Sharing a story with someone is the purest form of building a connection. The storyteller and her audience are caught in the act of building a higher level of trust by forming neural coupling of two brains. We tell ourselves stories all the time.
Those stories make us who we are. The earliest stories are those that the mother tells the child when it is growing in the belly. Then the whole life is a journey of either living up to those early versions of us created by the parents and close caregivers or attempting to rewrite them.
What is a story though and what makes it compelling?
A good story is movement. When an idea moves from one place to another a story is born. When an author captures all the figments of this journey – a story is told. An untold story becomes an ache to contain.
Story once told, develops a heartbeat. It goes places entertaining, enthralling, educating and engaging. Stories do not differentiate between the teller and the listeners. It lets it be owned by both. While the teller gives the story a flavor, the listener makes sense of it based on where their souls are and have been.
It becomes compelling when the reader likes the destination of the protagonist better than where they started. When the hero moves to a place that holds aspirational value for the reader, the story becomes compelling. This is when the audience makes it their own and draws lessons from it.
Lessons are stored in stories and transferred through stories. Civilizations that tell compelling stories survive, those that don’t perish. So, let us celebrate our love for story and ask ourselves, what story am I creating, which stories am I leaving behind?