Supreme Storytelling

By: Heartwork

Today I want to talk to you about a subject that can be very important and powerful when it comes to meeting and holding the interest of not only women but anyone in your life. This subject is none other than Storytelling and when used correctly, can make your desirability with women sky rocket. Before I jump into the tips and secrets behind successful story telling and how to construct a powerful story, I want to clear up a few myths when it comes to the matter of story telling.

Myth one: My stories have to be true and about me.  Now this is ultimately up for you to decide but as long as you keep the conversation fun, apply the right story telling techniques, and can keep the conversation moving, then your story does not have to be true. Even if the women does not believe the story, if you kept it fun, she will be entertained and most likely run with new conversation topics developed from your stories. I am not encouraging you to lie though, the most powerful stories are ones that are true and come from a place of emotion. You can be so over the top with stories where the unbelievably becomes so fun that she gets involved and becomes part of a newly painted reality that you and the girl get to share and more importantly create together. (This becomes a key factor in “Role Playing” and by mastering storytelling, your creativity in “Role Play Conversations” raises but sadly, the subject of role playing will have to be saved for a later article.)

However I think the biggest misconception is not whether the stories have to be true, but is more about whether or not they have to be about the story teller. One of the main goals of story telling is to communicate to the listener about you. Surprisingly, it is easier to convey things about yourself by HOW you tell a story, not the actual content of it. Through the power of expressions, energy, and vivid language, you can convey to your listeners such things as, dominance, humor, interests, and overall personality. When applying the proper techniques of a story, you should be able to repeat what you heard on the news but in such a fashion that directly makes you more interesting and displays your personality.

Myth Two: As you get better with women you become less dependent on story telling. Now there is some truth to this myth in the sense that you do not go into interactions with prescripted stories as much as you may starting out. However, it is through the skills that storytelling develops that make you less dependent. Instead of going into in interaction with a story you have made up or written down and rehearsed, you are able to share any subject in an interesting fashion that makes people listen. This skill is enhanced by applying the arts of storytelling and is one of the key reasons learning and mastering storytelling is a great way to improve not only your skills with women, but your overall social skills.

What is storytelling and why is it important? Storytelling is the direct means of communication when highlighting important parts of your life to the listener. Not only through context, but through delivery. Storytelling plays a very important part in getting to know someone and the great thing about telling a story, is that it creates so many other subject matters to talk about and that a story is almost always followed by another story.  If you are familiar with “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer, you will see how each story is molded by the one told before it and by who told the story. (Don’t worry; your stories don’t have to have a rhyme scheme during the interaction like many of Chaucer’s do) There are many reasons storytelling is important and if you are not currently utilizing storytelling then consider these following facts:

    * Storytelling is a great way to save dying conversations

This is one of the most common problems that I see with many guys. An interaction will be going great, then conversation starts to die and there is that awkward silence. This is a great time to bust out a story from your arsenal and revive the interaction.

    * Knowing you are armed with a story creates more approach confidence when entering an interaction.

People are afraid to enter interactions because of the fear of running out of things to say. By developing a great story or two and keeping them in your back pocket for when you need them creates  a great since of confidence during the initial approach and can really help limit the anxiety that one gets when approaching a beautiful women. You are guaranteed that the interaction will last at least the length of your story.

    * Storytelling is a great way to display dominance

When you are telling a story the right way, all eyes are on you, you are the center of attention, and everyone lingers off your next word. Holding the attention of the group through storytelling puts you in a dominant FRAME of you being the leader of the interaction and everyone else being the listener, waiting to see where you take the group next.

    * What you convey through your stories is how you will be remembered.

Unlike most things you say during an interaction, a good story is unforgettable. How many times have you had someone tell you about some crazy story that one of their friends told them? Stories have been passed down for ages; it is an old custom and still exists till this day. The girl should be able to look back on the interaction and be like “Oh yeah, that was the guy who (did whatever interesting activity that relates to you).”

    * Storytelling develops stronger social skills

This is one of the biggest reasons that I like to make sure everyone masters storytelling. Through storytelling you learn to capture the entire attention of the group. Also you directly convey your personality and it gets you accustomed to doing so. The skills that are developed from strong storytelling directly carry over into your social personality that make all conversation with you more exciting and vivid. The expressiveness you show in stories ties into your future interactions and directly improves your social personality.

