Every story should have a lead-in, a middle and an end.
The Lead-In
The lead-in needs to grab the listeners’ attention and make them want to hear the rest of the story. Making your set want to hear the rest of what you have to say is especially important in clubs and venues with loud music as you will have to fight for people’s attention more. If you can connect the rest of your story with a great lead-in, you’re doing well. Here are some generic lead-ins you can use, though it’s better to personalise them and make them congruent with your personality:
“OMG, you are SO not going to believe this…”
“Do you know what the best feeling EVER is?”
“You’ll NEVER believe what happened to me…”
“Geeze, you know you remind me of something… It’s… No actually, I’ll tell the story first and then I’ll tell you why you reminded me of it”
The Middle
The middle is about tension and conflict. Something needs to happen, some kind of drama that needs to be resolved. There is nothing worse than a story where you expect something to happen and nothing does- everything just continues to be fine. It’s important to tell a good story first, and think about DHV spikes later. You should focus first on telling a compelling story and then you can work on focusing on emotions and sprinkling DHVs. Don’t create stories around DHV spikes as you shouldn’t focus on the DHV when telling the story.
An attraction story can end in three ways: with laughter, an “awww that’s cute”, or a qualifying question. Since you’ll be playful most of the time in set, most of your stories will probably end on a playful/funny note. Ending with a qualifying question though can be really powerful. In other words, you tell your story and tie a qualifying question to it at the end like:
“so have you ever experienced something similar?”
“Now I’ve revealed my secret… so what would you do if you had all the money in the world?”
“Isn’t THAT the best feeling ever? Ever had that feeling?”
Making Your Attraction Story
I’ll try to make this story as generic as possible, in other words so anyone could tell it. If I’d create a story for myself, I’d tell something that’s connected with my identity, but just to show you guys it’s possible to do it without a strong identity, here’s what I came up with.
You see a green car passing by on the street. That’s it. Could you possibly create an attraction story out of that mundane every day situation? Yes! And here’s how I’d do it.
The Green Car Story
“OMG, have you realized how little things really can change one’s perspective, and make you think of things you never thought were connected?
[Convey excitement]
So I was walking down the street today, thinking about what to eat for dinner today which made me really happy because I had the perfect dish in mind… you know when you already know what you’re having because you’ve been craving it for a while? [Point at yourself if you are into NLP ]
Feels SO good, doesn’t it? [Convey happiness]
Anyway, so I see a green car passing by, randomly like that. And for some reason, I stopped thinking about what to have for dinner and just felt really energized instead, [Convey being energized]
and started to think about colors, and I kid you not - travelling. I think I made some connection with all the new experiences you get when you travel, which is obviously the past part of it all, and what influence colors have on that experience, but it’s just funny how one can start thinking about one thing and the next second you think about something else and you wonder how the hell you came from one to the other you know? [Convey humor]
It’s amazing though, they have done so many studies on colors and its affect on people. Take your bed-room for example. What color is it? [She might or might not tell you, doesn’t matter - ask in a slightly suspicious tone]
Yeah so you see, that color actually affects how you sleep and how energized you feel when you wake up. Isn’t that amazing? By the way, from what I’ve seen of you so far, I bet your favorite color is red… possibly pink, but let’s pray for red.”
So there are no obvious DHV spikes in that story, but it’ still a good attraction story. You don’t have to be a rockstar to tell interesting attraction stories. Focus on the emotional content and you’ll be going in the right direction.
