How to structure a business story in 9 steps

Doug Stevenson recently outlined 9 steps of business story structure in a magazine article on Storytelling – The Art of Customer Engagement which appeared in the July 28 issue of the Life and Health edition of National Underwriter magazine. The steps are:

1. Set the scene
2. Begin the journey
3. Introduce the characters
4. Encounter the obstacle
5. Overcome the obstacle
6. Resolve the story
7. Make the point
8. Ask the question
9. Restate the point

An article on his web site discusses these nine steps in more detail. There also is a handout from one of his ASTD workshops posted elsewhere that ends with the wonderful phrase that “emotion is the fast lane to the brain”.

Stevenson has an interesting history. He wrote a book on storytelling called Never Be Boring Again which he later renamed Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method.

In my August 2nd post “Get a running start” I referred to a post from Doug’s blog.