Art ot telling stories tip 1 – Energy!

I can write page after page on how to tell a story, but I’ll try not to. Therefore I will rather post a few tips every now and then. If you are interested to learn more than covered by this and coming posts.. you’ll have to attend one of my courses or take private lessons.

Me telling a story with full intensity. Photo by Elin K. Nilsen.

Use all the energy you have, use your whole body not just your words. Every single watt you spend on telling the story counts when it comes to your audience interest in you and your story. With the right use of energy even a crappy and short story will be greatly appreciated. This being said it is also important to distribute your energy and intensity through the story and the whole storytelling session. Usually I start out with high intensity to get the audience’s initial attention, then lower the intensity slowly, only to increase it towards the end.

If you spend all the energy you got, you’ll probably feel like you just finished running a marathon at sprint speed afterwards, but it will be worth it because the joy of your listeners will quickly fill you up again.

Nothing is more uninspiring than someone telling a story with the lack of energy and intensity. If you haven’t got the energy, don’t tell the story. Of course some stories demand that they are told in low intensity, but that I’ll cover in another tip: Dynamics.

“Spend all the energy you got, don’t save a single watt!”