7
Techniques for Developing Style

In This Chapter

You’ll find more techniques for developing style at AOVA.VoiceActing.com.

The techniques covered in this chapter are intended to help you quickly discover the most effective, or appropriate, choices for delivering a line of copy, a phrase, or an entire script. In other words, these are tools to aid you in developing your interpretation of a script. As you work with more and different types of copy, you will gradually develop a process through which you apply a variety of techniques to ultimately arrive at your performance. The process you develop, and the techniques you utilize, will have a direct effect on your overall performing style.

Developing style is usually not a quick process. It can take time, experimentation and may be frustrating at times. But with persistence and dedication, the results can be well worth the effort.

Before you can begin to understand or apply a technique, you must have, at least, a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts that comprise the craft of performing for voiceover. Many of these core concepts have already been discussed. But when it comes to developing your individual, unique performing style, there are a few concepts that are essential.

Critical Voice Acting Concepts

Leave Your Ego outside

One of the keys to success in voice acting is to let go of any judgments, inhibitions, and concerns you might have about what you are doing. Leave your ego outside. Allow yourself to become the character in your script. If your delivery needs to be loud, and you are concerned about disturbing those around you, go someplace where you can be alone to work on your performance.

The director in the front row of your mind is not there to judge you, but should be considered a coach and an advocate whose sole purpose is to make your performance better. There is an important difference between being critically analytical about your performance and being judgmental.

Judgmental thinking would be:

Analytical, or critical, thinking would be:

Judgmental thinking usually approaches the subject from a negative point of view, stops you in your tracks, and prevents you from discovering the solutions you need. Critical, analytical thinking is constructive and helps move you toward solutions that will make your performance more believable. Of the two, judgmental thinking comes naturally to most people, while critical thinking is a learned skill.

When you leave your ego, judgments, and inhibitions outside the booth, you’ll be open to critically analyzing your script to achieve the best possible performance. Chapter 10, “The Character in the Copy,” will give you some tools and techniques for doing this.

Rehearse the Way You'll Perform

An important part of developing your process for interpretation and performance, is to experiment with your choices out loud, exactly the way you intend to perform the lines. This means you can’t hold back just because you are afraid of what someone nearby might think. Always keep in mind that you are an actor, and as an actor, your job is to perform. And in order to create a great performance, you must rehearse the way you will be performing.

Be careful not to make the mistake of rehearsing silently or at a whisper. Unless you test your choices out loud, you can’t possibly know exactly what your performance will sound like. Your delivery might sound great in your head, but the minute you start performing on mic, it will almost always come out of your mouth sounding completely different from what you had in mind.

Interrupt – Engage – Educate – Offer

Regardless of the type of voiceover script you might be working with, your job as a voice actor is to effectively communicate the message, often attempting to reach the listener on an emotional level. The challenge is in figuring out how to do that.

We can borrow a basic concept of marketing and apply it to our voiceover work to result in a powerful tool for creating an effective delivery. Whenever we want to communicate something to someone else, we need to do four things: 1) We need to get their attention, 2) we need to keep their attention, 3) we need to give them the information, and 4) we need to give them an opportunity to respond or act on what we’ve said.

In marketing, this is the process of interrupt, engage, educate, and offer. This process should not be confused with advertising. Although an advertisement might include these four components— and some of the best ads do—advertising is more about creating an interrupt and making a message memorable through repetition. Marketing is more about creating a unique aspect to the message that will make it memorable without repetition.

So, how do we apply this concept to voiceover? Glad you asked!

As you peruse your copy, searching for the various elements discussed so far, take a close look at the first sentence or two. How can you speak those words in a way that will instantly take the listener’s mind off of what they are thinking and swing their attention towards you? Your interpretation of those first few words creates the interrupt—and there may be dozens of ways to do it! You might achieve it with a whisper, an emotional subtext, through tempo, or by speaking with an attitude in your tone of voice. Every script will be different, and there may be only a few ways that will work well with any given script. Many of the techniques explained earlier are specifically intended to help you to create a powerful Interrupt.

Now that you’ve got the listener’s attention the real work begins. In order to keep them listening you’ve got to engage them in the message. A well-written script will help, but the real secret to successful engagement is in the nuance and subtlety of your interpretation. You can’t just be reading the words. And if you sound at all like you are acting, or in any way phony, all credibility and believability will be lost. This step of engaging the listener requires a deep understanding of your character’s role in telling the story. This component is critical to an effective voiceover performance because it gets the listener involved and invested in the story.

