Master These Key Storytelling Techniques For Success (Part III - Nailing the Narrative)

There are endless things to tell about telling tales... yet sometimes you just need the logical lowdown to get you started quickly. Here are article number 1 and number 2, with the final of our short trilogy below. It's nowhere near as complete as the book The Whole Story of course, but it'll get you started nicely! The finale is down below, with a focus on reaching your audience...

15. People are not psychic (Sender & Receiver)

There is a deeper understanding and awareness of the dynamic between sender & receiver you will want to get familiar with. We've touched upon this in the previous blogs but here I would like to go deeper, and give you this understanding:

The receiver of your story is not psychic.

This may sound logical when you read it. Yet, you'd be surprised how many people get this wrong, and in how many ways. Where the majority of nearly all communications - from film to ad to meetings to art to... well everything - is the assumption that the receiver of your story already understands what you are about.

They assume you'll know their name. They assume you've looked at their website. Or at some social profile. They'll assume you'll understand the product. Or that the receiver will feel exactly the same about that film script they've just handed in. They'll assume... you're catching my drift. Most communications fail because there is an assumption of almost literal psychic awareness on the challenges and goals of the sender of the message.

And yes, that means you. You've done it countless, innumerable times already, and so have I: communicated something in some place to some person somewhere... and then the miscommunication happened because you forget that what is so simple and logical in your mind... must also be the same in theirs. I'm telling you: wars have started over this simple, psychic-assuming principle!

This is the rule of thumb: you must always assume that your receiver doesn't know what you're on about. It doesn't mean you have to be explicit in your message and throw it in someone's face. You are the master of how you present your message. And it can be as blunt or as subtle or ambiguous or comedic or tragic as you want. Just know that in the end, you do really have to actually deliver the message to the receiver, however which you go about it.

I know, it sounds crazy for me to remind you. But I'm only half joking when I say that your audience has very likely not developed telepathy just yet.

16. Target Audience - Emotions come before demographics

That doesn't mean your message will always land with everybody in the same way. There are so many different kinds of people, from so many different backgrounds, with so many different values, experiences and cultures, that no message in the history of the world has ever been able to convince everyone. Or as marketing guru Philip Kotler once explained: "You can't be everything to everybody".

In fact, it is wiser not to even strive for that, because you actually want to differentiate. A key advice when looking at target groups is to go back to our very first principle in the first blog: emotion. Before anything else, you should determine what emotion you wish to connect on. This principle is important for your target audience choices too: people are not one-dimensional beings whose emotions are determined by demographics. So remember this in practice:

Emotions come before demographics.

We are tempted to think that certain demographics tell us how our message will be received. That may be true to some extent, so it can factor into your story decisions if you want. For instance, more young men love the Formula1 sport than women do. Yet, if you make that your whole decision, you're missing out on a huge chance to connect. For I'll have you know that my currently 79 year old mother is an even bigger fan of the sport than I am.

In marketing boardrooms, script writing courses, music making classes and whatnot, inevitably at some point the question is thrown on the table: what is your target group? This is important, and can determine things like media choice (which we'll get to in a second). But at the end of the day, know that for really good storytellers, that demographics are far, far less important than they are made out to be. So, when you determine a target audience... describe them in feelings first and foremost.

17. Zeitgeist & Media Choice

A great way to put this into practice is looking at how the zeitgeist can affect your message and your audience. For example, the immensely popular show Bridgerton is pretty far from historically accurate, especially not in the depiction of demographics and diversity. Yet, in its diverse cast and its themes, it connects to the current waves, issues and trends within our society. And despite its rational inaccuracy, the show is doing very well because it manages to connect to the emotions of the now.

So, it pays to be connected to the zeitgeist and have a good understanding of it emotionally. And this principle also applies to functional things, such as media-channel trends. In the zeitgeist ten, fifteen years ago, Netflix was still growing, Facebook was still popular, Twitter still decent. In the span of that time Netflix has become an absolute gigant, Facebook has been surpassed first by Instagram, then by TikTok and Twitter isn't there anymore (both in name and spirit!).

In short, being aware of the zeitgeist, both emotionally and functionally, can be a large determining factor in your success. Yet, having said that...

