Chapter 16: Informative Speaking

Narrative

A narrative is a story. When you use a narrative in an informative speech, the story enables you to share information and capture the audience’s attention. The story itself can take the form of a personal remembrance, a humorous anecdote, or a serious account of an event that happened in someone else’s life—all told in a way that informs the audience about your topic. Used skillfully, narratives can help “humanize” a speaker for listeners and thus enhance the speaker’s credibility, or ethos.

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Using narrative in an informative speech is a good way to get your point across in an engaging, memorable way. For example, you could use narrative to do one of the following:

Open a speech on the risks and dangers associated with playing tackle football. A poignant introductory story—perhaps about Chris Borland, the star rookie player for the San Francisco 49ers who retired after only one season because he was concerned that repetitive head trauma could cause him permanent brain damage— could help win your listeners’ attention and stir up their emotions right from the start.
Emphasize the importance of communication in sustaining intimate relationships. An entertaining narrative about a misunderstanding that you and your romantic partner ultimately cleared up through skillful communication could help you make your point in a lighthearted but meaningful way.
Help your listeners appreciate the need for careful preparation before a job interview. A story about a friend who failed to research the dress code of a company she was interviewing with and felt embarrassed when she showed up wearing overly casual attire could leave a lasting impression on your listeners.
Reveal the difficulty of getting a job after serving time in prison. A story about the hardships that released inmates face when trying to find jobs and rebuild their lives could raise audience awareness.

To watch an example of a speaker using a narrative, try Video Activity 16.2, “Conveying Information: Narrative (Needs Improvement).”

Using narrative effectively takes careful thought and preparation. You need to choose a story that supports your message and not throw in a narrative simply to entertain or captivate your audience. The stories that you select—and the details that go into them—should be based on audience analysis. If you are giving a speech about the risks and dangers of playing tackle football to an audience made up of people who know little about football, you might need to explain who Chris Borland is and why he was important to the San Francisco 49ers team and fans. You might also need to explain how he became aware of a study that found degenerative brain disease in posthumous examinations of seventy-six out of seventy-nine former National Football League players.5 You probably would want to describe how Borland believed that he should walk away from the game before the head injuries seriously damaged him. Even if you know the elements of the narrative well, you may want to research background information and specific details of the story and weave the information you find into the speech.

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Finally, remember that it’s a bit of an art to tell a compelling story in a way that also informs and educates your audience. You want to come across as casual and natural (rather than over-rehearsed) but also authoritative, which requires extensive preparation and practice. It’s as if you need to practice acting unrehearsed. In truth, using narrative in a speech can be risky, but if you do it well, it offers you and your audience real rewards. (For more on narrative, see Chapter 8.)