There are a few things that you should avoid doing when telling stories, as they could either get you in trouble, are unethical, or are just bad ideas that will make your audience feel bored or uncomfortable.
First, when telling stories about real people that you know, whether it be about yourself or someone else, you have to avoid lying. Though you might be able to lie and make the story more interesting, it’s never really worth it.
People can sometimes see straight through lies and others might be so bold as to call you out on it, which can really make you look bad. You never know if the person you’re talking to has heard a similar story from someone else, and can spot the lie.
One surefire way to bore any audience is to take a bunch of sidetracks away from the main plot of your story you’re telling. Some people have a bad habit of having to trail off and explain every other thing in their story with another whole story.
Not only is this often boring and frustrating for audiences, it also causes your main message or point behind the story to get diluted. People aren’t going to be remembering the main point, but rather the unimportant information you talked about.
If you talk to many different groups of people and are utilizing storytelling in all of them, you might run into situations where you tell the same story in both a professional and social situation. However, you need to make necessary adjustments to the story.
You never want to include inappropriate details depending on the audience you’re talking to. The way that you might tell a story about a night out to your friends will be different from the way you tell it to your boss, for example.
Your level of intensity matters greatly both for public speaking and for storytelling. You never want to go to either extreme, either being too boring sounding or too hyper. Both will be distracting and unnerving to your audience.
If you sound too bored, your audience is going to feel just the same and start to pay less attention. However, being hyperactive is just going to be distracting for the most part, and people will be focusing more on you rather than your story.
One mistake you might have seen before is when speakers or storytellers try to force unnecessary interaction from the audience. Some people do this when they feel nervous being the center of attention the whole time, but you have to get used to it.
Sometimes audiences will respond well to this, but when they don’t, it kills the mood of the entire presentation or story. It’s best to avoid this type of behavior altogether so that you never have to take that risk.
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