Once the listener is invested in listening to the message, important information can be delivered to educate them. This part of a script is usually pretty obvious. It’s the description and price details, or the explanation of how something works. It’s often nothing more than raw, uninteresting information. But you can’t let it sound like that. You’ve put a lot of work into getting your listener invested in what you have to say. Don’t throw it all away now! By the time you get to the educational part of your story, your delivery needs to have evolved in such a way that the flow from interrupt through engagement and into education is imperceptible.

The final step in this process is the offer. This could be a tag delivered by a different voice, or it could simply be an address or phone number. In a video production, the offer may be visual only without any voiceover. The idea of the offer in marketing is to provide a safe and low-risk way for the audience to take the next step in the sales process. In advertising, this is referred to as a call to action. As with the other three components, the way you deliver the offer will be directly dependent upon the context of the script and your choices in how the story will be told.

These steps of interrupt, engage, educate, and offer must be positioned in that order for the communication to be effective. Once the first three elements are presented, the sequence can be repeated and mixed up in any order. There may be multiple Interrupts, multiple Engagements and several injections of Education. The Offer may even be presented several times, or only once at the end. A properly written script will use this structure.

Unfortunately, many inexperienced copywriters don’t understand basic marketing and advertising concepts and will leave one of the components out completely, or worse—begin the script with the offer. This sort of poorly-written copy is all too common. As a voice actor, it will be your job to bring the words to life—regardless of how they are written. When you master the various ways to incorporate interrupt, engage, educate, and offer into your delivery style, you will be far ahead of most other voice actors who will still be struggling with their basic interpretation.

It is only through a complete understanding of the story in a script that you will be able to discover the most effective punctuation, phrasing, attitude, character, emotion, subtlety, nuance, and the meaning of words in the context of telling the story. You can’t change the words in a script, but as a voice actor, you have a tremendous amount of flexibility in determining how those words might be spoken.

Shortcuts that Trick Your Brain

Over the years, your brain has developed some very specific and predictable ways in which information is perceived and interpreted. It is because of this predictability that we can utilize some clever techniques that effectively “short-circuit” our normal brain processes so we can achieve our desired results in a performance. You’ll be amazed at how effective some of these shortcuts are!

The 2-4 Shortcut

When you speak conversationally with a fairly relaxed delivery, the result is that certain words are often pronounced in a manner that is not totally accurate. Regional accents and dialects will reveal a wide variety of how certain words are spoken. For example, the word “tomorrow” is often pronounced as “tahmarrow,” or “tamarreh.” “Forget” becomes “fergit,” “our” becomes “are,” and so on.

When you want to speak with the standard non-accented American English to correctly pronounce words that have a “to” or “for” in them, simply replace the “to” or “for” with the numeral “2” or “4.” Your brain is trained to say the numbers as “two” and “four,” so as you are reading, your brain sees the number and you automatically speak the word more precisely.

Respell with Sound-Alikes

The same basic idea as the 2-4 shortcut can be used for other words as well. When you find you are mispronouncing a word, or need to speak with clearer diction, you can simply respell the word phonetically or using a different word that has the sound you want. For a word like “our,” change the spelling to “hour.” One student of mine had difficulty speaking the word “cellular” when used in the context of a script discussing cellular telephones. By simply changing the spelling of the word on his script from “cellular” to “sell-ya-ler,” he was almost immediately able to deliver the lines perfectly. This little trick fools the brain and works with most sound-alike words. If you’ve printed the script, go ahead and make the change on paper, or copy and paste the script from an email or document if you’re working from a computer screen. The possibilities are unlimited, and using this trick can truly be a life saver when working with technical or medical copy.

Linking

A common problem is the de-articulation, or dropping, of the last letter or sound of a word. This condition is occasionally referred to as lazy mouth, and is simply the result of poor diction. Although it may be OK for general conversation, this can present a problem for recorded projects. When the last sound of a word is not spoken, or is spoken too softly, the word can get “lost in the mix” when combined with music or sound effects.

To correct for this, most people will mistakenly adjust their delivery to be overly articulated or over-enunciated. The result is an artificial sound that is not authentic. In some cases, where the character naturally speaks in a “lazy” style, this de-articulation of the ends of words can be completely appropriate. However, for most voiceover copy—especially copy that will eventually be mixed with music or sound effects—the delivery must be spoken with clear diction. Here’s a way to do that without resorting to over-articulation.