    * You can convey things through storytelling that you normally could not say.

There may be some interesting details of your life that said outside the context of a story may come off as bragging. But in a story, these little details are never the subject of the story thus they remain subtle but are powerful when displaying aspects of your identity. Now that you have an idea of why storytelling is so effective and what you should be aiming for when telling a story we are going to work on creating your very own powerful stories that cannot be ignored. All this will be covered later in the article, but there is an exercise I want you to do right now so you can directly apply all the tips and tactics to create an amazing story.

Exercise 1: Write down anywhere from seven to ten moments in your life that you feel changed or defined who you are. If you have a funny story then that is just a humorous time then you can feel free to include that. But even if the story does not seem major, just entertaining, the fact that you can remember it means it has a bigger effect than you realize. This can be happy, fun, or even sad (not depressing) but we do learn through negative experiences. We will eventually cut these down to just a couple stories, but for now I just wantyou to get into the habit of taking note of interesting experiences in your life.

Ideas: Vacations, Life/Death Experiences, an unforgettable concert or sporting event, a moment you succeeded, something funny that happened to you or a friend.

 Now I know that there are going to be people that say they have no interesting stories. This is just not the truth; everyone has something interesting that has shaped who they are. Do not be modest; even if it’s a silly story write it down. You can’t be afraid to share a story, sometimes they are hard to think of and if you really can’t think of a past story, starting paying more attention to your every day life. And if you still cant think of one then go take a vacation, you will return with hundreds of them. So many things happen in one day that people don’t even think would be a story. But every past event being told is a story. There is no excuse not to have one.

Exercise Two: Write down at least 5 things that you would like people to know about you. This is going to tie into personality conveying. Think of the things that you would like any friend or new acquaintance to know about you.  These are the things that directly relate to your identity and make you who you are. Do not be surprised if these things are directly related in some way to the stories you wrote down in exercise one.

Ideas: Hobbies, Sports you play, instruments you play, your job, your goals, your skills and achievements. Now save this list, we are going to use it later on in the article to create some super powerful stories that you can always rely on. Also I will further go into the skills of storytelling and how to use them to make every story and conversation more interesting. I am going to do this very exercise along with you guys so you will get to see my story end product as well. Now that you are all excited to start using storytelling and understand why it is so powerful we are going to work on constructing your very own epics!

Okay so there were two things I just asked of you One was to create a list of 7-10 moments in your life worth sharing, and the other was to write down 5 things about your identity that you want people to know about you. We are going to start out working with these things. First lets take out the 7-10 story ideas and cut them down to 5 solid ideas, cross off ones that you think may not seem to interesting to other people or ones that were “you kind of had to be there” stories. Now that you got 5 solid ideas down we are going to just focus on constructing 3 solid stories so you can go out and start using them immediately.  To narrow it down, reflect on these 5 stories, which ones do you have the most emotional connection too, which ones do you feel the most interested in sharing with other people and which ones do you think could captivate and relate to your audience.  For now, your main demographic with these stories is women, so focus on which ones you think a woman is more interested in hearing. (Any women can become interested in any story if delivered properly, but if you have a good story about you watching porn and eating pizza, it may be better left for the guys) Also feel free to ask your friends about which story subjects they would be more interested in hearing to help narrow it down to 3 solid concepts. And of course I’m sure there were still some of you out there that were to modest to come up with 10 ideas and only got around three, so I guess that makes your job easier.

I said I would do this exercise along with you, however, critiquing all 3 of my stories will take too long so we are just going to use one of my story concepts and build it from the ground up through the techniques I show you. Now I am going to try to discard all the information on storytelling that I know and jot this story down from scratch (This actually happened to me the other day, so I figure this is a prime example) “So the other day I am at club voodoo with my friends and I am going around making some new friends and having a good time. Well this one guy somehow works his way into my group but then ends up not leaving us alone all night, and he was a really annoying person that you just don’t want to talk to. He kept making every interaction in the club awkward and would not leave until he actually gets a hint and goes home.” Okay, pretty shitty story…I know, but we can turn this into something awesome. First we need to understand the 3 components of a good story.

The first component, is “The Hook Question” The object of the hook question is to make sure everyone in the group you are telling the story gets involved.  You use the hook question to captivate the group and the hook question is the line you deliver to introduce your story.When using the hook question make sure you have the attention of EVERYONE in the group before you start going into the story, if one person is not paying attention and they tune in halfway through your story, they are going to have no idea what is going and potentially pull the entire group away.
Make eye contact and get a response or at least a nod from every member of the group before beginning your story.

