Storytelling Bites 13: To Script or Not To Script.

Storytelling is a wonderful thing.

Or rather, Storytelling is many wonderful things, one of which is its malleability to best serve you, your message, and your audience’s ability to receive it.

You’d be mistaken for worrying that without scripting, every story has the danger of becoming a shaggy dog one that meanders down blind alleys, being beguiled by and then following every red herring that popped into view, never really getting to the point and when it did, having forgotten a crucial detail so nothing makes much sense.

That’s certainly not the case.

One reason a good storyteller doesn’t learn a script off by heart is because they’d rather spend time working on the purpose, structure and descriptive detail of their content. For them, it’s far better to know the meaning they are trying to get the words to spark in their listener than the order in which those words go.

Another is that many messages are shared more than once, and their audience won’t be the same twice, so however perfectly you prepare a script on a topic, the next time you talk about it will either be to different people (who know more, or less, about the subject); to the same people (who loved it and want more, or didn’t get it and don’t want it repeated verbatim); at a different time (we’re all in a different listening zone just after lunch Friday compared to mid-morning Tuesday); a different setting (three of your team over a coffee has few similarities to the board as item 23 on a packed agenda); newbies vs old hands; clients vs suppliers; the list could go on forever.

So a good storyteller works not on a script, but on continuously building two relationships, and through those two, creating fertile ground for the crucial third one to grow.

The first relationship is between the storyteller and their subject. What do they think and feel about it? What do they want to achieve by sharing it? How would they describe aspects of it? By reflecting on this relationship, they gain far more information at their fingertips than they plan to use at any telling. An audience is confident and listens more openly to the teller if they are on top of your material and have clarity in its sharing

The second relationship they work on is with their audience. The better they get on with, respect and trust the storyteller, the more likely they are to believe what you say and want to take part in their mission.

That’s when the storyteller chooses the story that will best land the information they have, with the audience in front of them. A different story, or a different version, with every audience even when sharing the same message.

And this happens even if they haven’t had a chance to already build a relationship with this audience. Storytelling helps them out of that hole too by looking out for the signals being shared in real time. When are the audience listening? When do they seem interested? The storyteller reflects on what they were doing or saying in those moments, and adapts what they’re saying next and how to have more of them.

The information to be shared is what it is. The audience you are speaking to are who they are. And you, there, in the middle, are where the flex and movement can occur. You are the one who gets to choose, structure and deliver the story. Bending and adapting it so that it becomes the perfect vehicle for the third and most important relationship. Getting the message you have to sit snuggly into the memory banks of your audience, nudging at them to crack on with whatever it was you wanted them to be cracking on with.

Our training helps you find both what you need to say, and how you can say, whether speaking to people in person or online, to make sure that you are listened to, understood and remembered. What you do with that power is down to you.