Storytelling Cheat Sheet

For my storytelling trainings I have prepared a storytelling cheat sheet for the theory that I use.

• 3 Phases of a story
• 5 Elements of memorable stories
• 6 Types of stories

The elements of memorable stories are from Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and the types of stories can be found in Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins
I have written about them in earlier blog posts, but here is a quick summary.

3 Phases of a story

I have written about the 3 phases of a story before, but the short version is:

• Context – What is the setting, the challenge and why should we care?
• Challenge – Overcoming the challenge
• Celebration – What has improved now that we have beaten the challenge?

5 Elements of memorable stories

Dan and Chip Heath were intrigued why we remember weird urban legends but have absolutely no clue what our corporate mission statement is. In Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die they describe the 6 elements of things we easily remember. They are:

• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional
• Story

Which leaves 5 elements for a memorable story. I have written a full blog post on the 5 elements of memorable stories.

6 types of stories

Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins by Annette Simmons is a great book for anyone looking to improve their storytelling. One of the great ideas is that there are a few different types of stories, not all of which should be told the same way. She introduces 6 types of stories:

• Who am I?
• Why am I here?
• I know what you are thinking..
• Values
• Teaching
• Vision

I just realized there is no full blog post on the 6 types of stories. Something I should fix soon

You can click on the thumbnail to download an image of the cheat sheet, but if you want to print it you might prefer the PDF.

Tags: Annette Simmons, cheat sheet, made to stick, memorable story, story phase, types of stories