Your listeners likely will need some basic information to help them understand the context for the story. Exactly what they need will vary; examples might include how old you were when the story took place, or how certain characters came into your life. It is ideal if you can weave this information into the flow of the narrative, revealing it unobtrusively just as the listener needs it, but that is not always possible. You may need to tell and not show—you may need what some writers call an infodump. In my case, an infodump might sound something like: “When I was in junior high, my parent’s divorced and my mother married a man named Mike who collected exotic animals, which is how I ended up spending my high school years living on a tiger farm.” A short infodump can sometimes be used to great effect in the middle of the story to emphasize some particular development—for example, I might withhold the information about having hemophilia until I come to a place in the story where injury seems imminent. But by and large, infodumps are like speed bumps—you want to avoid slowing down the narrative once the audience is engaged, which means you should think hard about where you place an infodump. Consider putting it at the start of the story. That way you can get through it, and then start to pick up steam as you get deeper into the piece.

Excerpted from Lions and Tigers and AIDS! Oh, My!.

A common dis on personal stories, especially those that have been scripted in advance, is that they are too writerly. And for good reason. The idea is to tell believable stories, not to create high art. You can avoid sounding writerly by choosing short Anglo-Saxon words; composing simple, declarative sentences; avoiding obvious contrivances like long alliterative strings; and writing to a specific grade level (fifth, say, or better yet, third). In short, don’t show off and don’t try too hard. Big words from the Romance languages, inverted sentences with lots of independent clauses hanging off them, and overworked metaphors can create the impression that the audience is there to relate to the writing, not the storyteller. Always remember that at a personal storytelling performance, there is no fourth wall. That said, however, it is important to keep in mind the reason for such advice. If there is one element that is the key to personal storytelling above all others, it is authenticity. If using big words and technical terms and lyrical phrasing is who you are, if that is how you talk when you are sitting around a living room with your closest friends, then trying to sound like someone you aren’t might actually make you come across as less authentic. Don’t overreach, but don’t try to relate to the audience from behind a false persona, either

Excerpted from Lions and Tigers and AIDS! Oh, My!.