Download my free story/report/game, "Taming the Content Marketing Dragon: An Entrepreneurial Hero's Journey" at http://presentationswithresults.com/contentdragon/ Learn how classic story formula can improve your presentations and other content and how/why you should make the story be about your audience, not about you! Learn about the importance of visual storytelling and the important difference between storytelling and telling stories.

1. Let Me Tell You a Story:
Created by
Susan Joy Schleef
Created by
Susan Joy Schleef
What the Experts Say About Making
Your Audience the Hero of the Story

2. “Human beings have always told their histories and truths
through parable and fable. We are inveterate storytellers.”
~ Beeban Kidron, English film director
PublicDomainImageSource:WikimediaCommons

3. “When we read dry, factual arguments, we read
with our dukes up. We are critical and skeptical.
But when we are absorbed in a story we drop
our intellectual guard.”
~ Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal
PublicDomainImageSource:WikimediaCommons

4. “Stories are the natural way people process
information. … Stories aren’t just for fun. No matter
how dry you think your information is, using stories will
make it understandable, interesting, and memorable.”
~ Susan M. Weinschenk, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

5. “Even if you’re a middle manager delivering financials to
your department in slides, you’re telling a story. A manager
is constantly trying to persuade, contrasting where their
team is today vs. where they want them to be.”
~ Nancy Duarte, Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences
“There is a story locked
in every chart.”
~ Bruce Gabrielle, Speaking PowerPoint:
The New Language of Business

6. “Storytelling isn’t about opening your talk
with a funny anecdote about your uncle’s
prizewinning sturgeon. It’s about building
a message using a powerful story line
with a conflict and a resolution.”
~ Jonah Sachs, co-founder, Free Range Studios
author, Winning the Story Wars

7. “Funny as it may sound,
storytelling should not
be confused with
telling stories.”
~ Alexei Kapterev,
Presentation Secrets

8. “A story structure literally ties together scattered pieces
of information. A story can also help you focus your
ideas, clarify your words and images, and produce an
engaging experience for both you and your audience.”
~ Cliff Atkinson, Beyond Bullet Points

9. “Storytelling is nothing but putting facts in
a sequence and making connections.”
~ Alexei Kapterev, Presentation Secrets
Photo by Bill Branson

10. “Storytelling is the
creative documentation of
truth. A story is the living
proof of an idea, the
conversion of idea to
action. A story’s event
structure is the means by
which you first express,
then prove your idea …
without explanation.”
~ Robert McKee, Story: Substance,
Structure, Style and the
Principles of Screenwriting

11. “ ‘What is the use of a book,’
thought Alice, ‘without pictures
or conversations?’ “
~ Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
PublicDomainImageSource:Morguefile.com

12. “Stories may contain analogies or metaphors, powerful
tools for bringing people in and helping them to
understand our thoughts clearly and concretely.”
~ Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen
“You have to seize on those visuals your listener’s
brain already understands from experience.”
~ Anne Miller, Metaphorically Selling

13. “Presentations are closer in form to movies or
television than to speeches.”
~ Susan Joy Schleef, PresentationsWithResults.com

14. “At its core, effective
presentation design is
about revealing the truth.
It’s about utilizing visuals
as a backdrop to your
story in order to further
engage the senses,
turning your presentation
into an experience.”
~ Jon Thomas, @Story_Jon

15. “… a sequence of concise statements works
dynamically to create the underpinnings for a
compelling visual story in PowerPoint.”
~ Cliff Atkinson, Beyond Bullet Points

16. “A story is a tale with a beginning, a middle, and an
end. It’s a quest … Whether it’s returning to Kansas
(Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz) or killing the witch
(Hansel and Gretel), this journey is the story, the plot,
the means by which your character’s strengths and
weaknesses are unveiled, his or her lessons learned.”
~ Barbara Shapiro, novelist

17. “… the Hero Quest forms the backbone of plot.
This is the universal adventure, the journey –
psychological, physical, or emotional – that we
take in both literature and life when we set out
in search of knowledge and wisdom.”
~ Nancy Lamb, The Art and Craft of Storytelling

18. “If a story is not about the hearer,
he will not listen.”
~ John Steinbeck, American novelist
Photo by Douglas Sladen Source: Wikimedia Commons

19. “You have to know what problem you’re solving for your
audience because they don’t really care about your story.
You’re only telling them your story because it’s
their story. … How is your story helping you give a
message that’s going to solve their problem?”
~ Devorah Spilman, storyteller & entrepreneur

20. “Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a
more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience.
They are the currency of human contact.”
~ Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure,
Style and the Principles of Screenwriting

21. Susan “Joy” Schleef http://PresentationsWithResults.com
 Copyright 2013 Presentations With Results, Inc.
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