The technique is called linking, and it’s a trick that comes from the world of singing. The idea is to take the last letter of a word and attach that letter to the beginning of the next word. For example, the phrase “… and everyone was there” might sound like “an everyone was there,” with the “d” not spoken on the word “and.” To use the linking technique, the “d” on “and” is moved to become the first letter of the word “d-everyone.” So the adjusted line will sound like “an deveryone was there.”

Basic Techniques

As with most things in life, voiceover work has many levels of skill and techniques that range from very simple to very difficult. The following techniques fall in the “Advanced” category, not because they are especially difficult, but, rather, because these concepts are most effectively applied after achieving a certain level of skill with other, fundamental processes and performing techniques described earlier in this book.

Make Them the Only Words

Occasionally the way a paragraph is written can be troublesome, resulting in difficulty finding an effective interpretation. When you notice that you’re throwing away the end of a sentence, or that your inflections are the same for every line, reduce the script to the one line of copy giving you trouble. Make that one line the entire script and deliver it out loud to hear how it sounds. Say it a few different ways and choose the best interpretation. Then put the line back into the context of the script to hear how it works with the full text. This trick will usually make a big difference.

Remove or Change Punctuation Marks

Copywriters use punctuation marks because a script is originally written grammatically correct for the eye, to be read. However, we don’t use punctuation marks when speaking in conversation. Part of our job as voice talent is to take the words “off the page” and make them real and believable. If you work the punctuation marks, your delivery will usually end up sounding like you’re reading.

One of the best ways to create an illusion of reality in a performance is to remove or change the punctuation marks. Instead of instinctively pausing at a comma, or stopping at a period, try ignoring the punctuation to create a contiguous flow of words. Let the words and phrasing guide you through your telling of the story.

Just because there is a comma in the script, it doesn’t mean you have to pause or take a breath! Just because there is a period, doesn’t mean you can’t deliver the line as a question or as an exclamation. What would your delivery sound like if you changed a comma to a hyphen... or an ellipsis? What if you put a comma at a different place in the sentence? What if you read a sentence ending with a question mark as an exclamatory statement of fact? Every line of copy has an almost infinite number of possibilities for delivery.

Removing the punctuation marks doesn’t mean literally going through the script with white-out, although I do know of some voice actors who actually do that. What it does mean is performing the copy in a real, believable, and conversational manner. A real-life conversation is punctuated with pauses, changes of inflection, dynamics (soft, loud), emotional attitude (excitement, sadness, and so on), vocalized sounds (uh-huh, hmmm, grunts, throat clearing, etc.), and many other subtleties. To create a sense of reality, voiceover copy should be delivered the same way. Let your delivery dictate the punctuation—not the other way around. Allow the scripted punctuation marks to guide you, but be careful not to take them too literally. Sometimes, a simple change of punctuation can make a big difference in the interpretation, thus improving the performance.

Occasionally, you’ll get a piece of copy that just doesn’t make sense because the grammar or punctuation is wrong or grammatically incorrect. The writer may understand what she wants to say, and even how the words should be spoken, but because it isn’t punctuated properly for the eye, the words are pretty much meaningless. It then becomes your job to figure out what the correct punctuation should be so you can give the words meaning. For example, punctuate the following phrase to give it meaning¹:

There is only one correct way to punctuate this line of copy to give it meaning. When you get the correct punctuation, the phrase will make sense in its written form as well as when you speak it. Most copy will also have one punctuation that works best for the eye, but there may be multiple options from which to choose when those words are spoken. You’ll find the correct punctuation for the above line of text at the end of this chapter.²

Changing and removing punctuation marks as you perform is a way of making the words your own to truly take them “off the page.” This tool can help you find the inflection, energy, and dynamics you are looking for as you begin to make the critical choices for delivering your copy.

Reverse Text to Find Inflection

Occasionally, it can be challenging to find the best way to deliver a line of copy. This often happens when an inexperienced copywriter writes for the eye and not for the ear. Sentence structure for the written word is often quite different than for the spoken word. A trick I call text reversal can often help. The basic idea is to simply reverse the sentence structure to discover a different way of inflecting the words. Once found, put the sentence back as written, and deliver with the newly discovered inflection and energy. It works just about every time! Here’s an example of common writing for the eye:

By reversing the two parts of the sentence, you may discover a better way to inflect the words.