There are two different types of hook questions. An open ended hook question and a yes or no hook question.  I feel open ended hook question are better because it gets your audience more involved with the story you are about to tell, but a yes or no one is good cause it gets you right into the story. So a possible open ended hook question for my story would be “How do you deal with people who you just want to leave you alone?”  A possible yes or no hook question would be “Have you ever been to club voodoo?” So let’s add this to the story… (Find a hook question for your example stories as well) I like open ended hook questions more so to start my story in the interaction I would say   Me: “Hey guys…how do you deal with people when you just can’t get them to leave you alone?!”

Group: “blah blah”

Me: “Yeah that’s interesting so check this out…the other day I am at club voodoo…(rest of story)
Now that you have the hook question down, we are going to rewrite our stories to demonstrate aspects of identity because the next step is to demonstrate personality.

There are a number of ways of doing this but for now lets go to our list of 5 things that you want to convey in your identity. Try to fit as many into the story as you can.

 My 5 things were: I am a musician, I am a very social person, I have a high and fun energy, I have a good sense of humor, I am interested in video and photography.

Now you want to try to at least fit 3 of your 5 things into the story, but if its awkward and seems out of place then just get at least 1 or 2 in. You need one though, but the very manner you deliver the story may convey a lot about yourself. Other ways to convey personality is to act out your characters. Bring them to life in your stories.  Another important aspect to expressing personality in your stories is by speeding up your voice during moments of excitement and slowing it down during more intense moments to create tension.  You should always have tension build up to excitement or your audience will have a feeling of lack of resolution but that is the last component of a story that I will get into shortly. Speeding up, pauses, and slowing your voice down is hard for me to show you through an article, but when you recite your stories out loud you will gain a natural since of where each belongs and will improve through reactions with your audience. So now I am going to rewrite my story as it stands to convey my personality…

Me: “Hey guys…how do you deal with people when you just caaaaannt (exaggerated can’t to show frustration with the situation and convey more personality) get them to leave you alone?!”

Group: “blah blah”

Me: “Yeah that’s interesting so check this out…the other day I am at club voodoo and I walk in with a group of my friends and random people we met on the way (social) and there is a decent amount of people in the club, we are all having a great time (fun) and meeting lots of cool new people (social). Well this one guy somehow works his into my “group” (putting finger quotes around it) and he just has this crappy vibe. Like he is so out of place, he was walking around with a Harley Davison Motorcycle hat on and like this tainted banana colored polo (Painting this scene gets them laughing and displays humor and some understand of social norms and fashion.)
So my friends and I keep trying to ditch him but he just won’t back down, he would just follow us everywhere we went, buzzing around like a fucking mosquito..(pause)..with a really bad taste in clothing (humor)…you would think he could get the hint when we were practically jogging away (act out slight jogging motion). Eventually he finally goes away and we start to have a fun night again.

As you can see, the story starts to build up but it has no resolution, it just kind of ends.  

The last component of story is the punch line. A punch line is often used for humor and ties up the story.  Its biggest importance is to let the audience know it’s over. It can be one line or much more… To successfully deliver the punch line to your story, you need to create a dramatic build up by slowing down your words and then once the comic relief or resolution comes, you speed the conversation back up. The punch line can be a small extension of the story to bring further resolution to the issue. This is where you can get creative and give some lamer stories a much cooler ending.

 The actual ending to my story involves the creepy guy going into the bathroom, some guy that was annoyed by him jokingly bumping into him while the creepy was using the urinal, and the creepy guy pissed on the front of his pants, got embarrassed and left. Now, first off, it was kind of a dick move on that one guy’s part and I don’t want to associate myself with asshole friends. Also…a guy pissing on himself is an odd thing to share during the initial interaction. So I am going to do a little story morphing by combining a similar, less gross incident that happened that night. Nothing wrong with changing up some incidents if it makes things more entertaining…after all…it’s a “STORY” So the updated story with the new punch line now goes:
Me: “Hey guys…how do you deal with people when you just caaaaannt get them to leave you alone?!”

