Customer Reviews

Using Stories and Humor: Grab Your Audience (Part of the Essence of Public Speaking Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Author's comments: Bore no more! A step-by-step guide for finding, developing and sharing great stories. In addition, the section on humor offers important rules for using humor effectively and appropriately. Great storytellers sense the inherent drama in life's daily activities and work to heighten it, taking ordinary moments and transforming them into extraordinary insights. This book is a must for clergy, speakers, teachers, presenters, parents, sales people, association executives, business people, therapists, and anyone who wants to improve his/her communications skills. Includes: ways to find great stories, how to build characters and drama, use of significant detail to make your stories "sing," presentation techniques, practice techniques, tips for stage presence, when to use humor, where to find humor, how to deliver humor and who laughs and when. By exploring the tools of fiction writers, I encourage my readers to awaken the theatre of the mind. Once our audiences experience our stories, they will never be the same. Using the techniques in this book faithfully, you too can tell compelling stories!

As an author, I'm very comfortable expressing myself via the written word--funny stories,quick wit, no problem. But put me in front of a live, breathing audience and: instant jitters! I was recently invited to act as KEYNOTE speaker for a conference, and was so relieved by the "toolkit" that Ms. Slan's USING STORIES and HUMOR provided to me. With the book's guidance, I was able to develop my own humorous stories, interact personally with my audience and present an entertaining and inspiring first-time keynote address. Especially effective, was the information on developing a "theme" for the humorous stories, and how a speaker uses this to support the ideas presented--I hadn't thought about that. Important too, was the encouragement to speak "from the heart," in order to engage the audience, as well as techno-tips regarding microphones, lighting, etc. The book was instrumental in changing my jitters to confidence,and my presentation was met with laughter, applause--and an immediate offer for another speaking engagement! I highly recommend this book.

This is a valuable book for the public speaker who would like to enhance the speaking style by the use of stories and humor. It provides practical tips and exercises to make effective use of stories in public presentaions. Stories have always been used in our society not only to add flavor and appeal to presentations but also to instruct and inform the audience. The first few chapters of the book deal with the importance of the use of stories for our generation and what follows is a clear road map for story-tellers out of the rich experience of the author and many other accomplished public speakers like herself. This handy guide with eleven chapters deals more with stories than with humor. Each chapter provides a summary and some exercises at the end. The basic nuts and bolts provided by the author here have been very useful to me in my teaching and preaching.

Parts of this book were good, stories do grab an audience. This is a one time use book and then pass it on to someone else.

This is one of the most valuable books on public speaking that I have read. Before you buy a book on one liners, joke book or how to keep them laughing. Read this book and find out how to develop your own personal stories. I took it page by page and found that I had an amazing number of stories to develop. As she says: Your own stories will ring true. I know a CEO of a large company that starts each speech with a very dumb joke that he seems to think works. He must pay a lot to his speech writer. In real life people laugh at old jokes that are O.K., but they are still old. I have been crafting my own stories after reading this book. It makes me sound like a more interesting person than I am. It has got to be a lot fresher material, Im the only one that lived it. I bought a bunch of joke books early on and I wish I could get my money back. They become boring so fast. The only story worth telling is one that is relevant to your point. That is where this book comes in. The book details so many aspects of humor. How to use humor. Where it comes from. Shaping stories. The best in the Essence of Public Speaking Series.

This book is merely a compilation of common-sense, "nothing-new" ideas about public speaking techniques. The approach is heavily dependent on the reader's use of his own creativity, and does little to enhance one's abilities. It would seem that the author herself could use some help in "grabbing" her intended audience. It's not even worth the paperback price.