I've heard another answer to this question from another great storyteller on a podcast.
The technique he demonstrated was very powerful and I found myself unable to stop listening to him.
The funny thing is, after a while (the podcast was over an hour long) I realized he wasn't giving me very much useful information per se, but I still kept listening to him because of this technique he was using.
Essentially he did what I have sort of done here in this post: He made sure that there was always something I didn't know but that I wanted to know. He would make the listener feel like they just had to listen more in order to learn some secret. I could have inserted a few paragraphs between this one in the previous one and you would probably keep reading to learn this "secret." In the case of the story it can be any information and that should determine how you structure of the story. Lead with what the listener wants to know and only finish with the reveal.
Ganjan29 karma
I've heard another answer to this question from another great storyteller on a podcast.
The technique he demonstrated was very powerful and I found myself unable to stop listening to him.
The funny thing is, after a while (the podcast was over an hour long) I realized he wasn't giving me very much useful information per se, but I still kept listening to him because of this technique he was using.
Essentially he did what I have sort of done here in this post: He made sure that there was always something I didn't know but that I wanted to know. He would make the listener feel like they just had to listen more in order to learn some secret. I could have inserted a few paragraphs between this one in the previous one and you would probably keep reading to learn this "secret." In the case of the story it can be any information and that should determine how you structure of the story. Lead with what the listener wants to know and only finish with the reveal.
View HistoryShare Link