I’m about halfway through writing a new book in which I recount 40+ tips for business storytelling. It’s the sort of book you can dip in and out of. I thought I would share some of the chapters here on the blog. I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

Cheers, Shawn

“My task that I’m trying to achieve is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel, but it is before all else to make you see.” 

― Joseph Conrad

People often think storytelling is about words. The truth is storytelling is about images. When a story is told, we can see the action and imagine the characters’ emotions. And if we can imagine the emotion, we often feel it ourselves. Stories create empathy.

But that only happens when we can see the action unfolding.

I like to say that a story is when something unanticipated happens.

A good story is one where you can see it happening.

A great story is one where you can feel it happening.

Here are two accounts of the fateful moment when Australian explorers Robert Burke, William Wills, and John King returned to their base camp after becoming the first white explorers to cross Australia from south to north. The second telling provides more imagery. See if you can notice the differences.

My recollections are based on Peter FitzSimons’ Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia’s Most Famous Explorers.

Burke, Wills, and King returned from their crossing tired and hungry. They found the buried cache of food left for them, but instead of staying put to be rescued, they set out on a new route home. They left their plans in the cache but covered their tracks so well that when their rescuers arrived 17 days later, there was no indication the explorers had returned. The rescuers didn’t check the cache and returned home. The explorers died about a month later.

Now, with some visual moments and other details.

Burke, Wills, and King arrived back at the Coopers Creek depot after crossing Australia from south to north. As they enter the camp, they see the inscription “DIG 3FT NW APR 21 1861” carved into a Coolabah tree. They’re exhausted and starving, their clothes barely hanging off their bodies. They dig up the cache of food and supplies left for them by their fellow explorers, who had waited months and only left the camp nine hours earlier.

These three survivors sit around their fire and decide it’s too far to return the way they came, so they set a new course home. Wills rips a couple of pages from his notebook, scribbles a note of their plan, and leaves it in the cache. But they cover their tracks so well that when their rescuers arrive 17 days later, there’s no indication the three explorers ever returned.

The rescuers arrive at the depot and take only a cursory glance because the camp looks just as they left it. They don’t check the buried cache to find the new plan, so they mount their horses and ride home, assuming their friends are dead. Burke and Wills starve to death about a month later en route to Mount Hopeless. The Yandruwandha people save King.

What helps the audience see more in the second version? Often it’s the pictures of things in the scene, like the DIG tree, or it’s the images of people doing things, like sitting around a fire or scribbling a note.

When you tell a story, you want your audience to see and feel what you saw and felt.

Here’s another example to show you what I mean.

I was in a workshop in Atlanta, and to connect with the group, I told them I was born in South Carolina. Someone called out, “Where in South Carolina?” I said, “Beaufort.” A woman in the middle of the audience threw her arms in the air and called out in her Southern accent, “I’m your home girl!”

When I tell that story, I relive that moment. I throw my arms up like my home girl and say what she said and how she said it.

Now, I could have just said that a woman in my workshop was also from Beaufort, South Carolina, but no one would see it, feel it, or remember it.

When we paint these mental pictures with our words, our stories don’t just inform—they resonate. They allow our listeners or readers to step into our shoes, to momentarily live our experiences, and to feel what we felt. That’s the true essence of storytelling.

The difference between a simple recounting of events and a story that sticks with someone lies in the details, in the emotions, and in the imagery. It’s about making your audience not just understand what happened, but see it unfold before their eyes and feel it in their hearts.

In every story you tell, strive to take your audience on a journey where they can see and feel the moment. Because when they do, they’ll not only remember your story—they’ll be moved by it. And that’s when you know your story has truly made an impact.

References

FitzSimons, Peter. Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia’s Most Famous Explorers. Kindle ed., Hachette Australia, 2017.