 Group: “blah blah”

Me: “Yeah that’s interesting so check this out…the other day I am at Club Voodoo and I walk in with a group of my friends and random people we met on the way and there is a decent amount of people in the club, we are all having a great time and meeting lots of cool new people. Well this one guy somehow works his into my “group” and he just has this crappy vibe. Like he is so out of place, he was walking around with a Harley Davison Motorcycle hat on and like this tainted banana colored polo. So my friends and I keep trying to ditch him but he just won’t back down, he would just follow us everywhere we went, buzzing around like a fucking mosquito…with a really bad taste in clothing…you would think he could get the hint when we were practically jogging away.

Anyway…my friends and I get away from him and are on the top floor and we make a super tall pyramid out of energy drink cans. (Illustrate structure with arms). Then all of a sudden, the creepy guy weasels his way onto the floor and sits down at our table…and like a jackass he tries to add a can to the structure. (Start slowing things down for the punch line) Little did he know…that although the Red Bull on the top of the structure was opened…it was full…so this guy tries to add his can to the top then BAM!……………….the whole structure falls right into his lap and the filled soda can pours all over his crotch! It looked like he wet his pants! His face turns beat red and he just runs downstairs and we assume he left the club cause we didn’t see him again…I don’t know what the big deal is…I thought it was hilarious! (Final punch line, they know the story is over)

Now if you have done these three steps to your stories, you got some great stuff on your hands.

HOWEVER….there is still a few more sprinkles you are going to want to add to your story sunday.  These things are the secret little tips of successful storytelling.

The first and most important is creating check in points.

 Check in points are mini questions you throw into your story throughout to make sure you have the audiences full attention. It gets them more involved. Examples are “That ever happen to you?” “Don’t you hate when that happens?” “You know what I mean?”  Just make sure they are not obvious and sounding like you are taking time out for them to go into detail about your check in point question.

Another good way to check in is to compare aspects of your story to the current situation you are in. ex. “Kind of like that over there” “Reminds me of her (point to person).” You should at least have two check in points near the start and in the middle. If you are doing everything right, your audience will be captivated and waiting for the build up of the punch line so you won’t need one near the end.  If you start to see someone looking away, throw one out to regain focus.

An example in a passage of my story would be: “Like he is so out of place, he was walking around with a Harley Davison Motorcycle hat on and like this tainted banana colored polo. You know when someone is clearly just lost and not sure what he or she is doing….kind of like that guy over there (point to someone similar).” You don’t always need a full response with your check in points. A nod is perfectly okay when regaining focus of the audience.

The next story telling technique is very powerful and ties back into displaying your personality and bringing your characters to life.  This technique is adding TOUCH to your stories. This really helps paint the picture and get your audience more involved. An example of this would be like “My friend and I were walking over there like this… (lock arm in arm).”

Only hold whatever touch you are displaying for the appropriate part of the story. If you are using something like the arm and arm example, you would only do it for that short instance, not tell the rest of the story arm and arm. An example I would use in my story is when describing his weirdness would be “I would be talking with some of my friends and he would come up from behind me, stick his arm around me like this (put arm on girls shoulder and pull her in, give her a little shake, showing exactly what he did to me).

The key to not making this look obvious is to continue telling your story while initiating the touch, and not looking at where you are touching or pausing and waiting for any form of reaction.

Another fun thing to sprinkle into your stories is subtle hints that raise your desirability.  

These include mentioning other women in your life, having special social privileges, being the leader of your group, and doing things that make you stand out.  These are all essentially tasteful ways to brag in your stories…without actually bragging. Now you don’t need these but in some cases can add a special flare to your stories. I do this often by mentioning other women in my stories. You can do this by changing the word “friend” to “girlfriend” or name dropping by saying “my friends Lisa and Sarah” anything along those lines.  

They need to be subtle and never the subject of your story. They are just minor details. To make them theme authentic, do not provide an explanation for them. If part of your story involves you hooking up with multiple people, don’t provide an explanation for it, instead just keep talking, it’s not the focus on the story and by not providing an explanation, it comes off as a perfectly natural thing that is no big deal. Once you have thrown in all these fun storytelling tactics it time to give it the once over.

