It’s not easy distilling all your knowledge on a topic into 1 slide.​

When I put together the first draft of the ‘Ultimate Guide to Storytelling Techniques’, I knew that it was incomplete. But I still published, thinking, ‘Done is better than perfect’.

Over the last 2 weeks, I have been making a few tweaks and additions – I’m currently at Version 1.4. But it still felt incomplete.​

There’s always a part of me which says “Hey, what about that technique?” and “Did you read that speech? It used a story technique which was, ahem, completely missing in your ‘Ultimate Guide'”​

So I recently read two pieces of content (a letter and a speech) which prompted me to make a few major edits to the framework. (I’ll review those pieces of content using the framework later)​

And so here goes Version 2.0 of the framework: It’s time to include our feelings into the picture.

You’d notice that the biggest change is at the very top. Instead of 3 key objectives earlier:

– Make it Clear,

– Make it Engaging and Memorable and

– Make it Persuasive​

I have changed it to four:

– Make me Understand

– Make me Engaged (not happy with this construction, will improve later)

– Make me Care

– Make me Believe/Trust

​Now I know what some of you might be thinking: Ravi, care? feelings? C’mon, we are all left-brain-using, rational thinkers. What is this thing about feelings and emotions?

Well, guess what, emotions are always there. We use surprise and curiosity to get and hold the audience’s attention. We are fearful of taking a decision because of negative consequences. We try to assuage someone else’s fear by offering social proof. I’d written about these earlier in a longer post called The Game of Storytelling.​

Over the upcoming #SOTDs, I’ll point out examples of the use of emotions to get a point across more effectively.

Meanwhile here is a PDF with the evolution of the Ultimate Guide to Storytelling over the last few weeks.

#SOTD 12