If You Want to Be a Great Writer, Learn to Tell Stories
There's a distinct difference between a story that keeps your attention and one that murders it. Here's how to craft an engaging tale.
I don’t have the group picture from the day my dad visited my fraternity house at Oklahoma State University. It was awkward compared to the “Mom’s Day” photo we would snap a few months later. Not that it’s awkward to take pictures with my dad — we’re all smiles — but the “Dad’s Day” photo, which hung above my fraternity brother’s desk, along with a compilation of date party photos, looked anything but natural.
What you just read is the opening paragraph of my most viral article ever. In it, I talk about the misconceptions about masculinity in today’s culture, but that’s not the point. The point is that the article begins with a story and you’re left internalizing questions you didn’t even grasp were there. Men and women immediately connected with the opening paragraph because many of us grew up remembering the awkward family photos with dad. However, imagine if I had started my article stating “Dads always take awkward family photos.”
That’s a snooze fest, right?
The reason an opening like that sucks is because you’re trying to build common ground with an audience who doesn’t know you, and your introduction doesn’t create a connection. There’s no emotional buy in, you’re not interested in what happens next, and the author comes off more preachy than sincere. Effectively, you’ve killed your audience’s attention in one sentence.
Consider this instead. In late 2003, I stepped into a plywood building and stripped naked while a group of men in the corner conversed in hushed tones. I eyed them suspiciously, but stepped into the shower stall, anyway. Once I turned the shower handle, a jolt shot through my body. I seized as lukewarm water hit me, making the pain more intense.
“Fuuuuu fuuuuu fuuuuuuuuuu...” were the only words I managed to eke out as a chorus of laughter grew. I let go of the handle and fell to the ground, cold water running over my naked body and shriveling my bits. I lathered quickly, rinsed, and turned off the water by using a loofah to protect my hand from getting electrocuted again. As was common, the grounding wire had gone out again.
On the other side of the shower curtain, the other men were still laughing. I was about to curse them when the door opened and everyone fell silent. The base chaplain strode forward with a bar of soap and towel in hand.
Do you want to hear what happens next? Probably.
The story I just recounted is from my time in Afghanistan. While deployed overseas, we have chaplains to oversee our spiritual needs, but we turned the grounding wire going out into a prank and electrocuted the chaplain while proceeding to have a fake revival, where we exclaimed, “Praise the Lord! He’s got the Holy Ghost on him!” It’s a funny story I recount in more detail in my upcoming book, but—once more—imagine if I had recounted the tale by stating, “While I was in Afghanistan we had a funny incident happen where our base chaplain got electrocuted because the grounding wire went out on our showers.”
B-O-R-I-N-G.
If you read our freebie that went out when you signed up, you’ll know that stories are the special sauce that will help you craft better articles, novels, books, memoirs, screenplays, and even music. Why? Because stories are the one thing that unites us all and everyone has a story about something to tell.
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But on to the finer points of how to tell a great story.
One of the most important things you can do when recounting a story to engage your reader is utilize your five senses—touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. You want your reader to experience not just your emotions, but an environment they can step into while also picturing it in their mind. When crafting my memoir, I wanted people to grasp what war smelled like, so in the middle of recounting a firefight I state, “Gunpowder and the sickening smell of sewage mixed to create a putrid cologne that lingered over the outpost.” Immediately, you can smell that in your mind’s eye.
A word of warning, however. Don’t go overboard. While I absolutely adore The Lord of the Rings, the time JRR Tolkien spends on monotonous details about trees becomes distracting (and boring). Use punchy, short sentences to drive home the environment while placing your reader directly into the story. Have them become a passenger in the proverbial car you're driving while taking them on the adventure you recount. I promise you, if you make these minor improvements and adjustments, your writing will sing.
Plus, your audience might grow all because you learned how to tell a better story.
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