Becoming a Powerful Storyteller

The just published third edition of Beyond Powerful Radio: An Audio Communicator’s Guide to the Digital World by Valerie Geller has new chapters on social media and how to create synergy across all platforms. It also has one on the role of Artificial Intelligence in radio. And one on podcasting. And one on storytelling.

Geller is the veteran broadcaster, author, and talent coach whose textbook has become an industry mainstay around the world. Beyond Powerful Radio (Routledge Press) is geared toward communicators on all platforms and in all stages of their careers. Geller last appeared in these pages in advance of a Radiodays North America panel, “Can You Handle the Truth?” This is an excerpt from the “Becoming a Powerful Storyteller” chapter, reprinted by permission.

Villagers in a remote tribe were living just as they had in years past. Their homes were constructed of mud and grass, their water collected from a nearby river. They planted and gathered their crops by hand. Nothing they used or did required electricity. In fact, they didn’t have any electricity at all. Each night, as was their custom, the tribe gathered and listened to their village storyteller. 

One day a foreign anthropologist came for a year to study the tribe. It was rare to find a group of people who were living in the same manner as their ancestors had lived for generations. Soon after he arrived, electricity came to the village. The country’s government believed that electrical power would improve the villagers’ day-to-day lives.

Not long after that, a television arrived. Now, instead of gathering at night, listening to their storyteller, the people in the village could watch TV. And that’s what they did —for about a week.

Then they turned the TV off and went back to gathering around the fire in the evenings and listening to their own storyteller. 

The anthropologist was puzzled. He asked, “Since there are so many more stories on the TV than your storyteller knows, why go back to your storyteller?”

The villagers agreed, but one of them said, “Yes, there are many more stories on the television, but here in my village, around our fire, the storyteller knows me.”

Stories are powerful. They are the essence of the work we do. If you communicate for a living, you work in the story business. The purpose of storytelling is to engage the listener–to make the audience want to find out what happens next. It’s not all that different from childhood fairytales: “Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there was a princess and a monster. Then one day. . .” 

Storytelling is one the keys to the Creating Powerful Communicator process: focus, engage, opinion/position, and storytelling. 

Any topic in the hands of a true master storyteller comes alive and captivates audiences. Some people are naturally powerful storytellers. It is a gift. Although not everyone is born to it, the craft of storytelling is a skill that can be taught. No matter what your level or talent, anyone can become a better storyteller.

Audiences have a lot of choices. Because nearly everyone has access to digital media, there’s competition for the listener’s attention. Your well-honed ability to tell stories within the limits of your medium is the skill that will allow you not only to get an audience, but to keep it. Now that media is more democratized and mobile, almost anyone can be a broadcaster, producer, publisher, actor, and storyteller. 

The Creating Powerful Radio and Powerful Podcasting workshops mantra is: “There are no boring stories, only boring storytellers.” It is the way you tell a story, using your own personality and tailoring it to your audience, that makes you a powerful storyteller.

Audiences connect to and respond to stories that reflect the basic themes of human nature: good and evil, right and wrong, humor, and love. We enjoy the ridiculous (life is absurd), and tales of a brave individual triumphing over long odds (“David and Goliath”). We like stories of revenge, and rags-to-riches, or riches-to-rags. Stories that show character, teach, or inspire people, all work.

The ideas and methods here are not only effective for podcasting and broadcasting, they work equally well to captivate any audience, for speeches, legal closings, presentations, sermons, and guest appearances. They can even help you with the stories you share with your kids.

The format you use for fairy tales and bedtime stories also works for every other type of storytelling. The Story Spine method comes from Kenn Adams, Artistic Director of Kenn Adams Adventure Theater, author of How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theater. With its roots in improv, Story Spine is now considered standard training for film, television, radio, and podcasting. It is what many successful journalists and documentarians rely on to craft their stories, as well.

Kenn Adams Story Spine

• Once upon a time… 
• Every day….
• But one day…
• Because of that… 
• Because of that… 
• Because of that…
• Until finally…
• And ever since then… 

Story spine can help any writer or storyteller start the process of “facing the blank page” to begin to put the pieces of a story together in a form that is simple, easy and effective.

Look Through a Prism

Another technique to help people improve their storytelling is The Prism Method. When you hold a crystal prism up to the light, each time you move it, the pattern of rainbow colors dancing on the wall changes. It’s the same crystal, the same light, and the same wall, but when you move the prism, the perspective changes. You see a completely different rainbow pattern. Telling a story from different angles in different ways can help you land on the most powerful way to tell it now.

Here’s an example of the “Prism Method”:

Maggie, a reporter in the U.K., waits in a London shop to make a purchase. As she stands there, Rachel, the owner of the store, is busy talking on the phone. She’s making arrangements to close early tonight. Why? It turns out Rachel has got to get to the airport on time to pick up her brother, his wife and their two-year-old daughter.

Maggie overhears that the siblings have not seen each other for forty-seven years. They were twins, born in India. They were separated after their parents divorced. The mother brought the baby girl to England, and the father took the boy to America. They hadn’t seen each other since. 

One day, the woman’s teenage daughter asked about her uncle and was curious about her grandfather. She went online and conducted an Internet search. In less than four days, she’d located her mother’s twin, living in the United States. Tonight was to be their big reunion at the airport.

This was a story! Maggie said, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing. . .” When she asked if she could come along to report on the reunion, the woman agreed. That’s when Maggie learned the rest of the saga:

The brother had a terrible life growing up in America. Their father, now deceased, had been an alcoholic, and had never kept a job for more than a few months at a time. He’d had four marriages. No money. There were times when the boy was forced to live on the road with his dad, sleeping in their car. He’d gone hungry and had never finished a single school year in the same town. His sister had sent the plane tickets so they could finally meet.

Since the young man had had such an unstable upbringing, though he had steady employment, he chose not to marry until he was in his mid-forties. And he’d had his first child at forty-seven. Tonight, at the airport, the brother, his wife, and small daughter were meeting his twin sister and her family for the first time.

You can use the Prism Method to find the best way to tell this story. Maggie examined all angles, to find the most powerful approach for her feature.

Valerie Geller’s Prism Method: 

1. The world is a global online village. If you have the time and patience to look, plus a bit of information, and a little luck, you can find nearly anyone.

2.   Do you ever wonder whether twins feel like two halves of one whole? Studies show that twins often feel incomplete if separated. If you’re a twin, do you ever feel that you are “missing” your other half when you’re apart?

3.  If you’ve never seen love or healthy relationships modeled—are you equipped to be a good parent or partner?

All of these possible angles would have worked. Maggie was trying to decide which she would use as she traveled to the airport with Rachel and her daughter. But when she got there and watched the scene unfold, Maggie knew her entry point was the little girl. Here is the opening of her story as it aired:

“Two-year-old Liza with her dazzling smile, big blue eyes and blonde curls is sitting on her aunt Rachel’s lap. Liza is exactly the same age her father and her aunt were when they were separated in India, forty-seven years ago.”

By examining the same story from all the potential angles, you can find the best, most compelling way to tell it. Once you learn the Prism Method, you are well on your way to becoming a more powerful storyteller. If you can ask “have you heard…?” and an audience, of one or a million, leans in wanting to hear more, you’ve won. 

Order the third edition of Beyond Powerful Radio here.