The #1 Thing You Need to Understand Storytelling Better
Want to understand storytelling better? This practice-based article provides data, techniques, and insights on how to experience the power and potential of storytelling.
The experience, practice, and findings in this article are part of an ongoing Storytelling in Entrepreneurship program with the RISE BBA class. This article is part of an ongoing partnership between Startup JGU at OP Jindal University and Uncharted Territory Consulting LLC.
Storytelling is Everywhere
You see the word “storytelling” everywhere these days. On book covers, as a social media marketing strategy, in entrepreneurship classes and seminars, in TED Talks. In our world today, “storytelling” has become a buzzword.
When you ask people what they think storytelling is, most people struggle a bit. The word ‘storytelling’ has become so prevalent these days, however, what ‘storytelling’ actually means, how it works, and what it does remains evasive.
Why I am so interested in this topic? I’m a storyteller, and I work with individuals, companies, and educational institutions through my company Uncharted Territory Consulting LLC. I design and deliver storytelling programs that build leadership and confidence, cultivate positive work cultures, and enable transformational communication. I’m definitely excited that storytelling is getting so much attention these days.
Yet, I also see that while there is an increased interest in storytelling, there is a lot of confusion around what ‘storytelling’ actually means. The main reason for this? Storytelling is an embodied, social art that can only be learned in practice, and in relation to other people. As a concept, storytelling remains abstract, intangible. In practice and in relation to others, storytelling starts to make sense.
Yes, there’s a lot of hype around storytelling, but the usage of this word outpaces the opportunities to experience and practice storytelling.
Addressing a Gap: The Need for Practice-Based Storytelling
For the 2020–2021 academic year Startup JGU and I are collaborating to design and deliver a Storytelling for Entrepreneurship program for the RISE BBA class. This class for students who want to create their own ventures. Through several workshops across the next few months, I will help them prepare a story for their venture through understanding how to craft and tell a story, gain confidence in oral communication, and articulate a compelling vision to others.
To help bring more practice-based articles into the storytelling space, I will share the experience, practice, and findings of these workshops in articles through Startup JGU that will share the process, as well as give insight on how to bring storytelling into your personal and professional lives.
I’m also going to share the number one thing you need to do to be able to understand storytelling, so read on…
Storytelling is important- but how do you do it?
To prepare for the first workshop, the participants filled out a brief survey about what they knew about stories, storytelling, and how they were going to apply it to their venture. Through this, it was clear that they thought storytelling was an important part of entrepreneurship. In comparison to this awareness, they were less confident in their knowledge of how to tell stories.
This points to what I mentioned before, which is that the growing awareness of storytelling hasn’t been matched by equal growth and opportunity to learn storytelling skills.
Defining a Story and Storytelling
Another part of the pre-workshop survey asked them to define the word “story”. This was a small sample size, however, the answers reflected what many people say when you ask them to define a story. Their pre-workshop definitions focused a lot on “expressing your ideas”, “the ability to influence people”, and “turning a concept into something relatable for an audience”. What these definitions reflected was that they primarily saw stories and storytelling as means of influence and persuasion, and this most likely has to do with their focus on entrepreneurship, where the ability to communicate about your venture is very important. Looking at the definitions, it was clear that the overall idea of stories and storytelling was still at a conceptual stage.
When we got together for our workshop, we first looked at the definition of a story. One of the definitions I like to use comes from Annette Simmons, a business storyteller. She defines a story as,
“An imagined (or re-imagined) experience narrated in enough detail and feeling to cause your listener’s imagination to experience it as real”
I like this definition as it places emphasis on the power of imagination in telling a story. It also gives us an idea of why stories can be influential or relatable- it is because they actively engage the listener in the world you are creating in the story.
After looking at this definition, we then looked at the kind of stories we would want to work on within their entrepreneurship journey and established that for their purposes this would be personal stories.
And what makes a personal story? A unique life event that has occurred to you. Personal storytelling is about sharing your life experiences with others in a meaningful way.
This then brought us to another important point- how are stories told? How do we share the stories? And since we know that the word ‘storytelling’ is being used all around us, this can get confusing. Is it an Insta Story? A story we publish on our website under the ‘About Us’? A story I record in a video and send to everyone?
While those all are kinds of stories, they all miss one key aspect that is essential to storytelling. Storytelling happens between people, in the moment, and in conversation. As noted in ‘The Storyteller’s Way’ by Ashley Ramsden and Sue Hollingsworth, storytelling is a “social art, something that can only happen when more than one person is present”.
Stories and storytelling are part of oral communication and are co-created by the teller and the listener. Stories are not written down and then read aloud. Stories are shared from the inner world, inner imagination, and inner eye of the teller to an audience of listeners in the live moment. In our COVID-19 world, we might be telling stories over video conferencing, however, to make sure that there is that live connection between the teller and the listener it is essential you turn your cameras on!
