How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

by Meg Bowles

Through our stories, we are able to keep the people we love alive long after they leave us.

Question to self: And why is this important?

stories often follow one of the structures below.

CHRONOLOGICAL

TWO CHRONOLOGIES IN TANDEM

tethered

blotted

THE FLASHBACK

THE CLASSIC FLASHBACK

THE CLIFFHANGER

It was the first time it really sunk in that someone would try to hurt me for how I looked.

as I stood in front of the mirror and tied it, I questioned again, “Why can’t I just blend in?” But this time the answer came from within: Why try to blend in when you were born to stand out?

THE CALLBACK AS FRAMING

WHEN A SMALLER STORY CARRIES THE WEIGHT OF A LARGER STORY

As a storyteller, you should constantly ask yourself: What was unique to my experience? Why am I the only person who can tell this story? How can I best deliver my story to an audience who may not have lived through the same thing?

CHOOSING A UNIQUE LENS

THE BETTER TO TELL YOU WITH

dais

If takeoff is seamless and you know where you’re going, the story can feel like it’s telling itself.

Storytellers report that the story is the most fun once it has reached altitude, meaning the essential facts have been communicated and the landing spot is in sight.

Even though stories can be “teachable moments,” they should never feel that way. No need to tell the listener what they should think or take away from the story. Instead, keep it in your experience. How it changed you. How it made you feel.

The best endings are true to life. They should make your listener feel, understand, or relate to something without you having to tell them what that something is.

he gave me some very gentle warmth.

a kind of a calm love

the thing that has really affected me a lot is that he gave me back a sense of great self-worth.

when we can celebrate and truly own what it is that makes us different, we’re able to find the source of our greatest creative power.

When the main event is over, and we have the answer we need to resolve the story and complete your arc, you have only a few sentences to go. Choose a last line that your audience will remember, the thought that you want to reverberate with them well after you leave the stage.

Choose the opening and closing points of your story. Knowing where you begin and where you end will help you plot your course and define your arc.

UNSATISFYING ENDINGS… Feel too pat, perfect, or matchy-matchy. Are undefined or unresolved. (Never leave the audience wondering, What happened?) Tell the listener what to think. (No moral of the story is necessary. Tell us instead what you think and feel.) STRONG ENDINGS… Come to a definite stop without meandering. (You want to land your ending!) Are rooted in the change you experienced. Answer the central question or conflict of a story.

When you tell a story, you want to be able to really tell it, not recite it. If you memorize, you aren’t remembering your story as it happened, you’re recalling what you wrote down and you’re less present in the room. You risk losing the connection with the listener.

Many of us have been taught to be a formalized version of ourselves when “presenting.” To tell a great story, you’ll have to let some of that go. While it may seem counterintuitive to prepare in order to be more casual, it is the key to your confidence on stage. Stick with the voice of the real you—the backyard-in-jeans you, as opposed to the suit, tie, and Spanx you.

We know we just told you that it’s best to never memorize. But there’s one exception to this rule. The only things we suggest you memorize—and we stress, the only things—are the first and last lines of your story. Knowing your first line allows you to start strong out of the gate. Most people are quite nervous when taking the stage. When you know your first line, it can help you push through the nerves and anchor your story.

Bushwhack

I jumped into the cab, and the driver was chuckling in the front seat. He told me that he had witnessed the kiss and it looked really good. I said, “No, it was not good, it was awkward,” and I told him the story of how this had been my first first date in fifteen years and it was all too much. The driver introduced himself as Pablo and told me that he himself had been on a sabbatical from dating, and then he told me all his theories on dating as he drove me home to Harlem. When we got to my building, he turned off the meter and we talked for another forty-five minutes, all the while holding hands between that little window. And I wish I could tell you this was the night I fell in love with Pablo, the wise man of the New York City taxi fleet. It wasn’t, but it really did feel like the universe put Pablo in my path to make it a little easier for me to move forward.

Mother also used to say, “Beware of other people. They won’t understand you. We’re different. We’re artists.”

tell your story at the pace you’d use to talk with friends over dinner. See how long it takes so you get an understanding of your natural cadence. Later, consider the time frame you’ve been given and make edits from there.

In live storytelling, you have more freedom to play with tenses than you do on the page. In general, when people talk, they jump back and forth between tenses. Most people do this naturally, so don’t get too caught up in overthinking it. But as a storyteller, you can use tense deliberately, as a tool to help define or shape moments in your story.

many great storytellers play with tense to draw the audience in. They might start out in the past tense, but then switch to the present tense at a crucial moment of drama so we’re right there with them. The present tense can be used like a zoom lens in film, bringing you right into the heart of the action and indicating to the audience that this part is important, so they should pay special attention.

curlicues

erudition

expungable

Gesticulating

CAREFUL NOT TO OVERHYPE A MOMENT. Avoid saying things like “And then the most amazing thing happened” or “And then she said the most hilarious thing.” Often when you set something up as being the most anything, it somehow falls flat. The listener is like, That’s not THAT amazing. It’s not THAT hilarious. It comes down to human nature. People don’t really like to be told what to think. When you set something up like this, the listener instantly goes, I’ll be the judge of that! If you drop the declaration and just say the actual thing, nine times out of ten your listener will think it’s the most hilarious or amazing thing!

avoid these phrases: As you can imagine…Can we? It goes without saying…Does it? You understand…Do I?

Garish.

Compelling storytellers create an intimacy that can make a room feel small just by their ability to make individual connections. When you share a story with 3,000 people, you want the listener to forget the other 2,999 people in the room and feel like you’re sharing the story with only them.

At The Moth, our setup is deceptively simple: We always have one mic, kept on the stand. The microphone grounds the storyteller. The single storyteller on stage grounds the audience. No props, no set, no PowerPoint graphics, no light changes. There are no production elements to lean on, and that’s on purpose. We want the tellers and their stories to speak for themselves.

We’ve noticed that people who handle the mic with ease or rock it back and forth are perceived as pros. The audience thinks, Oh, this is a performance or worse yet, He’s going to try to sell me a vacuum cleaner at the end. When you invite the audience into the world of your story, it’s important that they feel the story is coming from your heart and not part of a routine.

Nerves often arise when people worry about screwing up their story. But we have good news: The only way to really fail is to think there is only one right way to tell your story. You have all the answers. You are the only person who can tell it with authority!

Noreen Riols

“courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the willingness—the guts, if you like—to face the fear.”