CHAPTER 18

The Magic of Story

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

—Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

To conclude, I’d like to share with you some final thoughts on the power of narratives.

Heart-centered

As you continue to think about the ideas in this book and hone your storytelling skills with all the tools presented in these pages, I hope your index finger that may once have been pointing up at your head is now pointing down toward your heart.

And, if you allow yourself to be more heart-centered, I believe you will also find that your stories are more effective and more resonant with the hearts and minds of your customers and consumers.

With power comes responsibility

Now, before this book ends, here’s a caveat. In 1950, a great storyteller, William Faulkner, upon accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature said: “The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is…to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail” (The Faulkner Reader).

Faulkner knew that stories have tremendous potential power and, also, that tremendous responsibility comes with that power. In response to Faulkner’s call to arms, I hope this book has inspired you to try to harness that power and has ennobled and inspired you to gladly bear that awesome responsibility.

True, storytelling is an art form that you will not be able to master overnight. But becoming a great storyteller is a truly worthy goal, and I wish you well on your journey toward true story mastery.

A little bit o’ magic

I hope you have found many of my hints on constructing compelling narratives helpful. Ideally, by the time you’ve gotten to this final chapter, you are already on your way to creating some new killer brand narratives.

I also hope that I haven’t ruined watching TV or movies for you, because now you are probably over-analyzing and deconstructing the narratives you watch. But rest assured, the best storytellers are so good that, no matter how overly analytical and well-educated you are on the craft of narrative construction, truly great stories will sweep you off your feet, and you will be so carried away that you won’t notice a thing until the story is over.

In the end, though, after all the rules and guidelines and checklists, there really is only one guaranteed way for you to become a better storyteller: keep reading great stories, keep trying to construct them, and keep practicing telling your own stories, always noting your audience’s response and constantly revising, revising, revising.

Never forget, when storytelling is done well, it’s truly magical. Sure, I can lecture on this stuff until I’m blue in the face (and I have). But once in a while, when you work hard at it and intuitively absorb all the rules, a great story may just burst forth from your heart. What you may find is that, if your story has just the right combination of characters, themes, and dialogue, it fuses together to enchant hearts everywhere it goes.

When told well, your story will gain a life of its own. It may even grow wings and take flight.

I want to end this book with a nod to that which is beyond our control: the magical aspects of storytelling. For, by now, you should realize that when you put the right words together and in the right order, magic really can happen.

I’m talking about the magic of a combination of sentences flying through the ether and emotionally affecting strangers, making them laugh or cry or maybe even changing the way they see the world.

I’m referring to the everyday magic of people being moved by stories. This, my friend, is not some fantastic, fictional Harry Potter–like dream. Magic happens every day when a good story is well told, and it has been happening for centuries and millennia.

Such is the alchemy of transformational narratives, the enchantment of a good yarn that sheds light into the dark corners of our world. In the end, isn’t that why we tell tales? To change things, to help others, to inspire growth, to teach, and to learn.

Yes, if you’re good at it, and also a little bit lucky, maybe once in a while your stories will improve the lives of others on this spinning blue planet.

So that is all.

Be bold. Be brave. Hook ‘em by telling better stories, embrace the magic, and keep trying to change the world for the better.