The Most Important Thing to Understand Storytelling Better
All right, I promised to share the number one thing you need to do to understand storytelling better, and that is to experience a story.
This means that in the live, shared moment you experience a storyteller telling you a story through their words, gestures, voice, and imagination. Not as a pre-recorded video, not as something written down that is read aloud- but as in spending time with a storyteller and other listeners, telling you a story in a live, shared moment. Only through this experience will you begin to understand how stories and storytelling can change and shape communication.
This was the key part of this workshop with the RISE BBA class, and I told a story from my own life. The workshop was held in October 2020, so it was done over video conferencing, however, I did ask that we all have our cameras on so that we could experience the story as a group.
For this story, I also did an exercise to raise awareness of how storytelling can change the audience, the interaction, and space. Before I started the story, I asked them to share what they were thinking and feeling. What were they thinking before the story? Most of them shared that they were feeling worried as they were thinking about an upcoming quiz and pending assignments. Some of them expressed feeling stressed, relaxed, or lazy. One of them mentioned thinking about errands at home, and another shared that they felt nothing.
Then I told the story from my life. This was about a time with a dear friend of mine in the Indian Himalayas of Kumaon, Uttarakhand. The story is about us having to deal with unrealistic expectations, and how we ultimately find satisfaction in the simple things of life on a cold Himalayan winter day. I also shared that this experience had been popping into my mind a lot lately since these past few months I had to constantly re-evaluate my expectations due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, if you want to hear the whole story, you’ll have to find a time to listen to me tell it in real-time…
And what happened while I told the story? As the storyteller, I could see their responses- laughter, curiosity, and interest in what comes next. I could definitely tell that they were much more interested in this than the PPT slides I had shown earlier.
As I continued to tell the story and sensed their responses and reactions, I definitely felt more connected to the group. I wondered what they were thinking and feeling- will there be a change? Or are they still thinking about their quiz, assignments, and errands at home?
After the Story?
After the story, we checked in again about what they were thinking and feeling, and there was a significant shift from what they had shared before the story. The discussion certainly wasn’t about quizzes and errands anymore. The story had opened up a whole new expanded territory that included imagination, hopes, desires, the sharing of memories, and reflections about life.
After the story, they shared that they felt happy, relaxed, and nostalgic. Some of them remembered trips they had taken to the mountains, and also expressed a desire to sit by a river, sipping chai, looking at the mountains. One of them mentioned that they were thinking about, “the beauty we create in our lives”. Another mentioned a feeling of contentment, and that they had been reminded of how important it is to enjoy the simple things in life. Another mentioned that the story brought up sadness around not being able to see their friends during the pandemic. The story had centered around food, so a few people spoke about feeling hungry, and looking forward to their lunches.
I then asked them why they thought the story had this power to shift the space so much. At first, there wasn’t much response, however, then I asked, “Did this feel very different from the PPT slides I was showing earlier?” Heads nodded, absolutely- yes!
Then all kinds of observations poured out- one participant spoke about how they were more engaged because the descriptions were so vivid and they could see them in their mind’s eye. They shared how the details of the story- the description of the location, and the attention to details all helped it seem real to them in the live moment. They also reflected on how the emotion expressed during the story had the power to draw them into the story. Another participant shared that they could relate because they could actually sense the experience- the cold of the Himalayas, the salty taste of noodles, or the sweetness of chai. Another participant shared that during the story their attention shifted inward, and they reflected on themselves, their experiences, and their life.
A New Understanding
After the workshop, I asked them again to give their definition of a story, and also to rate their confidence in terms of how to tell stories, and the importance of stories in entrepreneurship. The results demonstrated that there had been a new depth of understanding about stories and storytelling.
There was also a significant shift in how they defined a story-instead of talking about ideas, they spoke about the importance of sharing experiences. They understood that influence is highly linked to the ability to communicate from your imagination and your emotions. They spoke about how relatability is created because you bring the audience into your world and make them feel a part of it.
This shift in their understanding of storytelling speaks to the immense power that experiencing a story has to open up a new, expanded territory of possibilities, emotions, and experiences. Storytelling allows us to connect together in the live moment, while also all having our own experience of the story in our mind’s eye. Storytelling enables us to find common experiences, while also inviting inward reflection about how our lives relate to the story. That is why experiencing a story as a listener is the single most important thing that you can do to understand stories and storytelling better.
References:
Hollingsworth, Sue, and Ashley Ramsden. The Storyteller’s Way: Sourcebook for Inspired Storytelling. Hawthorn Press, 2013.
Simmons, Annette. Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins. Amacom, 2015.