Once you’ve found an inflection you like, deliver as written, but keep the new inflection.

Never Play Comedy for the Laugh

Comedy is a common approach to communicating a message, especially in advertising copy. People relate to humor and are intrigued by an oddball character delivery, non sequitur statement, quirky personality, or out-of-place situation. All of these things serve as Interrupts or Engagements that consistently grab or hold the listener’s attention. But they only work when the listener believes that what they are hearing has a sense of truth and reality.

When playing a comedic role or performing a comedic script, many beginning actors will tend to “go for the joke, or “play the comedy for the laugh.” This rarely works, and when it does, it only works when “playing for the laugh” is a component of the character’s personality or behavior.

“Playing for the laugh” will ultimately tip the hand and kill the joke resulting in a performance that isn’t funny. At best, going for the laugh will dilute the message. At worst, it will completely antagonize the listener. Playing for the laugh is, technically, over-acting and simply does not ring true in the mind of the listener.

When you are working with a script that is clearly written for comedy, you will be far more effective to play the role for the truth and reality of the moment. Play the comedy as though whatever is being said is “simply the way it is.” Now, that’s funny!

Ride the Elevator to Tweak Your Timing

Commercial scripts are often written with too little, or too much copy. It’s just a fact of life. Also, we may discover that the choices we make for our character result in a delivery that is too slow or too fast. We need to be able to adjust our delivery so that we complete the copy within the specified period of time. Sometimes this challenge can only be resolved through script revisions. But, more often than not, we can easily adjust the tempo of our delivery without affecting the meaning or intentions of our delivery.

The easiest way to think of this adjustment is to simply speed up or slow down the delivery tempo. But thinking in these terms can have an adverse effect in that the words may sound rushed or unnaturally slow. A better, and much more practical, way to think of adjusting speed is to imagine that you are riding in an elevator. To speed up your delivery, simply imagine that you and the person you are speaking to get on at the same time, and that they are getting off at the next floor. You must tell them what you have to say by the time the elevator doors open. When you need to slow your pace, give yourself an extra floor or two for telling your story.

Changing the way you think about how you speak the words in a script can completely change the believability of your voiceover performance.

Advanced Techniques

Substitution: Changing Context to Find Attitude

Changing context is yet another way to look at your script from a different perspective. This simple trick is called substitution and it can make the difference between a flat delivery and one that lands on target. This trick is similar to reversing the text, except that instead of reversing the sentence structure to find alternative choices, only certain words are changed, while leaving the overall sentence structure intact.

When you have problems with a line, you can completely change the sentence to something that you understand and relate to. It’s OK to change the words because this is only a process for you to discover choices.

Once you’ve found a meaningful interpretation, go back to the script and use the same delivery style. For example, this probably won’t mean much to you:

So, let’s change it to something like this:

The new context doesn’t need to make any more sense than the original script. But by using substitution to change the context to something you easily understand, you will be able to create a meaningful delivery. Now all you need to do is apply your chosen delivery to the original script.

Add a Word or Two

As a general rule of thumb, you will want to deliver a script as written. However, the underlying job of a voice actor is to bring the words to life by creating a believable character who delivers the message in an interesting and compelling manner. Sometimes the way a script is written just doesn’t lend itself to an effective rhythm. This is often true of lists in which every item of the list tends to have the identical inflection resulting in a monotonous rhythm.

To create greater interest and a more compelling rhythm try adding conjunctions between items in a list. This can give each item greater value and, depending on the intonation of your delivery, effectively convey a specific attitude or emotion such as excitement or frustration. For example, here’s how a typical list might be written:

Adding conjunctions will allow you to “play” with inflection, pacing, and attitude as you speak, making each item important in its own right. You will also be able to more effectively build interest throughout the list by creating the impression that you are thinking of each item just before you say the words:

Adding words will almost always add length and time to your performance, which may require you to make timing adjustments in other parts of your delivery. A more advanced use of this technique is to add words silently as you deliver a line of copy. Not speaking the added words can be a bit tricky, but the effect can be very powerful as a means for creating an emotionally charged delivery.

This technique should be used judiciously as many producers will want you to deliver the script exactly as written.

