A Firefighters Guide to Telling Great Stories 

STORY BLUEPRINT TEMPLATE
Two elements of persuasive communication are logic and emotion. Both are important to your success in an assessment center. Telling stories will emotionally engage your audience in your message. Interweave facts into your story to cover both logic and emotion.
This Story Blueprint Template will help you create and refine stories to use in your assessment center. Writing out the story gives you clarity. After writing out the story, practice speaking the story. This template will help you prepare for oral boards, presentations, writing assignments, narratives on reports, and many other areas in the assessment center.
There are 5 basic elements to structure your story. Once you have your basic structure, you can expand the story as needed.
Who: Who is the main character in the story?
Where: Where does the story take place?
Want: What does the character want in the story?
Problem: What is the problem or conflict that keeps the character from getting what they want? Conflict helps to create an emotional connection.
Resolve: How does the story end? Does the character get what they want? How does the character evolve in the process?
Example:
Who: Firefighter Jake
Where: Canyon Fire Department, AZ
Want: He wants to be successful at promotion and follow his father's footsteps.
Problem: He keeps failing at promotional tests.
Resolve: He finds a mentor who helps him succeed and test #1 on the captain’s test.
It is important to keep your stories relevant to the position you are testing for. Use your life experience, both personal and professional, as long as it relates to the position you are testing for.
Some of the stories you should prepare for the test include the following:
Why do you want to promote?
What have you done to prepare for the position?
Your life experience that makes you stand out from the other candidates.
Example of time you have successfully managed conflict.
Your strengths
Your weakness
A role model in your life and why.
A time you had to overcome adversity
www.promotionplaybook.com