Usually when I first start talking about narratives and stories to health professionals who are used to writing didactic education messages, they're a bit taken aback. They see an educational message or a press release as something that's radically different from a story. But in fact, there's a lot of similarity. In each case, there's a point a central message that you are trying to convey. In each case, there's a structure that organizes the information in a way that supports and clarifies that point. The only difference is usually what that structure is. Now, we've talked before about the inverted triangle format. It's commonly used in news reports or press releases. Inverted triangle is good when you want to get your main point out right upfront to make sure that your audience doesn't miss it. But sometimes, you want your audience to come to a realization. You want them to uncover the point themselves rather than be beaten over the head with it. This is where those other narrative structures are valuable. In this way, narratives can work as vehicles to deliver your central message more subtly. They encage your audience in thinking through why something happened or the implications of your story. This journey of shared discovery can be really powerful. It creates a more engaging experience. It also makes your message more memorable and sticky. So let's talk a little bit about these different explicit versus emergent structures. Now, an explicit structure, you bring up your main point right upfront and then provide some supporting evidence and maybe some more extra details. This is the inverted triangle structure that we've already been talking about. In emergent structures, you wait a little bit to bring up your main point. You might do a little setup first, then bring up your main point and follow it up with whatever the implications are, or alternately, maybe you take awhile you do some introduction, then you build your evidence related to your point, and eventually, you get to your main point at the end. The only difference here is the shape of the narrative structure. Whether you bring up the main point at the beginning, in the middle or towards the end, represents different ways of organizing the information so that you can make your point most. This is the fundamental difference between explicit messaging when you state directly what you'd like your audience to take away versus emergent messaging where you create opportunities for the audience to discover your point themselves. Both approaches are valuable, getting familiar with these different approaches to messaging allows you to choose what strategy you might want to use in different contexts and with different audiences. Now, I want to be clear. When I'm talking about the main point, that main idea is sometimes stated explicitly as it is in the inverted triangle and sometimes it's just implied. But either way, there should always be a main central point of your message. The question is when and how it should be presented to maximize its impact.