Subtract Words

Just as adding a word or two can enhance your delivery, the same can be true if you subtract a word or two. This technique can speed up your delivery by making statements more terse and abrupt. By removing the “and” that usually sits between the last two items of a list, the overall tone of the delivery can instantly take on a sense of authority.

Break the Rules of Logic

Logic dictates that we deliver a line of copy with proper sentence structure, articulation, grammar, and an interpretation based on our understanding of the text. Many of the most effective techniques for creating a believable character and compelling delivery require breaking the rules of logic. Breaking the rules of logic can have a powerful impact on your delivery.

Here’s yet another nifty trick for keeping the listener’s attention: Break a single word into two or more words. In most cases, we logically deliver a word the same way regardless of the context of the script. Breaking a single word into its component parts can result in an enhanced understanding of the underlying meaning. For example, speaking the simple phrase “Absolutely amazing!” will have a certain level of impact. However, the meaning will be completely different if you restate the phrase by treating each syllable as a separate word: “Ab so lute ly a mazing!”

This technique won’t work in every situation or with every script, but when you need to draw importance to a specific copy point this tool can be incredibly effective.

Break the Rules of Grammar

Copy is written grammatically for the eye. Even when a script is written in the style of a specific character, the text will often tend to be written grammatically correct and may even include syntax that is not consistent with the character you create. Break the rules of grammar by dropping words, adding words or sounds, rearranging words, changing punctuation, and altering the rhythm or tempo to create more compelling characters.

A basic premise of all voice acting is that you must do whatever it takes to bring the words to life. If the character you create speaks in a specific manner with an accent, attitude, or incorrect grammar, then you need to present that in your performance. In other words, character has precedence over copy. Of course, your producer may want you to deliver the copy in a certain way which may stifle your creative efforts, but that’s the way this business works. This concept is covered in more detail in Chapter 10, “The Character in the Copy.”

Work Backwards

This is a quick trick to quickly get a sense of the big picture of a story or script. It can help you to quickly get an idea of the copywriter's intent, the target audience, the client's message, and some solid clues about your character and the story in the copy.

The idea is to scan the script from the end first, working your way up to the first line of the script. The end of a script is where the resolution or non-resolution of conflict occurs and is usually the point where a character's attitude or true motivation is revealed. It is also where the most important part of the message usually resides.

Many times, simply reading the tag or the last few lines of a script will give you a very good idea of where you need to take your performance for the entire script. It doesn’t work all the time or with all scripts, but when it does work, it can be a tremendous time saver.

Find Emotional Hooks

These are the words or phrases that carry an emotional impact. Recall, from past experience, a similar emotion (sense memory). Notice that the memory of the emotion creates a certain physical tension someplace in your body (see “Create Tension” on page 171.) Observe where the tension is located in your body and what it feels like. Hold this sensation as you deliver the copy, re-experiencing the emotion or feeling. Now speak from that place in your body, fully expressing the emotion. This technique helps to make your performance more believable and your character more real.

Memorize the First Line

This is a neat trick given to me by fellow VO coach, Marc Cashman, to quickly achieve a conversational delivery. The general idea is to memorize the first sentence or two of a script and pick up reading the text from the second or third sentence. The process of memorizing the first few lines allows you to internalize the words, context, and interpretation so that when you begin reading you will already be in a conversational delivery. Memorizing the first few lines also makes it easier to stay in character and sustain attitude throughout your performance. Even though you may have the first line or two memorized, be prepared to adjust your delivery if asked to do so by your director.

Read It with an Accent

Read the script with a dialect or accent to explore different ways of speaking the words, adjusting the phrasing, and playing with the timing. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Just have fun as you read through the script. Reading with an accent will unlock possibilities you may not have thought about otherwise. You’ll also discover words or phrases that either do or do not work with the accent. You may discover a word or phrase that will give you a clue as to a different accent or tone of voice that will work for your delivery.

Use Music as Inspiration (Music Match Exercise)

This advanced technique isn’t for everyone, and it’s definitely not a quick fix or something that will work in all situations. However, for those sessions when you have some time and are stuck trying to figure out a delivery attitude or you are facing a challenge developing a character, delivery tempo, or rhythm, this idea may serve you well.

The general idea is to use music as a tool for developing your interpretation or character. Music can be a powerful motivator and an inspiration at an emotional level. The ancient Greeks considered music as the study of invisible, internal, hidden objects. Your interpretation of a script is largely based on your personal, internal, hidden responses to the words in the script, so it’s only natural that music can help trigger those responses to help you discover energy, attitude, emotion, and much more.

