Six Prompts To Boost Your Storytelling Impact

For today’s post, I thought I’d share some prompts that harken back to elementary school. Remember these: “5 Ws + 1 H”?

In other words: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

Back in school, these “5 Ws + 1 H” were presented as essential elements of any kind of research, essay or presentation.

These simple prompts serve as the most basic checklist for understandable communications. Yet it’s remarkable how often we skip over them.

(Next time you’re writing anything, even an email, try using the “5 Ws + 1 H” as a checklist. Are you sharing all the necessary information that people need to know? Is it clearly conveyed?)

Going a step further, these prompts can be evolved to deepen your thinking and advance your storytelling with some simple tweaks.

So, in this post, I’m going to share six prompts that will help you think more carefully about your storytelling initiatives, and make them far more impactful.

In fact, these prompts are so important, if your communications are failing to meet their mark, the answer may lie here. It might not be that you need to write better; you may just need to do more thinking about the prompts I’m about to share.

You’ll notice that many of these questions focus on your audience, rather than you. That’s deliberate. A huge part of effective storytelling is about considering your audience and how you can best serve them. It’s an underrated yet immensely valuable part of thought leadership, storytelling, and any form of communication.

Word of warning: Some of these questions look simple but are deceptively challenging. You may not have all the answers right away. I encourage you to wrestle with them anyway. Make it part of your work to consider these prompts every time you undertake a storytelling project of any kind.

Here we go.

• Prompt #1: Who do you want to reach with your storytelling?
In other words, who is your primary audience — the people you want to reach and serve? Get as specific as possible. If you have multiple audiences, concentrate on the one group that’s most important to you right now.

• Prompt #2: How do you want to help them?
How do you want them to feel, think, or behave differently (and better) as a result of engaging with you? Keep in mind, this is about how you can help them, not the other way around.

• Prompt #3: What idea, knowledge, or piece of wisdom do you possess that could help them achieve this outcome?
In other words, what do you want your audience to know, understand, or believe—for their own benefit? Again, stay focused on how you want to help them.

• Prompt #4: Where will you engage with your audience?
Be as specific as possible. For example, on LinkedIn? Over email? At events? Through organized meetings?

• Prompt #5: When will you help them, and for how long?
In other words, what is going on in their lives that means they want/need your help? And, how long will you serve them for?

• Prompt #6: Why is helping this audience important to you?
(Dig deep here — beyond just doing your job or running a business, why is it so important that you reach these people with your words and ideas?)

That’s it! Simple, though not necessarily easy.

Let me know how it goes for you. And remember, you don’t have to do this perfectly (nobody does). The point is to engage with the process.

Keep at it! I believe in you and your story.