18. Authenticity & Artistic Freedom

You don't always have to follow the zeitgeist, you can actually make it from a place of artistic freedom. When the BBC announced the show Sherlock and revealed it would be a contemporary version, with Holmes and Watson living in the 21st century, the reactions were subdued to say the least. Some where intrigued, yet a majority was of the opinion that Sherlock Holmes stories should always be placed in the same period it was written in by Arthur Conan Doyle at the turn of the 20th century.

But when it came out, it became massively popular, a craze even. This again shows that you don't have to be authentic to the letter but that authenticity is all about staying authentic to the emotional feel of a story. The characters basically stayed the same: arrogant, highly intelligent, socially awkward detective Holmes, and the paradox of doctor Watson being both very humane and just a bit too comfortable with violence... for a doctor. The setting - or in story terms 'context' - changed, but the gist of the story stayed the same as a result.

19. World building

This brings us to world building... God, I'm skipping so much honestly in everything I can show you in such short blog posts, such as character view and world view (please, please consider just getting the book, it's worth it!). Articles are too short!

But I digress... let's continue in the same theme, only this time applied to your world-building: how does my story-world feel? This can be your superhero-'verse' or your brand world or the real world that your charity functions in, or whatever world you need to build. Knowing the feeling gives you ways to effectively describe it.

Does the superhero-'verse' have lasers or tornadoes or flying people and cars? Is it dark or light or purple or green? Does your brand world feature lots of photography of people, or is it focused on the products? And what is it's tone of voice? Fun? Businessy? Down to Earth? Is the charity focused on the negative or the 'can-do'?

First describing how things feel will make it much easier to make those decisions and build something unique and recognizable. And in the end, it determines the audio-visual language that will make people remember it well.

20. Audiovisual language

The first Batman movie from The Dark Night trilogy is more yellowish and brown, with some explicit colors such as purple flowers. The second is more blue-hued with irregular use of orange and red for blood and explosions. The third is more earthy, more gray, with some sunlight as the contrast. Each reflect the three different main themes: he begins and masters fear, he falls and chaos ensues, he rises again through pain, and offers hope.

Naming can be a great tool as well to distinguish things. There are the classic examples of Lord of the Rings naming, with the bad guys called orcs, nazgul and Sauron and such, and good guys called Aragorn, Legolas or 'hobbits'. But we can also use plenty of other examples, such as the brilliantly named Ali-G and Borat characters from comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

And in branding naming can reflect a ton of things too. Great examples are Godiva for 'godly' chocolate, the classic 'google' from Google reflecting a huge number of information, or the visual of the apple that fell on Newton's head, giving him the creative solution, that later the electronics brand Apple wished to align with too.

All of these examples and more make up the audiovisual language of your story. The imagery, the colors, the wording, the tone, sounds and music all contribute to how your story will be felt. Some of those things are on the nose, but sometimes things are more subtle as well. Most people did not remember the coloring from Nolan's Batman trilogy, but it did contribute to how they felt about the film nonetheless.

21. And... Action!

And will of that, it's time to finish with the last principle of this trilogy of posts: action. To paraphrase from Batman Begins: "It's not who you are that defines you, but what you do." Because although stories are made up from some of the elements discussed here, and plenty more where that came from, in the end it is action that drives the story forward.

In creating stories, we often pick moments of action that determine where we go. This can be the decisions our main characters make, an event outside of their influence or simply a gut reaction to a context they enter. Since we cannot bend time backwards, every action has consequence and thus drives forward what we do.

This principle goes for all storytelling in fiction and non-fiction, it drives reporting in journalism as well, and as equally important in the business world or in charities, science and education. What I've seen happening (too) many times in our own storytelling practice is that people keep having meetings, make plannings and talk. Both for creators such as us, as well as for the audience that needs to see your message, this is detrimental to your storytelling.

The proof of the pudding, after all, is in the eating.

Show, don't tell

It's never about the words you use, it's about showing what you actually do.

So, whichever principles you apply, make sure you always put more focus on showing things through actual action, instead of trying to tell it alone.

God... there is still so much more! It never fails to amaze me, just how much we can look at those stories everywhere and learn from them. Still, I hope you've enjoyed this series for now! Don't be a stranger.

Love, as always,

Rogier

Check out my book The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling here !!!