Telling a professional story or reciting poetry in front of the class both have their own ways and rules. You have to familiarize yourself with the material and choose what to leave out and what to express to the audience. Start captivating your audience with your story from Step 1 below.
Step
Part 1 of 3: Speaking Techniques
Step 1. Get in the habit of reading and speaking at the same time comfortably
This is especially important if you are telling a story or reciting a poem read from a book. Memorizing stories can help, but you have to know how to read them to other people.
- Read more than once. You should first read the story you want to tell a few times, especially if you're going to be performing in front of a lot of people to get used to the words and be able to look at your audience.
- Capture the rhythm of the words in the story. You'll notice that in poetry and stories, even stories that are just word of mouth, the length of the sentences and the words used create a kind of rhythm. Get used to the rhythm of the words through practice so you can perform a story or poem well and out loud.
- Avoid reading stories or poems in a flat voice. Storytelling means actively engaging the audience by telling them the story. Lift your eyes as you read so that they meet the audience's gaze.
Step 2. Adjust the pitch, speed and volume of your voice
To tell a story interestingly, you need to vary your voice in terms of speed, volume, pitch, and intonation. If you only speak in one tone (monotone), the audience will be bored even though the story you are telling is actually very interesting.
- You need to match your tone of voice to the story being told. For example, don't use a casual tone when telling an epic story (such as the Mahabharata), and it's not possible to use an epic tone when telling a Punakawan humorous story or Siti Nurbaya romance.
- Make sure you speak slowly. When reading aloud or telling an audience, you need to speak in a slower tone than you would normally use in a casual conversation. By speaking slowly, you can grab the attention of your audience so they can fully appreciate the story or poem. It is recommended that you provide water and take sips so that the speed can be reduced.
- Your voice should be heard by the audience, but don't shout. Breathe in and speak from the diaphragm. For the exercise, take an upright standing position with your hands on your stomach. Inhale and exhale, feeling your belly rise and fall. Count ten seconds between breaths. Your stomach should start to feel relaxed. You have to speak from a relaxed state like that.
Step 3. Speak clearly
Many people don't speak well and clearly enough when trying to tell a story. You need to make sure that your audience can hear and understand what you are saying. Do not mumble or speak in a very low voice.
- Articulate your voice properly. Basically, articulation means pronouncing each sound correctly, not just saying words. The sounds to focus on are: b, d, g, z (different from j as in jelly), p, t, k, s, (different from sy in terms). Emphasizing the sound will make your pronunciation clearer to the audience.
- Pronounce the words correctly. Make sure you know what all the words in the story or poem mean and how to pronounce them correctly. If you have trouble remembering the pronunciation, write a small guide next to the word so you can pronounce it correctly when you tell the story.
- Avoid "emm" and filler words like "so". While it's okay to use them in everyday conversation, they will make you sound less confident and will distract the audience from the story you are telling.
Step 4. Emphasize the story or poem in the appropriate places
You need to make sure that your audience understands the most important parts of your poem or story. Since you're telling a story out loud, you have to pinpoint the important parts in your own voice.
- You can draw your audience's attention to important parts of your story by lowering your voice and leaning forward. Make sure your voice is still clear, even if you speak in a lower, quieter voice.
- Example: If you are telling the story of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (book one), you need to emphasize parts of the story such as when Harry faced Voldemort or Harry won a Quidditch match after catching the snitch with his mouth.
- Poetry has a specific emphasis written in its structure. This means that you have to pay attention to the format of the poem (the rhythm) so that you know which syllables to emphasize.
Step 5. Take breaks in appropriate places
Don't talk non-stop. Reading or telling stories or poetry is not a race. Instead, make sure you pause at certain points so your audience can fully absorb what they're hearing.
- Make sure you take a break after telling a funny or emotional part to give your audience a chance to react. Try not to continue the story immediately after the important part without any pauses at all. For example, if you're telling a witty story, you may need to pause right before you say something funny, so your audience starts laughing when they realize what's coming next.
- Often times, punctuation is a good time to pause. When reciting a poem, make sure you don't stop at the end of each line, but when you encounter punctuation marks (commas, periods, and so on).
- An example of a good pause is The Lord of the Rings. As you read the book silently, you may notice the overuse of commas to the point that you feel like Tolkien doesn't know how to use commas. Now that you've read them aloud for others, you realize that all those commas are perfectly positioned for pauses in verbal storytelling.
Part 2 of 3: Good Storytelling
Step 1. Set the mood
When you tell something (a story, a poem, a joke), you need to make sure that the atmosphere is exactly what you want it to be. That is, describe the time and place so that the audience feels as if they are in the story and are directly involved in it.
- Tell the background of the story a little. Where is the place? When did it happen? Did the story happen in your life, or in someone else's life? Is the story long gone? All of these can help cement the story you are about to tell in the minds of the audience.
- Tell it from the right point of view. Is this story about you, happened to you, or someone you know? Is this a story your audience is familiar with (like Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, for example)? Make sure you tell the story from the right point of view.
- If you're telling a story, especially one that actually happened to you, tell it directly, not by telling it from a written page or a poem. This will make it easier for the audience to immerse in your story.
