Your One-Liner & The Bloody Hand: The Shortest Story You Will Ever Tell
- Author
- David Oaks
- Published
- Wed 15 Dec 2021
- Episode Link
- None
All great stories start with a problem! When there is no problem, there is no story! All great and memorable stories begin with a problem. In the craft of storytelling, this is called an inciting incident.
Hollywood film producers know this and put an inciting incident at the beginning of their story, then fade back and tell the story that led up to it. If they didn't do that, no one would sit through their story! It would be bland and unmemorable.
All great stories start with a problem!
Storytelling visionaries understand this and use it to their benefit, even in their one-liner.
The shortest story that you will ever tell is your one-liner. A one-liner is a few short sentences designed to pique another person's curiosity about what you do. The short few sentences don't tell everything you do. They reveal just enough to pique someone's curiosity.
Let me introduce a problem in this blog post:
Most nonprofit leaders' one-liners are unmemorable and boring as dishwater. But, using the power of story, we can make our one-liner unforgettable. We do that by introducing a problem as the first sentence of our one-liner!
Fundraisers with a great one-liner (often called an elevator speech) raise more awareness for their cause, facilitate more engagement in their mission and raise more money.
Storytelling visionaries have memorable one-liners. They use their one-liner to connect before they convince. Great fundraisers understand the problem they solve and use it in their one-liner.
Parts of a great one-liner:
- Problem - the hook
- The solution you bring
- Result - the "happily ever after ending"
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