How to Become a Great Storyteller

The art of storytelling is a tool you can use in your daily life. Even if you're not an offer. It is helpful in any field you engage in. It helps you to market yourself better. Become more interesting around people and increase their engagement.

Storytelling is an art like any other art. Maybe you are born with natural talent but if not it's a skill you can develop.

Storytelling is actually the ability to take any event interesting or boring and turn it into an amazing story. Stories you create with your imagination will usually contain a conflict a message or a punch but stories from our daily life are not always like that, however, we can still tell them in a different more interesting way.

The most important thing to do when you tell a story is to create a whole scene so the listener can imagine a picture in their head and fill what's going on make them feel the atmosphere of your story and create tension so the other person can't wait to know what's going to happen next.

Let's review an example I'll tell you the same story in two different ways so you'll see the difference.

A few months ago I went to a festival with my friend. It was raining on the first day and we couldn't assemble our tents, everything was full of water, so we slept inside a yoga room.

The weather has gotten better from the second day on. I participated in many different workshops, meditation, therapy, self-improvement lectures, and more, and I learned a lot of things.

There was always more than one workshop at a time so you can choose which one to go to. Sometimes I didn't want to participate in any workshops, so I read a book.

You get to connect with people faster than usual and everyone is so happy and relaxed. It was a short experience only five days but it was meaningful and I still apply these things I've learned there in my everyday life.

Well, it's not that bad but let's see a much better version.

A few months ago I went to a festival with my friend. It seemed like a nice and sunny day, but a moment we got there -  heavy rain started falling on us.

Luckily we didn't assemble our tents yet, because those who did had to fold them back up. We ended up sleeping on a mattress inside a yoga room with many other people, but it was actually fun -  we made some new friends.

The next day the weather got better and I could participate in different workshops like meditation, therapy, self-improvement lectures, and more.

In each one of them, I found something. I could relate to or something new to learn. The beautiful thing about this festival is that you connect with people so much faster, everyone came there to relax and enjoy, so it's a nice break from the daily routine.

I never noticed such a short experience, only five days, could leave a huge impact, and I still apply the things they've learned there in my everyday life.

There is a clear difference between these two versions.

On the first one, I focused more on technical details, well, on the second one, it created a whole scene. You could actually picture it in your mind, so instead of telling only details of what happened pay attention also to the setup.

Do you remember a time when a friend told you if something had happened to him and elaborated in a video too much mentioned so many unimportant things and you just wanted him to get to the point?

Sorry, but most of your story is not that interesting for others as you think. Pick the most important details of what happened. The highlights of your story. Pay attention to the reaction and body language of this person standing in front of you, so you can tell if they're engaged or if you should cut some of the details, shorten your story and get to the point faster.

I'm not going to talk about the structure of the story or how you should write it because I believe it kills creativity. The internet is full of how to write tips but there are so many different structures that work like the chronological sequence of events, starting the story from the beginning, and slowly revealing more and more details to everything connect.

Starting to tell the story from the end and then tell what are the events that have led to it and many more good structures so don't limit yourself. What matters is the core of the story, the content of the way you tell it so anyone can become a storyteller if they want to.

Here is the practical exercise you can do right now. Pick an event that's happened to you in the past week. Write down everything that happened and include as many details as you can.

After you finish choose the most important details and remove the unimportant ones. Rewrite your story. Don't forget to create a scene and make it sound interesting.

You can rewrite it and change sentences as many times as you need. Even the best authors rewrite all the time. It's okay the first stories are not that great. If you keep practicing you will improve.