The compelling power of a story

I've been reminded three times this week about the compelling power of stories:

Once by an item in the paper about the eye witness account by sail-maker Robert Hope at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. Written in a letter to his brother he vividly describes moments like "when five more of the Enemy’s Ships came upon us and engage us upon every Quarter, for one hour and sixteen minutes. When one Struck but being so closely engaged that we could not take possession of her at that time. Two more seemed to be quite satisfied with what they had got so sheered off, but the other two, was determined to board us..." 
It's impossible to read his story and not be there seeing it through his eyes and experiencing the reality of it.
The second reminder came when reading Bill Bryson's - At Home. In the chapter The Kitchen he talks about food and he quotes from Tobias Smollett's The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. Referring to the vivid picture of life that Smollett paints in eighteenth-century England, Bryson illustrates this with the description of how milk was carried through London streets into which plopped "spittel, snot and tobacco quids from foot passengers, over-flowings from mud carts, spatterings from coach wheels, dirt and trash thrown in by roguish boys for the joke sake, the spewing of infants ...and finally, the vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vend this precious mixture." 
If I had simply been told that milk vending in 18th century England was unhygienic I wouldn't have understood quite so well!
And it is this experiencing it and therefore understanding it factor which is the magic that makes stories a compelling communication medium. And why story-telling should be in the tool box of anybody who has to regularly influence and motivate others.
Tips on how to create and tell a story are widely available. For a rapid master class read Mark Twain's How to tell a Great Story which is available as a free download. And read anything by Jeremy Clarkson. 
For my money the secret of storytelling - that magic ingredient that entrances the listener and gets them internalizing it - is vivid description. As was pointed out to me this week. Painting the picture in the listener's mind so they can see, hear, and feel the situation and the people - and be there with them.
So when you're putting together that story for your next presentation check it over for some of Hope's "every quarter for one hour and sixteen minutes" or Smollett's "spittel, snot and tobacco quids."
The third reminder? Oh yes. That was when listening to a compelling story on the radio.
It was on Womans Hour - so less said the better really! 
 
For more tips on persuasion browse the Resource Centre at http://www.persuadability.co.uk/