The Art of Story

Opening a talk or presentation

Meetings, pitches and conferences

The first minute decides whether a room listens. A story opens well when it's short and leads straight into your point. A three-minute anecdote before you've said why you're there loses people.

The shape

A short story, then your point, sized to your time

  1. Start in a scene. Open on one specific moment, not on thanks or the agenda.
  2. Keep it in proportion. In a ten-minute talk the story takes about a minute. In a two-minute pitch, a sentence or two.
  3. Make the turn your topic. The moment the story turns should be the problem your talk is about.
  4. Say the point. Name it plainly, then get on with the talk.
  5. Come back to it. Close by returning to the story. It ties the talk together.

How it can sound

"Last year, one comment on our customer survey stopped me. Someone wrote: 'I gave up and rang my sister instead.' She had spent forty minutes on our website trying to change her address. The next ten minutes are about those forty minutes, and how we stop people giving up on us."

The one detail to find

A real person's words, or one real number. Either makes the opening concrete in a sentence.

Leave out

Thanks and housekeeping before you've said anything, a joke that has nothing to do with your topic, and the full backstory.

Build it

  • Story Structure Builder: Choose the Talk or Presentation setting, build the story in five parts, then cut it to fit your time.

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