Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers s*ck.

You wanna know so badly what happens next but the show just won’t tell you. You’ll have to come back for the next episode. Which you’ll do.

Is there a moment in your communication where you could do the same? Where you could stop and your audience would be super excited and super frustrated at the same time because they need to know badly how the story unfolds?

If you stopped there, would they come back for the next episode?

If not then what could be a piece of information that does the job?

You don’t actually stop, of course, but you’ll have your audience glued to your lips.

“How long?”

“How long?”, she asks the doctor.
Immediately, we’re right in the middle of a story.

Which is typical for modern movies. It’s one of the aspects in which storytelling in movies has changed significantly over the past few decades.

The average early 90s movie is hard to bear for many teenagers because they started soooo sloooowww. Part of the reason was that filmmakers back then felt the need to start as early as possible so we would have the back story to understand what was going to happen later.

Today’s movies (and TV shows) are very different. They will start as late as possible, ideally right in the middle of the action … at the most captivating event.

And they will give us only exactly the pieces that we absolutely need to understand the action. They make us care first, before they inform us. If, at some point, we would need backstory to understand what’s happening, modern movies will give it to us at that point, a point where we absolutely need that piece of information to be able to follow along.

This makes for a much more tense story.

Actually, today’s most brilliant filmmakers push that principle even further. They will make sure that we want a piece of information, before they finally give it to us. They make us curious for the backstory.

In contrast, yesterday’s filmmakers considered backstory as pure information. Often, they would give us the information before we wanted it, just to make sure that we had it when we needed it.

How about your own communication? How do you treat background information? Are you starting your presentation with it? If so, can you re-structure your storytelling in a way that you’re giving the backstory at a point when your audience is dying to learn it?

The perfect first sentence

The perfect first sentence is the one that makes your audience want to read or hear the second one.

Sounds trivial, but is it?

I mean, just look around – let’s say at a couple of speeches you listened to recently. How did these begin?

How did yours begin?

Just because every other speech begins by going through the agenda, yours doesn’t have to.

Curiosity

Many presenters tell their audience everything but fail to make them curious for anything.

It’s exactly the other way around: Start from curiosity and ignore everything else at the beginning. If you manage to tap into your audience’s curiosity, they will follow you down that rabbit hole. Wanting you to tell them more. Ever more. Until you’ve told them everything.

Sadly, most presentations turn that on its head. They hope to make people curious for something by telling them everything. Which rarely works. If only because most people have long tuned out before they’ve reached their point of interest.

So, what would make your audience curious to know more?

PS: If you’re unsure about how to do this, an instant clarity call can help.

Fake tension vs. real tension

Bad newspapers lead with fake tension.
Great newspapers lead with real tension.
What’s the difference?

Fake tension is created by holding information back.
Real tension is created by the information itself.

Here’s an example:

A. Scientists made a sensational discovery. Click to learn why space as we know it is about to change.

B. Scientists were able to create a wormhole in the lab. Read on to learn the story behind the discovery.

The first version doesn’t tell me what’s so sensational. I’ll have to click to find out. Most of the time, I’ll be disappointed because, well, wormholes aren’t the usual reveal. More often than not, what the writer called sensational, turns out to actually be lame to me.

The second version does tell me what’s sensational. The crucial difference, though, is that it trusts the reader to judge this. It doesn’t pretend to know better than me what I find sensational. It trusts me with that decision.

The problem with fake tension is that it easily becomes addictive for the writer. Because it works. At least for a while. People do click to find out. Which makes it appear as though the readers appreciate that kind of writing.

Real tension, however, is a lot harder to create. Because it requires empathy. What is it that my readers are actually interested in?

But when you consistently figure that out, not only do you get rid of fake tension. But because you deliver on your promise of real tension, you create trusted long-term relationships.

So, what do your customers actually find sensational? What creates real tension for them?

Audience responsibility

One of the newer trends on LinkedIn is to tease a post with a provocative statement and then use some blank lines so that you need to click on read more to get to the reveal.

It works.

Until it stops working.

Which happens when audiences will have learnt that the tension that was created by the statement is usually just fake tension. That more often than not the reveal isn’t really worth it.

Which is when the next trend will take over.

That works.

Until it stops working.

Because audiences will have learned that the tension that was created by the trend is usually just fake tension.

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Audiences are just as much responsible for great communication as are the communicators. What gets applause, will get amplified.

If you decide that fake tension is not worth amplifying, you shouldn’t applaud it.

The storytelling difference

There’s a huge difference between telling stories DURING a speech and telling a story WITH your speech.

Most storytelling advice aims at the former. It helps you tell anecdotes and share experiences effectively.

But too often it stops there. It’s used to decorate the communication or hammer home a point.

But the most compelling pieces of communication go way beyond that. They don’t merely tell stories. They turn the whole piece into a compelling story that takes the audience on a profound journey.

Interestingly, professional speakers often excel at the former but fail at the latter. They are super good at sharing experiences and telling anecdotes to hammer home a point. But way too often their speech as a whole lacks a compelling structure and a clear story arc.

Keep reading

Here’s a simple truth that great authors understand:
We start reading. Then we keep reading.

In other words: The story unfolds. Step by step.

Specifically, a story is not told by dumping everything the author knows at once. We don’t learn the backstory of the hero on page 1. We learn it when we’re ready to learn it … when it’s exactly the information that keeps us reading.

Looking at storytelling through that lens means that it might be simpler than most storytelling frameworks suggest. Basically, we face two challenges:

  1. We need to get our audience’s attention.
  2. We need to keep it.

Specifically, we don’t need to tell our audience everything at once. We only need to make them keep reading. (Or listening. Or watching.)

The good news is that this starts with the simple skill of listening. The better you listen, the better you’ll be able to understand what resonates so strongly that it will get – and keep – your audience’s attention.

The complete picture

Many communicators struggle with the challenge to convey a complete picture of their topic to their audience. After all, it’s quite a complex topic to understand if you care for the details. Also, your product is a masterpiece of craftsmanship.

Yet, the actual challenge might be much simpler than that.

Because effectively, all you need to do is to tell me one thing that makes me curious to hear the next thing.

When you’ve achieved that, all you need to do is to tell me one more thing that makes me curious to hear the third thing.

Step by step.

When you do this repeatedly, eventually you’ll have told me everything but it doesn’t feel nearly as tedious as we’re used to from the usual approach to communicating.

When you want me to understand the complete picture of your idea, the challenge is not to tell me everything.

The challenge is to figure out what’s the one thing that makes me want to know more.

If you want me to get the complete picture, get me to want the complete picture. A much simpler approach. And much more related to what matters to your audience rather than to yourself.

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Dr. Michael Gerharz