Nailing the Narrative When Your Storytelling Stops Working
Humans are storytelling machines, and we are wired to respond to stories. We even make up narratives about our own lives to make sense of the world, when in fact there is not a real logical progression of events to be told.
While you might avoid it, businesses are storytellers.
This is why I am the person to help you.
This is why we have a discount.
This is why we have a new or updated product.
This is why you should act now.
Weirdly, I’ve noticed a trend of ‘storytelling’ that I am calling “A Story-less Narrative“.
When Your Story Fails Before You Start
It reminds me a bit of when my daughter was little. She would be so excited to tell us about something that happened at school she would plow into *all* the details, randomly ordered, in a cascade of disjointed elements.
“Slow down”, we would say, “what are you trying to tell us?”.
Telling stories that people both listen and understand is a skill that you can learn, but it is often overlooked. We mistake “Telling” with “Communicating“.
Don’t Just Have a Point, Deliver the Point
Narratives are not just facts joined together, and facts aren’t necessarily inherently compelling.
Even experienced writers prepare too much of a runway in their articles. A quick tip often repeated but seldom implemented is to chop off the first couple of paragraphs from your first draft. Try it and see if it grabs attention better than the original.
This isn’t about using complex or formal writing structures, either. Think “Minimum Viable Story“.
It’s about implementing the basic stuff that we understand naturally, when meeting friends for coffee or when you bump into a colleague in the break room.
Hook ‘Em
Technically correct doesn’t make something worth reading. Here is a recent example that will illuminate things better.
Which works better for you?
I would argue the second one gets my attention over the first, even though they are both presenting the same facts.
- The program was large and long term.
- It involved public involvement to the tune of millions of users.
- Coming to an end.
Only the second mentions why the project existed, or how the news might be of interest. I expect the first assumed all readers would already be primed with the necessary context, leaving lots of people outside of that circle thinking “So what?“.
Where Are You Going With This?
Once you have a person’s attention, though, you need to hold it. Again it is not just about relaying the facts, or even delivering facts in the correct order, it is about connecting the facts together in a way that makes sense and has the person wanting to hear more.
How should you start?
Where are we taking them?
What points do we need to visit along the way?
There’s a reason why storytelling is described as taking someone on a journey!
Humans like to make connections and we will see patterns, the connections do not necessarily need to be outrageously amplified, but they do need to be there and they need to make sense.
One of the magic tricks used by the very best mystery novelists, such as Agatha Christie, is presenting the reader with seemingly random clues, then showing how everything fits together in the final “ah-ha” moment.
If your story is for marketing purposes then making things clearer will likely pay off more than trying to be clever. Get away from the checklist of facts and instead consider what the reader needs to understand.
Get used to thinking and therefore.
Beautifully Presented, Tasty Poison
Here is another way of thinking about it. If I gave you the ingredients to make a delicious cake, but poured cold into a glass after being whisked up in a blender, would it be just as yummy?
Same ingredients, very different process and presentation.
If you manage to hold a reader’s attention, but there is no satisfying payoff, it doesn’t matter how good quality the ingredients were, or even the delivery, because that bad aftertaste will be remembered.
Final “Minimum Viable Story” Tip
As a final takeaway, here is a trick for distilling your news down to just the vital, punchiest parts.
If someone was walking towards an elevator and you needed to get their attention before the doors closed, what must you tell them?
Rather than “Here is a fact”, go with “Here is something you need to hear, why right now, and how it’s important”. The quick statement doesn’t deliver the whole story. It just gets them to stop, think, and perhaps even ask for more.
You need to get better at storytelling if you want people to understand you and keep listening in increasingly noisy channels.
How is that?
