Story Builder: Full version

Now that we have an idea, lets get clear about your story’s purpose.

A compelling story is always clear about the impact and purpose for the audience.

What do you want your audience to go away thinking about? Maybe it’s believe in yourself, even when others don’t, or persistence pays off in the end.

So now that you have an idea and purpose, it’s time to focus on elevating your story to one your audience will care about.

Stories that resonate and inspire us focus on people and how they deal with events. They’re not a dump of “this happened and then this happened”. 

When we hear story, our wonderful brains follow the character as if we were them. We feel what the character feels and learn what the character learns.

So now is the time to think about who the story is really about.

Okay let’s deepen the story by creating some inner conflict

Before we test your character, we need to know what they really want and why that’s important to your character. What’s the one thing they really want more than anything and why is that so important? 

What’s stopping your character?

Stories that flop often miss this step. The objective is to go deeper into your character’s world and surface their underlying beliefs that will drive their behaviour and actions.

With business stories we often avoid this and stick to external obstacles but then our stories only appeal to the logical side of the brain and misses the underlying human empathy needed to inspire action. For more information about using inner conflict refer to our article Story telling: Part two.

What external event forces action?

Now is the time to consider the external event that sparks action.  What happens to bring about the change and force your character to act?

Stories with a weak external event lack urgency and impetus for change.

Our brains by nature resist change. For action to seem credible and plausible, the event needs to be big and urgent. If the event doesn’t say why your character needs to act now and not tomorrow, you need to relook at your event.

The stumbles and false hope

Our brains look for patterns and respond based on things we’ve tried before.

So even though the sky has started to fall on your character and they must take action, their first attempts to deal with this crisis will be things that have worked in the past. Even if your character is aware their underlying belief is not helpful, they’re not yet ready to let go.

Try and write this next section as a series of cause and effect statements.

The AHA moment

So your poor character has really hit rock bottom. Life has knocked them right off their feet, and now they must face the harsh reality: their underlying belief that they’ve held onto so fiercely is wrong.

Pulling everything together

If you’ve answered everything so far, then everything from here is easy! If you skipped a couple of steps or you aren’t happy with your answers, that’s okay you can always go back and forth and keep working.