19. Presentation Advice from Novelists II: Storyboard and Verbalize

In the previous chapter, you read about an article in the Wall Street Journal on the creative processes of novelists that offered two valuable pieces of advice for presenters:

• Begin with your goal or objective in mind.

• Write, rewrite, and rewrite.

That same article provided two more pieces of advice from one of the novelists interviewed, Edwidge Danticat, the author of Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection. Consider Ms. Danticat’s first suggestion:

Before she begins a novel, Edwidge Danticat creates a collage on a bulletin board in her office, tacking up photos she’s taken on trips to her native Haiti and images she clips from magazines .... [She] says she adapted the technique from storyboarding, which filmmakers use to map out scenes.^F19.1

Television and film directors use storyboards to plan their end products, whether it is a 60-second commercial or a multimillion-dollar special-effects epic. They map out the camera angles of each scene and then envision how the individual scenes will combine into a whole sequence. The storyboard provides a 35,000-foot view.

The equivalent in presentations is the Microsoft PowerPoint Slide Sorter, a 35,000-foot view of all the slides in the deck. In the Power Presentations programs, we provide our clients with an electronic (and paper) version of the Slide Sorter view called Storyboard. You can download a soft copy of this form from our web site, www.powerltd.com. Both versions provide a panoramic view of your story.

This view enables you to see all the slides in your presentation at a glance, a perspective that minimizes your focus on details and offers a broader outlook of the landscape. It’s an efficient planning tool that helps you check the progression of your story.

You can then validate the progression by speaking your narration aloud with the storyboard in front of you. This practice method is a variation of Verbalization, the subject you read about in Chapter 13, “Do You Know the Way to Spanish Bay?” Ms. Danticat Verbalizes. As the WSJ article described it, “She makes a tape recording of herself reading the entire novel aloud ... and revises passages that cause her to stumble.”

As part of your preparation, display your slides in a panoramic view and narrate your presentation aloud. Revise your presentation until you are comfortable with the flow. By the time you stand up in front your actual audience, your presentation will be clear, crisp, and fluid.