the story itself had no value. It’s because it wasn’t grounded. You were lost in time, space, and had no relation to the main character. It doesn’t matter if it was an anecdote about a weekend escapade or a novel. You need to anchor your audience in time and space.
And, more importantly, you need to make them care about the main subject of your story—your main character.
If people don’t care, they won’t stick around. This holds true for marketing stories as much as it does for screenplays, novels, or speeches.
When things happen to someone we don’t know, our capacity for empathy diminishes. It’s not that we don’t care at all, but there’s an absence of connection that stunts our ability to care.
How to Help Your Audience Care
If you want your audience to engage emotionally with your story (and you always should), help them.
Here are some ways to increase your audience’s (or client’s) empathy levels:
1. Ground them in time and space. Let them know when and where they are so they feel anchored. There’s nothing worse than feeling lost in a story, not knowing when or where you are or who is involved.
2. Give your story a face. Create a person (or reflect a real person in true stories) your audience can relate to. This means giving them flaws and depth. No superficial descriptions here. No stereotypes. But characters who reflect people—not pure evil or pure good. That’s not realistic. Give your character depth and complexity. Foibles and doubts. Traits that make them stand out and relatable.
3. Share the main character’s motivation or purpose. What drives them? How does the conflict or obstacle in your story hamper them? What I’m talking about are consequences. What is the impact of your story on your main character? What does it mean to them and for them? How does it affect their future efforts?
4. Allow your audience to immerse themselves in the story. This means writing in deep point of view (POV) filled with sensory language. Help your audience hear, see, and feel what is happening.
5. Have a point. Every story should exist for a reason. Why are you telling this story? What do you hope to accomplish? What’s the point?
Writing Stories Isn’t Hard
We tell stories all the time to friends, colleagues, audiences, clients, and strangers in line. It’s our default form of communication. But doing it all the time doesn’t always mean we know how to write stories.
That’s when we turn to “experts” who try to break it all down to its component parts and end up confusing everyone.
It’s just not that hard. Start small. Tell an anecdote using the tips above. As your stories grow in length, they will expand in complexity. A screenplay is far more complex than an anecdote for a speech, but they use the same parts (on some level).
Start small and build. Learn the different parts that combine to make the whole, but remember that those parts only work in concert. If you don’t integrate your description into your pacing or your tension with your dialogue, your story will feel awkward.
Take it slowly and write.
Writing is the only way to truly learn how to write. You can learn all the theory, but until you start using it, you won’t progress. It helps to have a guide along the way to point out what is working and what is not, but that can only happen if you have something on the page.
How to Begin
Start by writing stories you find every day. The odd guy in the parking lot dancing between the cars. The fox that ran by your window with a hot dog in his mouth (true story). Or the neighbor who smiled sweetly to your face but sent legal documents to your door threatening to sue you over trees (another true story).
Write the stories in your life or business (if you are a business writer). Focus on the people and how the story affects them. And remember, the smaller you go, the more universal your story becomes.
Now go write.
If you want a guide, consider booking a coaching session with me.