Eliminate all unnecessary content and make sure your story is moving along and does not drag out. That is the biggest problem people make, they drag their stories out too long about things that don’t affect the overall story. Be sure to eliminate redundancies.  For now…you should be aiming for about 2 mins stories.  How much you share all depends on how your storytelling skills develop. A masterful storyteller could captivate the audience for 20 mins. But for now, focus on getting 2-3 solid mins of your audiences attention. Remember to look for clues of people fading out so you know when to speed things up and get to the punch line. Always make sure you are keeping eye contact, this will help hold the audiences attention.

 Here is the FINAL revised version of my story. Enjoy:

Me: “Hey guys…how do you deal with people when you just caaaaannt get them to leave you alone?!”

Group: “blah blah”

Me: “Yeah that’s interesting so check this out…the other day I am at Club Voodoo, you ever been? (Check in point)…Cool, anyway I walk in with a group of my friend Lisa and some friends she brought along. There is a decent amount of people in the club, we are all having a great time and meeting lots of cool new people. Well this one guy somehow works his into my “group” and he just has this crappy vibe. Like he is so out of place, he was walking around with a Harley Davison Motorcycle hat on and like this tainted banana colored polo. You know when someone just clearly dose not belong and seems out of place…kind of like that guy (Put arm on person from audiences shoulder and point to someone else outside the audience)

So my friends and I keep trying to ditch him but he just won’t back down, he would just follow us everywhere we went, buzzing around like a fucking mosquito…with a really bad taste in clothing…like you have no idea how bad it was, I would be talking to some of Lisa’s friends and he would come up, stick his head between us and wrap us both in his arms and give us a little shake like this…(Do exactly what he did on them) And the worst part is he had this nasty…thick breath….oh it was terrible (Random Story Telling Tip: Appeal to the senses, especially the smell, it is the least addressed and most memorable.)

Anyway…my friends and I try to get away by going to the VIP floor and we have been drinking the free energy drinks all night and made a super tall pyramid out of cans. (Illustrate structure with arms). Then all of a sudden, the creepy guy weasels his way onto the floor and sits down at our table…and like a jackass he tries to add a can to the structure. (Start slowing things down for the punch line) Little did he know…that although the Red Bull on the top of the structure was opened…it was full…so this guy tries to add his can to the top then BAM!……………….the whole structure falls right into his lap and the filled soda can pours all over his crotch! (Create dramatic spill scene around your crotch, getting the girl to look there, although sneaky, creates lots of subtle sexual messages) It looked like he wet his pants! His face turns beat red and he just runs downstairs and we assume he left the club cause we didn’t see him again…I don’t know what the big deal is…I thought it was hilarious! (Share a good laugh with your audience, initiate more touch if you so please, initiating touch during laughter is very powerful)

If we look back at the original example of: “So the other day I am at club voodoo with my friends and I am going around making some new friends and having a good time. Well this one guy somehow works his way into my group but then ends up not leaving us alone all night, and he was a really annoying person that you just don’t want to talk to. He kept making every interaction in the club awkward and would not leave until he actually gets a hint and goes home.” You can see the dramatic changes these steps can make to any story.                                                                                                       
 
Before I conclude this oh so long article….I want to leave you with a couple advanced story telling tips.

    * If you are telling the same story, increase vocabulary in it, use powerful verbs and adjectives to bring the story to life

    * Always be painting a picture, appeal to all the senses when possible.

    * Start your stories at the end. If you ever saw the movie Fight Club you will notice how you are sucked into the story right from the beginning because you are curious to see how Edward Norton’s character got himself in such a dangerous situation. You can start your story at the end then build up to really captivate your audience.

    * The more emotion you put into a story the better, the more emotion you show in a story, the more mistakes you can make because your emotion and commitment to the story covers all that up.

    * Avoid pauses like “ummmm and ugghhh” everyone has a bad habit when they stumble in there stories.

    * Do not memorize your stories. You don’t want to sound like you are reading from a script, you want it to seem natural. It is possible to be too good at telling your stories and then it is almost like the listener is watching a scripted play. Just understand the concepts and events of your story, there should always be some slight differences when you tell your story. Practice telling it…but don’t become a scripted narrator.

Lastly and most important to sum things up….

    * Do not tell your stories AT your audience…tell your stories TO your audience. Make sure they are always getting involved and as you are telling your story, keep your eyes open for cues in the interaction you do not always have time to look for. Use these cues to find what points of your stories get certain reactions, and use them to move the story along. You pick up on different things if you are telling a story you know well, this is another way storytelling continues to improve your game.

Now go out and create your own epics that no woman can resist!