In the previous blog post I told you a story and I promised you I was going to tell you the elements that make this story work. There are four elements, the four C’s, that will make your stories entertaining, interesting, and valuable for your audience. I’ve learned them from Craig Valentine and I have been using them ever since. Here they are:
1) Characters: a story has to have characters with at least one protagonist. In the story I told you we have Jin, the teacher, Stanley, and myself. The story has to bring the characters to life and the best way to do that is to give them dialogue. Rather than “I thought that I needed to wash my socks”, it is better to say, I thought “I really need to wash my socks”.
2) Conflict: if you have characters but nothing happens your story is probably pretty boring. That is because people want to see the protagonist trying to accomplish something, finding obstacles in his/her way, and doing something to overcome the obstacles. The conflict must escalate to be more interesting. When I found out I had to give massage to Stanley I didn’t just say “yeah, let’s do it”. I wanted to quit the course. The more you escalate the conflict the more interesting your story will be. In reality, I didn’t want to quite course, but I took artistic licence to make the story more interesting.
3) Cure: when the conflict reaches climax, the protagonist finds the cure that solves the conflict. I thought “who cares!”; that was my cure. Usually the protagonist will learn the cure from someone else: the mentor. This cure is what the audience will learn from your story and hopefully they will be able to use it to solve their own struggles.
4) Change: after the conflict is solved something changes and most likely the protagonist changes. They have learned something and now they are wiser.
Stories make a point using emotion and they should be used as often as possible. If you have the four C’s in your stories –characters, conflict, cure, and change- your audience will be moved and they will remember your point, the cure. Remember, bring your characters to life, escalate the conflict, apply a cure, and show the change. What story are you going to use in your next presentation?
Make an impact,
Pablo
This blog post was originally published in 2012.