Use this as a guideline, but please keep in mind that we all think our stories are far more interesting than others do. Unless people are always telling you how interesting and hilarious you are, try to stick roughly to the proposed sentence limits. The worst is to have someone walk away in the middle of your story with some vague excuse, because your story was endless and they wanted to escape the monotony. Far better to leave your listener wanting more.
1. Set the stage with no more than ONE SENTENCE of background.
People write about conflicts in the Middle East in one topic sentence in the New York Times, so you can certainly give only one sentence about why that woman at work went totally off the wall after her fiancee dumped her. Example: “So, at work there’s this woman who was always talking about how awesome her fiancee was, and then he dumped her.”
2. Talk about how everyone in the story was feeling, and use examples that help your listeners visualize the incident.
People cannot connect to your topic unless there are emotions involved. Facts are not going to draw your listener in to your anecdote. You must try to put yourself in the shoes of whoever you’re speaking about, whether it is Barack Obama or that woman at work. Use multiple emotion words here. No more than three sentences. You don’t want your listener’s attention to start wandering when you drone on. Example: “She was devastated. She kept crying at her desk and calling her friends and crying to them too. She kept taking her engagement ring off and then putting it back on.”
3. Talk about how YOU felt about the incident and its relationship to anything you ever experienced.
Otherwise it’s like you’re just a reporter. Your listener wants to connect with you, and know what you think and feel. Three sentences. Example: “I felt so heartbroken for her. It reminded me a lot of when I got dumped senior year by my boyfriend of four years. I wanted to curl up and never leave my dorm room.”
4. Conclude with the relevance of the story to whatever you were talking about.
Relate the story to both you and your listener, thereby connecting you and your listener even more. You want to express emotion here too, especially if you and your listener are sharing the same emotion. This is your last chance to connect here, so make it count. Two sentences, but hopefully you’ll end up saying more because your listener will jump in to share her own thoughts and feelings too. Then a conversation will be sparked, which is the real goal. Example: “So really, it made me think of what you said the other day, that you’re lucky to be single right now and to be enjoying that phase of your life. I feel the same way!” If you keep these tips in mind, and practice a few times the next time you’re around other people, you’ll be telling an interesting story in no time. And then you’ll be beating off potential friends and dates with a stick, you social butterfly, you. Featured photo credit: interesting story via huffingtonpost.com
