See a photo of Kendall, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Kendall Haven, Question 7:

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: I am torn between two and, so will offer both.

First: Know effective story architecture as well as you know effective oral delivery. If you master the form and process of building effective stories, you make your storytelling much easier. Storytelling becomes a burden only when you have to rely on performance technique to drag an audience through mediocre material.

Second: When you orally tell a story to an audience, how you say it is more powerful than what you say — the specific words you say. Too many tellers focus on the words and feel pressured to “get the words right.” Research has consistently shown that we humans don’t really listen to your specific words. We listen to the gist. We think we hear and remember your exact wording. But we don’t. We hear the gist, and in our own minds create our own wording to express that gist and then remember that self-created wording thinking that it is an accurate recording of what you said.

What story listeners do quite accurately note and record is how you say it — the energy, emotion, passion, etc. with which you say it. Listeners’ interpretation of how you say it drives their process of creating visual imagery and specific language to attach to your story and to file into memory.

[Editor’s note/image credit: Image at left is of storyteller Robin Bady. I felt photos of her on her site really embodied Kendall’s words about “energy, emotion, passion” and figured she wouldn’t mind the publicity. Visit her site to see her wonderfully expressive photos.]