How to Make People Laugh, Cry, and Remember You
By: Sarah Boorboor
When you consume a story, if it’s a good story, you will find yourself rooting for the main character. A well constructed story can even get you on the side of characters you wouldn’t fancy in real life, like Walter White or Scarlett O’Hara.
The key to our empathy is the transformation of a character. You don’t have to go from school teacher to drug dealer, or eligible bachelorette to saucy gold digger to get an audience on your side. But showing transformation is vital to connecting with your audience from the stage, the boardroom, or wherever you want to leave an impression.
In the case of a personal narrative you are showing a transformation within yourself. This is a helpful way to begin to structure a personal narrative, to start with the moment of transformation, then think about what happened before and after that change. When thinking of an example from the Unravel stage, Zhiming’s story from our ‘Come Together’ live show immediately came to mind. To be clear, Zhiming is not an anti-hero, here’s just a hero — and he beautifully constructed a memorable scene in his personal narrative to effectively show his moment of transformation.
Zhiming opened his story by telling us he was a happy child, he was photogenic, and his parents loved to take photos of him dressed up. He favored dressing in a ‘camp style’ and he loved to try on his mother’s things, especially her wedding dress. He kept this ritual a secret from his parents until his moment of transformation.
Zhiming’s Moment of Transformation (Written Version): That night, when I was doing homework, my mom came into my room. The beautiful silk wedding dress rested listlessly on her right arm and she held a pair of scissors in her left hand. There wasn’t any conversation while she cut open the dress. I watched the scissors cut through the silk like a figure skater on ice. The sequins, pearls, and debris exploded in the air like mini-fireworks. Then she put the scissors on the table, and began to tear the dress from the cuts. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She finally spoke, soft but stern: “Now, go back to your homework.”
After this, Zhiming experiences another painful scene with a teacher, and these two moments shaped the person he is today. He was a full-time teacher when we wrote this story, and he explained that he works hard to make everyone in his classroom feel accepted, especially those who stray from gender stereotypes.
Zhiming delineates a clear transformation with a ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Before, he was a happy kid just doing his thing—his point of transformation showed him that what made him happy wasn’t accepted by his mother or his teacher—the after, is that he is now a teacher who is informed by his experiences and therefore makes a conscious effort to be outwardly supportive of all of his students. By showing this transformation, Zhiming has us all on his side, rooting for his happy ending. Through this change, he also made the message of his story ‘sticky’, which means it’s memorable. This live show was months ago, but Zhiming’s message has stuck with me. His sharing his transformation made for an honest retelling, which rang true among the audience, allowing us all to tap into our empathy.
If you want to write a powerful personal narrative, you must show your transformation. Try thinking about a moment of change in your life. What led up to making that change? What resulted after that change was made, what were the ripple effects?
If you structure it this way, you have the outline of a story: Before, Transformation, After.
Write a short scene for each, and you have a story.
If you need help getting your story started refer to our mini Made-for-the-Web Storytelling Workshop.