Gather around, it’s story time:

Last Sunday, 11 AM. Outside an insurance company building in Munich, Germany.

The sun is shining. It is unusually quiet.

A black Audi sedan pulls into the parking lot in front of the building. The windows of the car are dark. It drives very slowly. There are six or seven other cars in the parking lot. There are no pedestrians anywhere in sight.

The car turns slowly around. It stops right in front of the main entrance. The building is a structure of glass and concrete and five stories high. The windows reflect the sky. It is not possible to see what is going on inside. The engine of the car stops.

Suddenly both front doors of the car open. The sound is barely audible. Two people step out. They wear black suits and black sunglasses. They don’t carry any suitcases. They move slowly but with determination as they approach the door. A dog barks somewhere.

This is where the story ends. Actually it is where it ended when I attended a story telling seminar a few days ago. The lecturer was speaking slowly and made a lot of pauses. By the time the dog barked in the story you could have heard the pin drop in the room where around 100 people were silently listening for the conclusion.

But there was no conclusion.

The point, of course, was to demonstrate how to tell a captivating story. Even if the events of the story are mundane, silly or just plain boring. He made his point in an impressive manner.

In this article I want to mention four points of good story telling I’ve learned in the seminar. And mind you, if you follow them you can easily capture the total attention of many people quickly. I tried it the same evening on a group of strangers I assembled in front of a bar and the results were astonishing. So here they are:

1. Use present tense.

You probably noticed it in the above story. But maybe you didn’t. It’s imperative to use a present tense. Also, be sure to mention where and when your story is happening. This puts the listeners in the right place and time and sort of frames them as being part of the story.

2. Don’t use commas. Use short, simple sentences.

If you nest sentence fragments and use complicated grammar the brains of your listeners are busy disassembling them instead of following the story. Make the grammar and your vocabulary simple and you capture them with your story and not with your syntax.

3. Each sentence should produce an image.

Each time you say something an image should pop up in the minds of your audience. That’s why you want to describe the scenery. What they see, what they hear, what they smell and feel. The way into a person’s mind is emotional, not logical. I assume you buy your car because it looks good, the seats are comfortable or because the engine produces an enjoyable sound. Not because it has got good gas mileage or some technical gimmick under the hood.

By using sentences that produce images you raise something that can be describe as listening energy. You can slowly lead to your climax (if any) and build tension that you can release eventually. In a funny story people would start laughing at this point.

4. If possible use direct speech.

If you have people talking in your story use direct quotation. For example if one of the men in the above story said something about how he dislikes what they are up to, you would say: “He said: I hate what we are about to do.” Again, this keeps things simple for your listeners’ brains and involves them more into the story. Your voice can also be important when quoting.

Finally if you are a part of the story be sure to mention your own feelings and impressions throughout the plot. For example if you were hiding in the bushes tell the audience why you did so.

5. Characteristics of a good story.

This is a bonus point. What makes a good story?

It’s not the story how you won the lottery and had sex with 3 beautiful women on the same day. It’s not how you helped the old lady by carrying her shopping bags for her. Nobody likes to listen to a show-off. On the contrary: People will enjoy your story more if it contains some sort of personal failure for you. It will make them feel better for many reasons that I won’t get into now.

Having said that it is very okay to tell a story that starts with a personal failure for the storyteller but throughout the plot it is turned into a personal victory. It can be big or small. A material victory. A moral victory. Or a lesson learned.

Everyone can send his audience on a roller coaster ride. And everyone likes a good story teller.

Although there is much more to say about story telling (for example: how long should a story be? How to start, how to end best? etc.) I encourage you to use the above four or five points as much as you can to practice. I promise you will be astonished by the results.

Because whether you are with your friends in a bar, in front of an audience during your corporate presentation or in a job interview: Storytelling is one of the key skills in your arsenal when it comes to achieving the best possible outcomes in life.

Now go out and build some charisma. :)


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