Camel. The writing was clear, but she read it aloud anyway. We leafed through the matchbox-sized cards, searching for the two words related to this simple clue. Tension hung thick in the air—an all-time high score was on the line.
After an animated debate, we placed Desert and Cigarette underneath Camel.
We looked at our clue-giver for confirmation. Silence, then two thumbs up. And then we were standing, clapping, and cheering.
This is part of a game called “So Clover” that we play often with family and friends. It’s directly related to a key storytelling ability—finding the one word at the center of your story.
Part one of this series covered how clinical storytelling improves how well people understand and remember information. Part two covers practical ways to build a story, from finding the main point to structuring and refining your message.
Start with the central idea
Storytelling is sometimes seen as embellishing a series of events to make them more exciting. That misconception has given stories a bad reputation as semi-truths.
What makes a good story is stripping down rather than adding to a series of events. This doesn’t mean summarizing the events; it means thinking critically about what you are trying to say and what you want your audience to remember. Ask yourself:
- What is one thing I want people to take away from this story?
- What one word could summarize the entire story?
- How could someone without the same background knowledge understand this story?
In his book Houston, We Have a Narrative, Randy Olson suggests using what he calls “The Dobzhansky Template” to find the central message of your story. Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhanksy famously said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” To apply this framework to your story, use “nothing in _______ makes sense except in the light of _______.” 1
For example, “nothing about how thoughts pass through my brain makes sense except in the light of psychology.” The central theme of this hypothetical story about my thoughts is that psychology can explain them—it all boils down to psychology.
Structuring your story
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And, but, therefore
The default structure for telling a series of events is “and, and, and.” This is how my children tell me about their dreams: “There was a donut and it was bigger than my house and I went inside and then I went outside and I petted a cat and I woke up.”
Listing happenings one after the other is cute for a five-year-old, but it won’t make for a compelling story in medicine.
Try “and, but, therefore” instead. Broken down, it looks like this:
- And: the top facts of your story.
- But: an inciting incident that advances the story.
- Therefore: how to live with the “but” incident.
Olson uses the plot from The Wizard of Oz to explain this structure:
“I can tell you the story of a little girl living on a farm in Kansas AND her life is boring, BUT one day a tornado sweeps her away to the land of Oz, THEREFORE she must undertake a journey to find her way home (p. 16).”1
IMRAD and the three-act play
Scientific publications follow a similar structure: IMRAD (introduction, methods, results, discussion). This familiar format is strikingly like one often used in theater: the three-act play. Act I introduces the character, situation, and problem. Act II asks whether there is another way, and Act III shows the way and the character’s transformation.
Like the three-act play, IMRAD sets up the problem, shows where the research fits, and then the transformation. We don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel with clinical storytelling; it is already built into the tried-and-true structure for reporting on clinical research results.
Storytelling tips
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
#1 Find your place on the narrative spectrum
Did you notice I started this blog with a narration? Hopefully it helped pull you in. Stories need a mix of narration and fact-telling to be effective. Too much narration and you lose the central train of thought; too little, and you risk boring your audience.
One way to nail the narration is to analyze each part of your story. Where would a detailed, emotional example help the listener understand your central message? Where would narration distract from what you want the listener to know?
#2 Make your listener the hero
People are interested in stories that are about them. Let them immediately see themselves in the story, and they will be hooked. Pull the listener in by addressing a problem they face, describing a situation they find themselves in, or pointing to something they want.
#3 Don’t forget emotion
Capture your listener’s attention by making the story’s stakes crystal-clear and adding vulnerable details. We can all relate to failure and fear, as hard as they are to admit to. Highlighting what might be lost if the story doesn’t end well gets the listener involved in the story. As author Will Storr explains in The Science of Storytelling, our evolutionary instinct is to crave a happy ending.2 Stakes encourage the listener to stick around to learn what happens next.
To be continued
Developing your story starts with locating your central message and finding the element that changes everything. From there, it is all in the refining and the telling.
Part 3 of this series will explain what to do with this information with application for clinical storytelling in your daily work.
Building a story is exciting but takes time and work. We’d love to talk if you want help finding your story’s central message or fresh ways to communicate it.
1) Olson, Randy. Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story, University of Chicago Press, 2015.
2) Storr, William. The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better, Harry N. Abrams, 2020.
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