Building Suspense in Storytelling! While I normally advocate using organic techniques to tell stories, it is often helpful to apply techniques that help us explore things we normally wouldn't. Try this vocal exploration to boost your storytelling skills. The following story is very exciting—or at least it should be. Learn the story, then tell it several times, using each of the methods found below the story. Make this story very exciting and suspenseful! An Exciting Story Once there was a little girl who was very curious. She saw a dark object in a field nearby. She walked closer, closer, closer, closer, closer ...until it reached out and grabbed her! Method #1: As you tell the story, experiment with volume: getting louder and louder until the end. Method #2: As you tell the story, experiment with rate: getting faster and faster until the end. Method #3: As you tell the story, experiment with body tensiveness: getting more and more tense and stiff until the end. Method #4: As you tell the story, experiment with pitch: getting higher and higher in vocal tone until the end. Method #5: As you tell the story, experiment with contrasts: find times to contrast volume or rate or pitch or body tensiveness. And remember: rules were meant to be broken. Try getting softer, or slower, or lowering your pitch and see the effect. It may be just what your story needs! As long as you are really visualizing things, almost anything will work in some way or another!