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Storytelling
🎬 Start at the Disaster
Skip the boring beginning and start a story at the exact moment everything goes wrong.
What you need
A simple situation: school presentation, vacation, dinner, first day at work, birthday party.
How to play
- Choose an ordinary situation.
- Start with the worst or strangest moment.
- Only explain background when the listener needs it.
- End by showing what changed.
See one in action
Situation: a family camping trip.
“At 2:13 a.m., something outside our tent began eating the bag containing all our breakfast.”
Only after that opening do you explain who was camping, where they were, and what happened next. Starting at the trouble gives the listener an immediate reason to care.
“At 2:13 a.m., something outside our tent began eating the bag containing all our breakfast.”
Only after that opening do you explain who was camping, where they were, and what happened next. Starting at the trouble gives the listener an immediate reason to care.
10 ideas to try
Choose any one of these prompts and use the activity steps above:
- Start a birthday story with the cake falling on the floor.
- Start a vacation story with realizing you are in the wrong country.
- Start a presentation story with the screen going completely black.
- Start a dinner story with someone shouting, “Do not eat that!”
- Start a school trip with the bus leaving without one teacher.
- Start a wedding story with the rings missing.
- Start a camping story with a mysterious animal outside the tent.
- Start a job interview story with spilling water across the interviewer’s notes.
- Start a family photo story with the dog running away with the camera remote.
- Start a cooking story with the smoke alarm becoming the loudest person in the room.
Make it harder / funnier
Your first sentence must contain a time, a sound, or a surprising object.
Why it helps
Teaches strong openings, pacing, relevance, and how to cut unnecessary background.
Ready to use this skill?
Try it in Public Speaking →Take the activity into a full SpeakCoachLab practice session.