Let's dive into some important guidelines for storytellers, focusing on what you should never do. These are pitfalls to avoid, as they can lead to trouble, unethical situations, or simply leave your audience feeling bored and uncomfortable.
5 Pitfalls...
One) Lies - First and foremost, honesty is paramount when sharing stories about real people, whether it's about yourself or others. Tempting as it may be to embellish the narrative, it's never worth compromising the truth.
People have a way of seeing through falsehoods, and being called out can damage your credibility. Additionally, you never know if someone in your audience has heard a similar story before and can detect the deception.
Two) Tangents - Another pitfall to steer clear of is wandering off on tangents that detract from the main plot of your story. Some people have a tendency to veer off track, feeling compelled to explain every minute detail with unrelated stories.
This not only bores and frustrates the audience, but also dilutes the main message or point you intended to convey. Instead of remembering the key takeaway, people will recall the irrelevant information you shared.
Three) Not reading the room - Adapting your stories to different audiences is important if you share them across various groups and niches, both in professional and social settings. It's crucial to make appropriate adjustments based on the audience you're addressing.
The same story you tell in one niche such as weight loss might be relevant to another space like finance, but only if you adapt it to the audience. Both of those spaces care about motivation and triumph, but the details you really choose to focus on might differ.
Another example would be avoiding inappropriate or overly explicit stuff that might be acceptable among friends but unsuitable for a professional context, when you know you are speaking to a large audience (such as an email list.)
Four) Losing the Balance - Maintaining the right level of intensity is vital for both public speaking and storytelling. Striking a balance is key, neither sounding too monotonous nor excessively hyperactive. Both extremes can be distracting and disconcerting for your audience.
If you sound disinterested, your listeners will mirror that sentiment and lose interest. Conversely, being overly energetic can divert attention from the story itself, with people focusing more on your behavior rather than the narrative.
The same applies for video, only you don’t have a live audience to get instant feedback from. With video though, the advantage is analytics. You can see when people give up on your videos. You can usually gauge things with the comment section as well.
These ideas and concepts translate to the written word as well. If you get overly descriptive with your storytelling you can lose people in the details. Now they are thinking about your descriptions instead of following the journey.
Another example would be speaking over their heads. It is said that most adults read at about an 8th grade level. If you are spending too much of your time writing at a higher level than that, then you might be boring them to death by speaking over their heads.
Nobody is going to be impressed with your big words and nobody likes to feel stupid. They are going to give up and stop reading it.
Five) No resolution - In storytelling, especially storytelling designed to persuade someone to do something, it’s important that you have some kind of resolution. It doesn’t need to be a happy ending all the time, however, you should always be able to pull a lesson or a takeaway out of that story for your audience. That’s online and offline.
As we embark on our exploration of effective storytelling, let's keep these pitfalls in mind. By avoiding these mistakes, we can create engaging narratives that captivate our audience and leave a lasting impact.
I hope you will reflect on these 5 pitfalls and join me in my next post to talk about five uses for storytelling in business. Until then...
May your magic guide you always
Mystic Marketer
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