205: Three Things To Cut From Your Stories

Hey movers, it is Sally Koering Zimney and welcome back. We are in the middle of some really exciting things over here on This Moved Me. Woo woo! One is right now you could hop into one of my brand new masterclasses. It is called How to Captivate Your Audience with Story and Not Feel Like a Forgettable Failure on Stage. It's free. Grab a spot. I would love to see you there. Go to captivatemasterclass.com because if you are like many, many, many of the speakers and thought leaders and entrepreneurs that I work with again and again, they're struggling with the storytelling part of their speaking and they know it's the most important tool that we have as speakers and leaders, and yet it feels kind of elusive. This thing that is a little bit of a mystery. Well, I'm gonna break that mystery down for you and we're gonna tackle it so that you can truly engage your audience. They will resonate with your story, buy into your idea, who you are as a leader, and they will walk with you in a new and powerful way. Story is is so magical that it is worth investing some time and energy into developing your skills as a storyteller. So join me, captivatemasterclass.com. Pick a date and a time and I'll see you there. All right, let's dive into this week's episode. Whoo! 3 things you need to cut from that story that you're telling. Yes, we are still in story mode as we get ready for the Speaking Story class, course, it's a course, it's a class, it's an experience, it's a community, right? And I would love for you to join us over there, speakingstory.com. Gosh, I'm so excited, it's gonna be awesome, woo woo. But let's, let me give you some tips and tricks on how to do stories better. So editing our stories is a really big challenge. You know, we've been talking about the importance of specificity, But there's also some things that do not belong in our stories that I'm finding myself cutting. Now, I love to edit. I love content development and I love delivery. And I get really passionate about the content development up to a point. And then I'm like, "Yeah, we gotta get on our feet." But editing, the skill of editing, I think is one of the most underutilized skills that we need. As leaders and speakers, storytellers, thought leaders. So let's talk about 3 things that you need to cut from your story. Number 1 is the extra characters and locations, right? So most stories as they actually happened don't make great stories for us to tell, right? If we were writing the story for a novel, right, we could dig deep into the tiny details, all the people, and really take our time developing these characters and these moments and these different places and locations. But as a listener, if you think about the audience experience, uh, well, we don't want to make them sit there and take that all in with their ears, all right, and their eyes as they physically share the same space with you and have to go to the bathroom or are tired or there's other noises or there's just— when we think about the live experience, That changes everything. We have got to be much tougher about what makes the cut into our stories. So at max, you should have no more than 3 characters in your story. Now, I'm gonna throw out a lot of rules, and of course one of my rules is that sometimes you got to break the rules. So, um, just generally take this as a great guide for you. People will not be able to keep more than 3 characters straight or keep track of them, and it takes time to set up characters. And if you want to be the exception, I say go for it and prove me wrong and share it with me because I love that. All right. Now there's going to be random other people in your story, right? Who don't play a significant role in the development of the action or the outcome of the story. They have got to be cut out. Sorry, sorry, Grandma, or sorry, this other person. And sometimes, uh, something might have happened that was particularly funny or notable, and it came from one of those random other characters aside from the main 2 or 3. And if that's the case, why not merge a few characters into one? Hmm. Well, here's— that might rub people a little bit the wrong way, like, uh, okay, now we're making stuff up, Sally. But here's the deal, and I think this is a really important question about integrity and truth in storytelling. Obviously, integrity and truth matters a lot, but the truth of the story needs to have some flexibility in it, in those details, in order for the audience to ultimately hear the truth in that story. It's really an individual call, but I think we need to craft more and, and lean into that side and get some of those extra unhelpful characters, locations, details out out that don't move your story forward because it is not serving that truth. So get them on the editing room floor. So you've got to think of yourself more like an editor crafting the arc and narrative of that truth rather than retelling it exactly word for word. Okay? And I say that with a big caveat because editors have so much power to create new realities. And I think we've all seen that power being manipulated in a way that at some point truth doesn't have any integrity or standing, and that is a scary place to be, okay? That is not what I'm suggesting. But if the essence and integrity of the story is intact, then I think we've got to give ourselves room to flex those details to fully support the experience of the audience and to fully capture, and sometimes even more so, get to the truth of the story. Mm, that's a big thought. I'm just gonna let that sit there for just a second. Okay. So the first thing you've got to cut from your story are those extra characters and locations. Now, the second thing you've got to cut out from your story are the extra words. You want to find the most succinct, strongest words possible to say what you want to say. It takes time. It takes a brutal editing process and approach. It takes many iterations. But once you found those strong words, it's really powerful. Keep it as short as possible. Using the strongest, most accurate words possible. Don't make us walk around with you while you figure it out. Cut out all those extra words. And I think that's probably all I should say about that. Okay. The third thing you've got to cut from your story is that extra idea twig. Have you ever been listening to a story and not totally known what it was about? Because there are typically several ideas in one story that you can pull out and use for this particular audience. Maybe you want to emphasize something one day to one audience and another thing another day to a different audience. But in your preparation for that particular audience, you've got to cut out the extra idea twigs that can grow as you're talking if you're not intentional about what the point is. It's like a tree. Our stories can be a tree with lots of different limbs. So if we don't want people's brains going off in another direction while we're heading up that tree trunk, you know what I mean? We got to cut off those twigs. The brain is easily distractible, easily moves off into an idea limb if we're not careful to cut them out. So cut out those extra ideas that tend to sneak in there if we are not really disciplined in our editing approach. Okay, so that is it. The 3 extra things that you want to cut out of your stories: the extra characters, the extra words, and the extra ideas. All right, so once again, let me remind you, I'd love for you to join me in that free masterclass, captivatemasterclass.com. I'd love to see you there. We are going to dig a little bit more deeply into how to really engage your audience with story and my 3-step approach on how to do that. Try and demystify the approach of storytelling a little bit for you so that you can feel more masterful in your own storytelling. And I would love to see you there. All right, check it out. CaptivateMasterclass.com. That's it for me this week. See you next time.