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About this lesson
Is your story resonating with your audience? Is it believable?
Quick reference
The Ultimate Test for Your Story
The only rule that truly matters: Does your story work for your audience? Everything else is secondary.
Focus on Audience Impact
- The real test of any story isn’t structure or technique — it’s how the audience responds.
- If they lean in, nod along, react emotionally, or follow up with you afterward, your story worked.
- Don’t obsess over “rules” like having perfect dialogue or the right number of beats.
- Instead, pay attention to how the story lands in the room.
Make Believability a Priority
- Your story must sound authentic and believable to your audience.
- If something truly unbelievable happened, it’s okay to acknowledge that — it can even make the story stronger.
- If your story feels exaggerated or fake, your audience may tune out or stop trusting your message.
- Trust leads to impact — and impact is the whole point.
The Bottom Line
- If your story works with your audience, it’s a good story.
- Don’t let storytelling “rules” distract you from what matters most: resonating with real people.
- 00:04 This section has more thoughts, reflections on storytelling, why you should tell stories.
- 00:11 The more you immerse yourself in this whole milieu of storytelling, why it's important, the significance, the history of it, the easier it is for you to make just as your default position, telling stories.
- 00:27 So with that in mind, let's hop into this section.
- 00:30 There are a lot of little nuances here when it comes to being a great storyteller, but keep one thing in mind.
- 00:38 There's really only one ironclad rule.
- 00:43 Did your story work on the audience you were speaking to?
- 00:48 You can ignore half, most, almost all of the rules I give you and other storytelling experts give you, as long as it works with your audience.
- 00:58 That's the ultimate test.
- 01:00 So don't get so hung up on.
- 01:03 Oh my gosh, did I spend enough time on the setting or was there quite enough words of dialogue?
- 01:07 Don't obsess over every little piece of this possible.
- 01:13 Instead, focus on the big picture.
- 01:15 Is this actually resonating with your audience?
- 01:20 If they understand your story?
- 01:22 If they're leaning forward, if you see them nodding, if you see their eyes get bigger occasionally, and most of all, when they come up to you afterwards and tell you about the story, how it made an impact on them, that's when you know the story worked.
- 01:40 So focus on the big picture.
- 01:43 Is your story believable?
- 01:45 If your audience thinks you're just making up stuff to entertain them or to trick them, it's not going to be as effective.
- 01:52 Now, sometimes you can tell something true and it sounds crazy.
- 01:56 It's not initially believable.
- 01:58 You can let people know you wouldn't believe you too if you were in their shoes.
- 02:03 But try to make your stories believable, sound as believable as possible.
- 02:09 Otherwise people are going to be skeptical.
- 02:11 They'll be throwing up roadblocks and they won't buy in to what you're talking about.
- 02:17 They don't buy in, they're not going to really take away the message.
- 02:20 So always test yourself and your stories and ask yourself, is this really coming across as believable?
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