I’m a twitter addict. Just two days with my new personal account and I’m a total fiend for the twitterverse where free-wheeling idea brokers convene to brainstorm, share epiphanies and connect. If you’re not on yet, what are you waiting for? You can follow me at @StaceyMonk, Sanjay at @SanjayPatel and get Epic updates at @EpicChange. Even better, after joining us, search for other people with your interests on TweetScan or Summize, and leap into the twitter idea pool, like a child at the park fearlessly playing with other fun, interesting kids you meet. Tweet, email or call me on my cell (415.630.0631) and I’d be glad to show you the ropes.

Anyway, I started there because I’m grateful to ubiquitous blogger Chris Brogan for snapping me out of my Twitter trance with his tweet that simply said “Facilitating conversations and seeking opinions fosters engagement. Don’t you think?” I certainly do, and the question reminded me that I still needed to synthesize all the input I’ve received on the topic of engaging storytelling. So here goes . . .

After I finish up my taxes, I’ll be working to launch our monthly series of stories about a a few of the children in Tanzania, and I want to be careful to do so with respect, tenderness and authenticity. So, as I mentioned here a few weeks ago, I’ve been assembling a list of guiding principles for sharing their stories in ways that are worthy of their characters and content. I asked Linkedin users to expand the list, and was amazed to find compelling answers from journalists, screenwriters and nonprofit leaders, which you can read in their entirety on LinkedIn. I’ve summarized my thinking and their invaluable advice into the list of storytellers’ “rules of engagement” below:

1. Get out of the way. Avoid mediation and, as writer and editor Joan Trossman Bien suggested, “Just let them talk and reveal themselves.”
2. Write about your audience. Great stories are about their readers, and great storytellers don’t allow us to be idle bystanders. We see ourselves somewhere in the story. They make us think about ourselves perhaps even more than the characters. As creative director David Wilson wrote, “Invite the reader to imagine themselves.”
3. Make people think for themselves. Many stories are told to elicit a very particular reaction like sadness, fear, guilt or happiness. They proscribe to the audience exactly what to feel like a Sally Struthers video carefully concocted to manufacture pity. Reality, though, is rarely summarized in a single predictable emotion; it is more nuanced. The best stories require our independent consideration and inspire a myriad of subtle responses that are influenced not only by the story but by our unique personal experiences.
4. Imperative + Optimism = Action. Financial planner Richard Krasney and others suggested a useful 3-step approach that includes explaining the need, inspiring hope, and requesting impactful action. To establish an imperative, Keyvan Gilbert from Union Gospel Mission suggests “don’t be afraid to emphasize the problems that exist,” but he emphasized, “make sure the stories can also be seen as motivating and hopeful.” I couldn’t agree more. Personally, I think far too many non-profits use messages of fear, pity and guilt rather than hope and inspiration.
5. Don’t miss the humor. “Humor allows us to face the worst possible scenario without aversion, and experience a true, deeply felt emotional response in a positive and memorable way,” wrote David Wilson.
6. Narrow the frame. Magazine writer and editor Elaine Appleton Grant passed along this advice she received from “Tom French, an award-winning narrative journalist for The St. Petersburg Times. He says: “Narrow the frame.” The longer the story, the MORE focused on a single character it should be. As others have written here, people have a hard time relating to the 30,000-foot view, but we all love characters.” I agree, amalgamation & summarization feel contrived. People can identify with an individual, but not with an entire population. As Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon pointed out in a 2007 article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “We cannot wrap our minds around two people as well as around one.” Research from Wharton Professor Deborah Small also suggests that “statistics can actually blunt [our] emotional response,” which can “suppress giving” and decrease our likelihood of taking action.
7. Be concise. In the best stories, every word is essential. I’ll leave it at that. (Yes, I do catch the irony of including this rule in a blog post this long.)
8. Invite participation. As Chris Brogan tweeted, “facilitating conversations & seeking opinions fosters engagement.” I need your participation, questions, feedback, suggestions to make sure that the stories we’re sharing are compelling to you, our audience. I look forward to providing opportunities, like our Flickr and YouTube groups for kids, for everyone to get involved – not only in hearing the story, but in sharing it, which brings me to my final rule . . .
9. Let others speak for you. Leyla, a commenter at the Nonprofit Marketing Guide, made perhaps my favorite suggestion: “another great way to tell great stories is to let your supporters tell them for you.”

This is my fondest hope. I hope you’ll share the stories of children like Glory, so my next blog post will be the first in a regular series of stories about a few of the children at Shepherds Junior. I promise, they’re some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet, and, by sharing videos and art, I’ll try to let them share as much of their own stories as possible, without me getting in the way.

Stay tuned. And let me know when I’m breaking my own rules, or if you have others. After all, this list of 9 just begs for a #10. Perhaps it should be “Don’t finish: Write stories that beg for your audience to write their own ending.”

P.S. For those of you who may be looking, here are a few other great links for storytellers:

• Andy Goodman, nonprofit storyteller extraordinaire
• The Nieman Narrative Digest at Harvard, which runs an annual conference on narrative journalism
• A great story from Heifer International
• The Story Handbook by The Trust for Public Land
• A list of other nonprofit storytelling links from the Nonprofit Marketing Guide