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I get sent some really great stories. Part of what makes them great is they’re written well. But about 1 out of three are so poorly written whatever comedic value they might have had is completely lost in one huge mish-mash of poor punctuation and grammar.

Why would someone think I would even consider reading a story that they didn’t think was even worth writing out properly? Here’s the story that set me off.

Hey jjames and hopefully David i have a great story for middle school drama okay i know you probably aren’t going to believe this ut it is the honest to god truth. okay my friend and i were camping on the new river and we were floating down the river when we went into this little encasement of trees. so all sorts of things wash in there and we saw a watermelon and being the teenage boys that we are we decided to smash it so in the same place we were and threw it on it so it busted in half we let one half float down river and the other half we stuck on a tree branch there and the next thing we know a woman comes out on the bank and says what are you doing and we just say smashing a watermelon and she says that was ours it was cooling there and she had a big cooler right in front of us and she thought we were dumb anyway thats my story thanks

Two, count them, two periods. Maybe I’m overreacting. I’m just a man after all. Just jjames.

Have you ever started to tell someone about something hilarious that happened to you only to end feeling silly and having to say, “I guess you had to be there”? I’d like to help you never to be in that position again. The trick is to tell the story in a way that puts the listener right there with you… so they feel like they were there. Here are some tips to help make that happen.

Tell the story with confidence.

Assume that your listener is interested in what you have to say. That they aren’t picking apart every sentence. People like to be entertained. They don’t want your story to stink! It’s a waste of their time. They’re on your side. If you will start with that assumption, your storytelling will improve right off the bat. (more…)