Attraction Story

When I've been surfing the boards lately I've seen that a lot of people have trouble coming up with good attraction storys. I'll most likely write up an article about it (how to create good attraction storys) when I've got some spare time, but until then, here's how I tweaked one of the stories.

Original Post:
This is an attraction story I am planning to use. Any comments are welcome:

"You have the same name as my first girfriend´s . Well...I was only 12 and she was the daughter of the mayor of my mom´s hometown. She was the most beautiful girl in town and her father was very rich and also very overprotective. One day she invited me to go to her house to have dinner with her family, cause her father wanted to meet me. I didn´t want to go , but as she really had a crush on me and really insisted, I would not let her down. Well, I then wore my best clothes and put on some gel in my hair to look really cool. During dinner, I was talking to her father and then tried to talk about his political life and he seemed to be enjoying my company and said he was surprised such a young guy would know so much about politics. Well, my girlfriend seemed really proud of me and I was really enjoying the whole thing. Then I decided to go to the bathroom to check out my hair. I looked at it in mirror and the saw it was ok, but when I opened my mouth a little bit , I saw there was this huge piece of beans on one of teeth and I had probably been talking to her dad that was."

My Response:
Alright buddy, I decided to take the time to revise your story so you (and anyone reading this) know how to create an attraction story. First some pointers on your original story:

• Your lead-in to the story is boring and obvious. You need it to be more “hooky”. In other words, make sure it grabs the listeners’ attention. See my revision for an example. Make sure you express emotions in the beginning of the story so you hook the listeners. Examples: “You’ll NEVER believe what happened to me…”, “Omg, so this CRAZY thing happened to me the other day…”, “Do you know what the best feeling EVER is?”
• The DHV spikes are way too obvious. Mentioning that she was “the most beautiful girl in town” doesn’t add anything to the story, so why include that in the story? Bragging flags goes off right there. Same thing with her dad being rich, why would you mention that? If you are going to mention her dad being rich, you have to incorporate that in the story in some way, like “her dad must have been really rich, because he invited me to this HUGE mansion… and was really cool and pretty darn expensive, but it also made me intimidated you know? Like, I felt the need to qualify myself to him right off the bat”. Your story is one big brag-fest and at the end you try to compensate with a little, little tiny “embarrassing” thing. Not going to fly.
• The end of the story is neither funny nor interesting. So what, you talked to her dad with a piece of beans stuck in between your teeth… and apart from that, everyone loved you? A story needs more drama than that bro. Don’t be afraid to say things like “yeah I was really embarrassed”. It’s not a DLV! It’s emotional, and you are compensating your emotional reaction with your other DHVs and how you react to the situation anyway. If your story doesn’t have “peaks and valleys” so to speak, it’s going to be really boring to listen to.
• MAKE SURE YOU CONVEY EMOTIONS in your stories!!! I can’t stress this enough. Attraction stories ARE ALL ABOUT EMOTIONS. I could count 0 emotional triggers in your original story… maybe a little one at the end, but that’s about it. I would rather see you fill your stories with emotional drama than DHVs to be honest.

So here's my revision of your story. Without further ado:
Rokker’s Revision of “My First Dinner Date and How I Managed to Piss of The Mayor”

“Omg, your name is ___? That’s awesome! [Optional high-five] Reminds me of my first girlfriend… she was also named ___. Well girlfriend might not be the best word to use since we both were only 12, so let’s not put a label on it, and let’s just leave it at the fact that we liked each other. Isn’t it funny how you thought you knew what love is when you were only 12? Funny stuff… Anyway, I have this amusing story about her and her dad, because she had this really over-protective dad. Like seriously over-protective… One of those dads that give you that look [look at her in a suspicious way] when you’re around, you know? One day he invited me to dinner with them, and I really didn’t want to go, you know trying to fight the power and be a rebel, but my girl really insisted that I would come and meet her family and I didn’t want to let her down so I accepted. You know don’t get me wrong here, I was a really cool kid, but seated across the table from that over-protective dad, and he was also the mayor of my mom’s hometown so I really didn’t want to screw anything up, I felt like the smallest kid in town. To regain my coolness, I tried to chat to the dad about his political career… I was actually doing really well for a 12 year old talking about politics, and everyone was enjoying themselves... So I was so in the zone that I thought I would crack a joke at one of the guy’s competitors in the race for the mayor’s election next year. After I finished the joke and was laughing hard, because it was truly a great joke but maybe a bit brutal and over-the-top, his smile disappeared from his face and he just turn stone-faced and goes “That’s my cousin you are talking about”. Haha, I still remember the look on his and my girl’s face… looking back at it now it was a hilarious experience. Have you ever had a similar thing happen? You just wish you have some sort of “rewind” button you can push right there, haha! Twelve years of coolness is not going to save you from being embarrassed in THAT situation…"

There you go buddy. That’s one for free… I’ll start doing routine stacks pretty soon for anyone interested in getting their stories revised and crafted by me.

- R