How to keep your audience engaged
When I was ten years old, I read a very compelling book. It told the story of a man and his adventures when he was a little boy, with his Dad fleeing the country from a political party in the middle of the night, carrying him and his little sister. In the book, he tells about their adventures in the Amazon River, the forest, his troubled teen years, and his struggles when he went to the Army. There, he suffered beatings and imprisonment because of his beliefs.
I couldn’t put the book down. I read more than once. I loved it.
But it was not mine, so I returned it. But I never forgot that story.
Four years later, at school, I had to do a presentation about a biography. It had to be good enough for people to want to read the book. I immediately thought about that book and asked my parents to buy me a copy.
They did.
To my surprise, I didn’t like the book this time. It wasn’t as interesting as I had remembered. And most importantly, my classmates were not the audience for that kind of story. Not at all. What to do now?
Of course, I could use any other book to write about and make my presentation, but I didn’t want to waste all my Dad’s money and effort on finding and buying the book I requested. I had to use it now! How to make it sound interesting to my fellow 14-year-old classmates?
I decided to make it work. So I wrote what I think it’s the best piece of writing I ever did (maybe if I could read it today, I would change my mind about that!). But it worked! Without spoiling the end, I wrote about the book very compellingly. And on the presentation day, I read it, accompanied by background music from a playlist I had made for each part of the story — the exciting, lip-biting part and the touching, heart-wrenching one.
I was nervous when it was my turn to do the presentation — I was never a speaker. But, while the other students struggled to speak because of the noise in the classroom, I could hear a needle dropping when I was speaking. I was just reading. Loud but still shy, my head fixed on the paper. The only time I looked up, I saw my teacher in the back, her mouth open, the students looking at me intently. I quickly returned to my papers and kept reading.
When I finished and turned off the music, there was only silence for a moment. Then, to my big surprise, a loud and long round of applause! On the way back to my seat in the back of the classroom, I saw students with tears in their eyes and people asking me about the book — they wanted to read it too! I handed it to a girl; she gave me back soon after. It wasn’t as good as I made it sound.
I still smile when I remember that presentation. I had learned a big secret—the power of storytelling.
Besides the music, I didn’t use anything else to help the words. No dramatization, no visual aids. I didn’t even look up while reading. It was just the words in a compelling narrative that made the work so successful.
Do you want to keep your readers, or your listeners, engaged? Tell a story!
It doesn’t matter what topic you are talking about. If you present facts, it will be boring. Few people read textbooks for fun. You want your audience to get hooked by your writing. So tell them a story, a good one.
Storytelling is not reserved for fiction only. The best news articles will have a compelling opening with a story. That’s how many journalists write their news stories.
As humans, we’re emotional creatures. We get moved by stories and by people who we can relate. So you can send across a lot more information if you make it fun and engaging. As a writer, you should use this resource to explain anything you want. This way, you create an experience for the reader that will be more believable and get more engagement.
Try that the next time you write an article, and see how it works. I promise it will be a fascinating read.