Begin by finding a piece of music that fits the mood, tone, or energy of the script. Instrumentals will often work best, but vocals may give you some ideas for phrasing or voice characterization.

As you listen to several pieces of music you may find that each piece of music you listen to will give you additional ideas or inspire a new interpretation. Let the music be your guide for making a variety of choices with your delivery. Test your performance choices by rehearsing the script as the music plays in the background. Focus on matching your delivery to the mood, tempo, rhythm, and tone of the music. You’ll quickly discover that if you let the music guide you to your character, everything about your performance will change depending on the music you are working to. An upbeat music track will result in more smile, a quicker pace, and a brighter performance. A slower, dramatic music track will result in a more intense, dramatic, and emotional performance.

Finally, rehearse your script without music to confirm that your choices are strong and effective. By testing your performance against a variety of musical styles, you’ll be better prepared to make valid choices for your performance when you record your auditions and paid session work.

Of course, the music you rehearse with will never actually be used, so you can feel free to use your favorite CDs or downloaded files. Movie soundtracks are excellent for this technique because of the wide range of emotions and dramatic content. If you want to work with the same type of music that commercial producers use, you can visit any of the numerous online music libraries. Although these music libraries sell their music downloads, there is no charge for auditioning, or listening to the music. It’s relatively easy to select a genre and start listening to music as you work with your script.

Because your job is to provide dry voice tracks to your clients, I don’t recommend purchasing any library music. Of course, if you have the talent for providing complete production services, having some library music on-hand can certainly be a benefit.

There are literally dozens of online music libraries and the easiest way to find them is to simply enter an Internet search for the keywords: production music library.

Using Props

Quite often a voiceover script will describe a procedure, gesture, or other physical action. Most of the time, simply miming the described action or pretending to hold the item will help to create the reality of the moment. However, sometimes, it can be more helpful to actually hold something physical in your hands that represents the item you are talking about.

My recommendation is to not use props unless absolutely necessary. However, should you choose to use a physical prop, just be aware that they can make noise and inhibit other physicality which can adversely affect your performance.

As with any other performing technique, props will work better for some people and will not work at all for others.

Take the “Voice” out of “Voiceover”

While developing your interpretation, don't just read your copy. Have a specific person in mind as you have a conversation and talk to your audience, not at them, always striving to motivate, persuade, or move the listener to action. Remember that even if you are the only person in the booth, the other person is always there. Visualize the perfect person to hear the message, and talk to them. Talking at your audience will sound like you are either reading the script, selling the message, or acting. All of these perceptions are ineffective and ultimately result in the listener disconnecting from the story.

Only by taking the voice out of voiceover—in other words, creating a completely believable and compelling conversation—will you be able to draw the listener into your story. Although we refer to the craft as voice acting, or voiceover, the reality is that you are a storyteller. Remember:

• Tell the story, don’t try to sell it.
• Use drama (emotional hooks) to attract and hold attention.
• Talk in phrases, not word by word.
• Don't read—have a conversation with the listener.
• Don’t act—be authentic and real at all times.
• Let the content and subtext of the copy determine your dynamics.
• Talk out loud to yourself to find hidden treasures in your delivery.
• Experiment with different attitudes, inflections, and emotions.
• Take out the punctuation marks in the script to make the copy flow more naturally and conversationally.
• Have a mental attitude that allows you to create a feeling of reality and believability. If you believe your character is real, your listener will.

Take the Product out of the Message

With most copy, especially commercial copy, it’s very easy to become focused on talking about the specific subject of the story. When your delivery is focused on the subject, you can easily lose the subtlety and nuance of what’s going on behind the words. And, most of the time, effective story-telling is the result of understanding the subtext.

The idea behind this technique is to deliver the words in the script in a manner that down-plays the primary subject and deals more with the subtext—what’s going on behind the words. This, in turn, allows you to be more conversational and actually tell the story more effectively.

Using this technique requires an ability to use many of the techniques covered in this chapter in combination. The exact combination of techniques will vary depending on the story being told and the desired end result. There is no formula for this technique.

When used correctly, the combination of performing techniques can create a delivery style that is captivating, compelling and powerful, without being forceful or sounding like you’re selling something. Taking the product out of the message can be one of the most effective ways to motivate your audience to take action because you truly communicate with them on an emotional level.