How to Make Your Boring Lecture Exciting

A good presentation doesn’t sound like an Excel spreadsheet. It sounds like a fairy tale.

Photo by Miguel Henriques on Unsplash

Why do all fairy tales begin with the phrase “Once upon a time…”?

The answer is relevant for anyone with experience in public speaking: If we present hard facts within familiar narrative patterns, the listener becomes more engaged and attentive. They also remember more of what you tell them. It’s about structure even more than delivery.

The sociolinguist William Labov argues that an effective oral narrative should accomplish two specific tasks: It should follow a clear sequence of events, and it should convey a point. Within that structure, it should also make room for reflection, emotion, and growth.

Here’s Labov’s theory of narrative structure, as applied to fairy tales:

• Abstract: How does it begin? (“Once upon a time…”)
• Orientation: Who, where, and/or when? (“A king and queen had a daughter…”)
• Complicating action: What’s the problem to be solved? (“But all around the castle, a hedge of thorns started to grow…)
• Resolution: What’s the solution? (“Then he stooped and kissed Sleeping Beauty. And she opened her eyes for the first time in many, many…