From LONG STORY SHORT: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need
Here’s the good news. All of these skills—from story structure to content, to what makes a story memorable, coherent, and engaging—can be learned.
Q: Umm, okay . . . so what is storytelling exactly? I tell stories with my friends all the time. Isn’t that the same thing?
A: Live storytelling for an audience is a little different than social storytelling, but it uses a lot of the same skills. Whether it’s for coworkers at a convention, a political speech, in front of your congregation or an audience at a comedy show, good live storytelling has a formula. And while I can’t teach you how to be funny (it’s like rhythm—either you have it or you don’t), I can teach you how to properly tell a story that will engage an audience and make them laugh at themselves through the eyes of the storyteller.
We see storytelling every day, even if we don’t realize it. There are obvious examples, such as when someone has the office in stitches recounting an epically horrible date the night before. But we also see storytelling every night on talk shows, when a guest recounts a recent experience or when a host asks an author what inspired her novel.
And so . . . let’s clarify exactly what storytelling is:
Storytelling is recounting a true experience from your life that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
It could be about something big, like the moment you decided to quit drinking, or something much smaller, like the time your relative ruined your favorite Broadway show by talking too much throughout (I speak from experience). It doesn’t matter how big or small your story is, as long as you were affected by it.
It also helps to define what storytelling isn’t:
- Storytelling is not a rant. Talking to your audience for ten minutes about how the latest Martin Scorsese movie sucked is not a story. Telling us how you and your girlfriend broke up and to take your mind of the break up, you went to see the latest Martin Scorsese movie, and how every moment in that movie seemed to encompass exactly what was wrong with your relationship is a story. Your personal experience with the movie is the narrative.
- Storytelling is not therapy, though of course it can be therapeutic. This is a biggie. Remember, it’s entertainment; no one should use storytelling as a substitute for professional help. “I just filed for divorce today from my douche-bag husband, and let me tell you what an asshole he was” is not a story. Five years later, telling the tale of the moment you realized you wanted a divorce might be a story. It all depends on your perspective and the structure of your tale.
- Storytelling is not a substitute for a political platform. If your audience expects to hear a first-person account and you instead go on about the importance of Occupy Wall Street, that’s a political speech, not a story. Now, if the teller recounts a night camping out at Occupy Wall Street, and the experience has an underlying message, that’s different.
- Storytelling is not stand-up comedy. You might get laughs in your story, sure, but you shouldn’t force these laughs by sneaking in set-up/punch-line style jokes. If you do that, you’ll risk sounding insincere. Let the story speak for itself, and if some laughs end up happening, think of those laughs as icing on the cake. Just save me the corner piece with the flower!
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About LONG STORY SHORT: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need
This is a practical storytelling guide from comedian, winner of multiple Moth storytelling competitions, and founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade storytelling program, Margot Leitman. Did you ever wish you could tell a story that leaves others spellbound? Storytelling teacher and champion Margot Leitman will show you how! With a fun, irreverent, and infographic approach, this guide breaks a story into concrete components with ways to improve content, structure, emotional impact, and delivery through personal anecdotes, relatable examples, and practical exercises.
MARGOT LEITMAN is a storyteller, comedian, writer and teacher originally from Matawan, New Jersey. She is the author of Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need and the comedic memoir Gawky…Tales of an Extra Long Awkward Phase
For television, she has written for NBC, the Hallmark Channel and the PixL Network. In print her writing has appeared in Playgirl Magazine, the NY Press and websites such as TheFrisky.com, Collegehumor.com and LifetimeTV.com.
Margot is a five-time winner of The Moth StorySLAM, and was the Moth GrandSLAM winner in New York City achieving the series' first ever score of a perfect 10. She is the co-host of the long running, nationally touring "Stripped Stories," and also hosts the new storytelling show "Origin Story" at UCB, Los Angeles. Her stories have been featured on NPR on “The Moth Podcast,” “Good Food” and “Unfictional,” and she's a frequent contributor to the popular podcast “RISK!"
A proud graduate of the Ithaca College Theatre Department, Leitman is an amateur baker, two time game show winner and avid practicer of Kundalini Yoga. Margot currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and embarrassingly small dog.
