The 5 Cs of Telling Your Story and Holding Reader's Attention
Your story is your superpower
Most people don’t understand the value of telling their story.
The internet is crowded with gurus and creators. Eventually, they all start to sound the same and you’re lost in a sea of digital faces.
In a world where everyone is vying for attention, telling your story effectively can help you stand out online, and build trust with your audience.
There’s a simple formula called the 5 Cs I like to use when telling personal stories:
Character
Call
Conflict
Complication
Conclusion
In this post, I’m going to show you how to share your personal stories using this method.
Why should you tell your story?
Whether you’re writing your social media bio, “About Me” page, or a resume, you can benefit from telling your story.
Unfortunately, when most people write about themselves, it’s about as interesting as reading a job description. This happened, then this happened, then that happened. The end.
Yawn.
Telling your story isn’t about recounting events—it’s about your transformation from a previous, unwanted state to a new, desirable state.
It’s how you solved a problem, overcame an obstacle, or reached a goal. You started in one place, and ended in another, better place.
I want to help you tell your story effectively.
Don’t worry, your life doesn’t need to be as epic as a novel or movie to tell an interesting story.
You can use this simple framework to write your bio on social media, your webpage, resume, or anywhere else you tell your story.
1. Character
Let’s start with the easiest story element—character.
Why do I say it’s easy? Because if you’re telling your story, you are the main character.
Your first step is to introduce yourself, and what your life was like before you changed.
In stories, the main character always starts out in their ordinary world. Cinderella is a slave to her wicked stepmother. Harry Potter lives underneath the stairs in his aunt and uncle’s house. This is their world until something changes (see the next step).
When you introduce yourself in your bio, paint a picture of what life is like in your ordinary world. For example:
Hey, I’m Sam. Not long ago, I was living paycheck-to-paycheck and up to my eyeballs in debt. My wife and I argued constantly about money.
Just from that, you already know a lot about Sam. Many people can relate to living paycheck-to-paycheck and crippling debt.
It’s best if you nail down your before and after states (Character and Conclusion) before you write. As in the example above, make your before state something your reader can identify with. Your goal is to show how you changed from one state to the other.
What was your life like before your transformation?
2. Call
Once you’ve introduced yourself and established your before state, it’s time wreck it.
What happened that made you realize you needed to change?
In storytelling, this is often called a catalyst. You can think of it as your wake-up-call.
Something happened in your ordinary world that forced you to make a choice. Maybe for you it was a disease, losing a job, financial ruin—anything. What matters is you were never the same after that moment.
For Luke Skywalker, his wake-up-call came when the stormtroopers murdered his family. That’s when he decided to leave his home planet and become a Jedi.
Continuing with our Sam example above:
“Everything fell apart when my spouse said she’d had enough and walked out with our two kids. The next week, my boss called me into his office and told me the company no longer needed my services.”
This was Sam’s wake-up-call. What comes after is totally up to him.
Your wake-up-call is the moment that made you sit up and pay attention. By saying yes to the call, you’re putting yourself on a path toward change.
3. Conflict
Want to know the secret to a good story? Conflict.
A character wants something and something happens that prevents them from reaching their goal.
After your wake up call, what conflicts did you face?
Maybe you lost the respect of your industry during your bankruptcy and had to work to win it back. Perhaps you had to deal with a defiant child on your way to becoming a better parent.
Conflict is the engine of a great story.
In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen had to fight for her life to win the games in an arena literally designed to kill her. She had to navigate the external conflict of survival, while also dealing with the internal conflict of her feelings for Peeta.
Without conflict, your story will fall flat.
In Sam’s journey, the conflict might look like this:
“I knew I had to change, and fast. I took a job at Target until I could get back into my industry. For the first time in my life, I put myself on a budget and started paying off some of my bills. I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy. There were some weeks I ate beans and pork every meal. Sometimes, I skipped meals—that’s how serious I was about getting out of debt!”