Step 2. Create the right structure
When telling a story, especially one that you create yourself or relate to, you need to make sure it has a structure that will appeal to an audience. Storytelling has been a part of people's culture and habits since time immemorial, so there are several parameters that can make your story better.
- You have to follow a cause/effect structure, whatever the topic. That is, there is an event followed by another event which is the result of the first event. Start with the word because. "Because of this cause, that effect happens."
- Example: your funny story was triggered because you spilled water on the floor earlier. That's the cause, the result is that you slip in the climax of the story. "Because you spilled water on the floor, you slipped while playing catch."
- Introduce conflict at the outset. Conflict and resolution is what keeps the audience interested in hearing your story. If you initially disclose the conflict too much or otherwise don't reveal any conflict, the audience's interest will be reduced. For example, if you tell the story of Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, you do not need to tell Garlic's life much before the arrival of her stepmother and Bawang Merah. The evil stepmother and Bawang Merah are conflicts in the story of Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, so they should be introduced at the beginning.
Step 3. Add the right details
Details can make or break a story. If you tell too many details, the audience will get tired or tired of hearing it. On the other hand, too little detail will make it difficult for the audience to follow the story.
- Choose the relevant details at the end of the story. Still using the example from the story of Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, you don't need to spend a minute to describe every household job that Bawang Putih had to complete for her evil stepmother and Bawang Merah, but the job of washing clothes in the river that ended up being washed away by the child's favorite clothes. stepmother is important to tell because it determines the ending of the story.
- You can also provide some interesting or funny details throughout the story. But be careful, don't let the audience get tired of the many spices, just add a little to invite laughter or a deeper interest in the content of the story.
- Don't give too vague details. In the story of Bawang Putih and Bawang Merah, if you don't tell why Bawang Putih can get to an old grandmother's hut or why she has to stay and help the grandmother, the audience will be confused.
Step 4. Maintain consistency when telling stories
Even if you're telling a fairy tale with dragons and magic that can take someone from place to place in a flash, your audience will be able to overlook the impossibility as long as you're consistent. However, if you add a spaceship without implying that the story you are telling is science fiction, your audience will be confused.
You also have to make sure that the characters in the story are consistent. If your character is very timid at the start of the story, he probably won't be able to confront his loser father without going through a lot of character development beforehand
Step 5. Tell your story at the right length
Determining the right length for a story or poem is difficult. You'll have to decide for yourself, but there are a few things to consider. Here's how to help you decide the length of the story:
- Short stories are easy to read especially for beginners. You need time to make sure you're using the right details, the right pitch, the right pace, and so on.
- If you're going to tell a long story, make sure it takes a long time to tell and isn't boring. Sometimes you can cut details to shorten and condense a long story to make it more interesting.
Part 3 of 3: Avoiding Common Mistakes
Step 1. Use the appropriate voice
Two of the biggest problems that many people have when trying to tell a story are speaking very fast and not varying the voice. These two problems tend to go hand in hand because varying the voice is difficult when you're telling a story at the speed of light.
- Pay attention to your breaths and pauses if you're concerned that your speech rate is too high. If you don't take deep, slow breaths, you may be talking too fast. If you don't pause, you're bound to speak quickly and your audience will have a hard time following.
- Make sure you use voice change when you say certain words and syllables, so you don't just speak in one tone. This is one of the best ways to keep your audience interested even if the story itself isn't very interesting.
Step 2. Get to the heart of the story
Another problem is that it doesn't get to the heart of the story quickly because there's too much going around. It is okay to divert stories occasionally, especially if they are informative or funny. Other than that, stick to the main story because that's what the audience wants to hear.
- Avoid "small talk". When starting the story, introduce yourself and the background of the story sufficiently. Audiences don't want to hear how the story came to you in a dream or something. They want to hear stories.
- Don't deviate from the story. Focus on the heart of the story and don't dwell on other memories, or funny stories that you suddenly remember. If you talk too much about things that stray from the point of the story, the audience will lose interest.
Step 3. Don't share your opinions/views/morals too much
When telling a personal story or someone else's story, the audience doesn't want your moral point of view. Remember stories you heard as a child (such as the fable The Mouse Deer). Most of the stories contain a moral message. Do you remember the message, or just remember the story?
Stories are built on facts, the facts of the story itself. If you follow these facts, any moral message or opinion or view will be accepted by the audience by itself, even if you don't convey it directly
Step 4. Get lots of practice
This seems obvious, but this is often where people fail to tell stories. You have to practice before telling anything effectively and entertainingly, whether it's a poem or a story in a book, or a story you tell directly from your own life experiences.
The more familiar you are with the material, the more confident you will be when telling the story. The higher your confidence, the more interested your audience will be to hear your story
Step 5. Listen to other storytellers
There are people who make storytelling their job, including storytellers, film narrators, or people who read stories for audiobooks.
Watch the storytellers in action live and learn how they use body language (hand gestures, facial expressions), how they vary their voices, and the techniques they use to grab the audience's attention
Tips
- Be confident when you speak. You can gain confidence by speaking slowly and carefully.
- Add sensory details to the story to make it seem closer and more real to the audience. What does the place smell like in the story? What voices are there? What do the characters feel and see?
