The Power in the Pause
Inexperienced story tellers and speakers often rush through their narrative as if they were a rodent on crack–and overlook the power of pacing. A well placed pause can add suspense and conflict to a tale. For a great example of this let’s turn to the classic movie, Casablanca. One of the most famous movie lines of […]
A Higher Calling for Story Telling
“The only reason for giving a speech is to change the world.” John F. Kennedy I love telling stories but now is the time to raise the stakes for this blog. And the best way to explain why is, of course, through a story. If you’ve watched the movie, Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham […]
How Did You Meet Your Mate?
My wife and I taught a marriage preparation class where our favorite icebreaker question was, “How did you meet your future spouse?” Common answers were, “Through friends,” “In a bar,” or, “We were classmates.” But the answer from one couple, which I’ll share later, has always stood out in my mind as the story to […]
The Strength of a Story
This article originally printed in the July 2011 issue of Toastmasters Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Toastmasters International. My ship was on the reef, snapped in two like a dry stick; I was face down in the boxing ring and the referee was about to count “Ten.” In short, my speech was bombing – big time. […]
The Big Story
I’ve neglected my story telling blog recently because I’ve been working on a bigger story, a longer one, a novel about 95,000 words long. I recently entered my manuscript into a contest for unpublished fiction writers. I was optimistic because an earlier version of the same story had placed third in an international on-line contest and […]
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