Sam’s conflict is balancing living expenses with getting out of debt. He’s skipping meals, but he’s determined to do what it takes.
Tell us about the conflicts you faced on the way toward your after state, and how you overcame them.
4. Complication
As you worked toward resolving your conflict, you probably hit a complication or two.
Complications are the watershed moments in your journey from your before state to your after state. If you successfully pass them, they’ll spur you on to success. But they have far-reaching ramifications if you fail.
In movies or novels, these typically happen somewhere in the third act. In The Lord of the Rings, it’s when Frodo reaches Mt. Doom and realizes he can’t destroy the Ring. He’s gone all that distance and can’t finish his job.
What’s the difference between a conflict and a complication?
Conflicts are expected bumps in your journey.
Complications are unexpected twists that threaten to derail your progress.
You can usually overcome a conflict with persistence and learning new skills. To overcome a complication, you have to use everything you’ve learned and there’s a strong chance you’ll fail.
You’re about to launch your new product, and your main financial backer pulls out. You’re writing the third act of your novel and everything falls apart. The story makes no sense.
Whatever it is, it’s bad! Complications heighten the drama and tension of your story and pose a major threat. Think of it like the big challenge.
Sam’s complication might be something like:
“After six months I’d paid off two credit cards. Just as I was about to pay on the third, I got served with divorce papers. It felt like everything I was working for just crashed. But I realized I couldn’t control my ex’s decisions, I could still control my future. I went through the divorce (not easy) and paid off the rest of my debts.”
Poor Sam! Just when everything was looking up, he gets slapped with divorce papers. But he stepped up and went through it,
Complications happen in life, and they require you to dig deep to deal with it.
5. Conclusion
Finally, you made it!
You dealt with the conflicts and complications, and arrived at the conclusion—your after state.
Luke Skywalker started as a farm boy and ended as the hero of the Rebellion.
If you started bankrupt and jobless, now you’ve made six-figures from your product launch. If you began as a janitor, now you’re a full-time writer.
Pro tip: Make your conclusion attractive and something your readers want for themselves.
Even though you’re telling your story, it should end in a way that’s attractive to the reader. If you’re trying to sell something (product, skills, coaching, anything) your conclusion is where you prove you can get results.
For Sam, it might be something like:
“Today I’m debt free. I want to help people experiencing crushing debt to experience financial freedom. That’s why I’m posting content about the systems and mindsets I used to break free.”
Who doesn’t want to be debt free?
Now that I’ve read Sam’s bio, I understand where he started, where he finished, and how it relates to me.
Aim to take your readers on a similar journey.
How to Make This Work for You
A common problem I hear is: “My story is complicated and long and doesn’t fit neatly into this framework.”
The solution is to do what all skilled storytellers do—use creative license.
No, I’m not suggesting you lie or mislead your readers. But you don’t need to include every single detail of everything that happened to you. You’re telling a story, not giving your testimony in court.
Make your before state relatable to your audience. If you’re an entrepreneur, maybe before you worked a soul-sucking job and wanted freedom.
Choose the most important conflicts and complications you faced and leave out everything else.
And—as I said earlier—make sure your after state (Conclusion) is attractive to your target reader.
If you’re writing a bio for social media, your website, or a resume, you can hit all 5 Cs.
But if you’re writing a short bio, just give the before and after states of your transformation. This is just your arc.
For example:
Former desk worker (before state) turned six-figure entrepreneur (after state).
I was an insurance agent (before state) and now I’m a published author (after state).
How I went from flipping burgers (before state) to full-time YouTuber (after state).
Each before state is something the average reader could understand. Each after state is an ideal outcome.
Power up your personal brand
It’s getting more difficult to stand out online. But telling your story is is a sure way to differentiate yourself.
If you learn to tell your story in a way that people respond to, you’ll have more leverage than you’ve ever dreamed.
Take some time to write your bio and story using the 5 Cs. Work on it until you’ve got something that makes you proud. Then share it with the world.
Great story & amazing job curating that photo to work with the text, Kyle