This is a terrible story

I’m blessed with a daughter and a son. They are my first and most honest audience. Over the years

I’ve told them thousands of stories, some from books, others from my life and the lives of family members and finally – the most risky – ones I’ve made up for them.

Occasionally I get “Mum, this is a terrible story. Tell me another one!”

Then it’s clear to me that this story didn’t hit the bar, and that if I don’t want to end up stuck in the room for another thirty minutes I’d better find them a great story.

This has taught me a lesson: it takes many terrible stories to create one decent, and sometimes you don’t know whether it’s terrible or not until you tell it.

Stories are created in our minds, but they only make sense when we find the courage to tell them.

Maybe a story told by someone else, in another moment, for another audience became a masterpiece.

No matter how much you work on finding the perfect architecture for your story, it’s about not only content and structure but also how it’s told, for whom and with what intention.

A story isn’t a presentation: it’s not about you, it’s about us. If you can’t reach me with it, it’s not a story. 

#audience #terriblestory