Stories

Providing a story or a narrative helps speakers frame the topic for the audience. Stories provide speakers with a way to personalize a topic by helping audience members identify with the characters, events, or places within the story. Also, stories can entertain and engage, further reinforcing the idea of using an attention getter at the beginning of a speech. Stories can present “what if” scenarios that give the audience a hypothetical situation that illustrates the main point of the speech. Stories can also come in the form of real-life anecdotes based on personal experiences, those of others, or even events portrayed in fictional works like television, film, or literature.

Select a story for both its relevance to the topic, but more importantly, its ability to resonate, or strike a familiar chord with the audience. Knowing the audience in advance becomes critically important when selecting the perfect story to illustrate or frame a point.

Scenario 3A

Scenario 3B

View the interactive video below, answering the pop-up questions as they appear. Note: if using a mobile device, select the purple circle with a white hand to interact with the pop-up questions.

Directions: After reading and interacting with the two scenarios in this section, return to the survey to complete a few questions.