Many good ideas fail to impact because they are communicated in a manner that is not memorable. The Love I Chose by Harjas Singh is different due to the impression it creates. The story contained various elements of SUCCESs an acronym for Simple, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and Stories, coined by Chip and Dan Heath. This paper will analyze Singh's story using the criteria of Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Emotional, and Story and the persuasion theory adopted.
Story
The Love I Chose is a six-minute story that focuses on the intercultural and cross religion disputes within the concept of love and marriage. Singh tells the story of a relationship he had with a woman from the Hindu religion and how it caused upset to his parents since they wanted him to marry a Sikh woman. He relates the story of the phone conversations he had with his parents, which explains why they rejected his girlfriend due to her religion. He also gives details into his love life with his girlfriend. The story of how his parents reacted and their explanation, and his life with Tajin gives the audience factors to balance when evaluating his decision.
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Simple
The idea conveyed by Singh is very simple. The simplicity of ideas does not mean dumbing them down or using soundbites but rather relaying the core of the idea compactly and profoundly (Heath & Heath, 2007). Singh does this well by giving the example of a house that the owner is unwilling to let another person destroy. This phrase makes it easy to see why his parents, especially his mother, were unwilling to let him marry from another religion, especially after the sacrifices they had made for him.
Unexpectedness
Singh captures attention by beginning the story with a joke about his mastery of the long-distance relationship. When he reveals it's with his parents, the audience relaxes and immediately see the degree of love and closeness between him and his parents. He surprises everyone by justifying his parent's rejection of Tajin despite the detailed love between them. The thought that he does not see them as the villains in his love story is provoking and uncommon. This makes the audience pay closer attention to his next words because they would be interested in looking at the unorthodox approach he offers, and it gets stuck in the listener’s memory.
Concreteness
The story is full of concrete details, which make listeners visualize it better. Singh uses familiar and commonplace activities to connect his audience with the characters in his story. His father's description of sitting in the balcony in India drinking morning tea creates a relatable mental image. He also gives a background of how he met Tajin on Reddit and the normal fears that engulf strangers who meet online and then describes the imaginary potato-based food truck (Spatnik) and the ‘New York Time’s 36 questions that make you fall in love’ that they had discussed. This creates a vivid image of a blossoming romantic relationship that was full of love. When describing his parent's rejection of Tajin, he uses a very concrete example of a house owner who dreaded its destruction. This is in line with the idea that concreteness uses sensory information, ensuring the idea means the same thing to every audience member (Heath & Heath, 2017). This makes the story relatable and its lesson that one owes a duty to their parents understandable.
Emotional
Singh's story invokes many emotions in its audience. The way he describes his long-distance relationship with his parents for more than nine years shows the love he has for them. He also gives details of the conversations he had with Tajin, which evokes emotions from the audience. This could be heard when he said, "when you find the right one, the rules won't matter, and at the time, I did not know she would be the person I would be breaking the rules for." He also goes ahead to describe her and their idea of waiting out for 10 years to let things cool down in case his parents rejected her, and he ends up saying he has 9 more years to wait for her. These descriptions show the enormity of choosing between his love for his girlfriend and that for his parents.
Narrative Paradigm Theory
This theory proposes that human beings can be persuaded through storytelling. Developed by Walter Fisher, the theory states that human beings are convinced more by narratives that convince them of the benefits of a particular action or belief than rational facts (Dainton & Zelley, 2010). Singh's method tells a story that shows his love for his girlfriend vis a vis his commitment and love for his parents. Singh's narrative rationality is a believable one, which establishes a good reason for leaving his girlfriend; his parents had done so much for him, and he owed them a duty to make them happy.
Importance of Stories and Lessons Learnt
Stories can be very persuasive to the audience. The past experiences of others create a need for communication, which leads to behavior modification (The Narrative Paradigm, 2014). They need to be coherent enough for listeners to judge the characters' credibility (Storr, 2021). They also need to have fidelity; the credibility and logical reasoning in the story should be emphasized to make them reliable.
Conclusion
I learned from this story that our parents do so much for us, and sometimes we owe them a duty to follow their wishes. I also learned that others' unreasonable actions and attitudes might be based on an understandable and justifiable belief. When communicating ideas or giving a speech, I will employ anecdotes that are simple and appeal to the viewer while maintaining their credibility and fidelity through concrete language.
References
Dainton, M., & Zelley, E. D. (2010). Applying communication theory for professional life: A practical introduction . SAGE.
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die . Random House. http://library.lol/main/ED31EAA14BC6EE9846CF73EE37CC7BD8
The narrative paradigm . (2014, July 7). Communication Theory. https://www.communicationtheory.org/the-narrative-paradigm/
Singh, H. (2020, February 6). The love I choose . The Moth Web Player. https://player.themoth.org/#/?actionType=ADD_AND_PLAY&storyId=25158
Storr, W. (2020). The science of storytelling: Why stories make us human and how to tell them better . Abrams Press.
