Practice These 3 Storyteller Traits to Publish More Stories and Boost Engagement
Paying attention enables stronger, richer stories
I’ve been learning storytelling for more than a year and a half now.
The two most common challenges I had were: finding a good story to tell and making it interesting for others. I was able to address this issue simply by levelling up my attention to detail. That is, paying attention to what’s happening around me and what’s happening within me:
- Paying attention to what’s happening around me helps me generate stories I typically dismiss because of the daily grind.
- Paying attention to what’s happening within me helps me unlock the details of my experience that move me.
Because a story is “good” — not because of its ending, but because of the details that led to its ending.
The more emotional and visual details you identify, the more you can experiment with to make your reader experience what you experienced. Thus, increasing your story’s engagement.
I know that sounds obvious. But if it still feels easier said than done, then consider practicing these 3 traits to help you capture these details:
- Curiosity
- Observation
- Self-Reflection
Together, they will turn you into a “story finder” and a “miner” for details (without even trying).
The beauty of this set is that — one trait is correlated to another trait. Meaning, when one trait improves, the other improves automatically.
Practice these traits, and you’re storytelling skills will improve (the same way it improved mine).
Curiosity
As humans, we are a sucker for finding the truth behind the unknown.
Whenever we see ourselves in a conversation or a situation where there’s no clear destination or conclusion, we can’t help but be curious to find out what the ending is.
Here are some examples to understand what I mean:
- Movie trailers are there to provide enough details to make us want to watch the rest of the movie.
- Clickbaity headlines exist to get you to pay attention and read its content.
- When someone goes, “Psst! I have something to tell you but don’t share it with anybody else”, you lean in to learn more.
Said simply: whenever there is a mystery, there’s curiosity.
Therefore, when you are curious about something, you automatically go deep into the rabbit hole of fact-finding.
The more curious you get, the more you’re driven to discover the deeper layers of a given topic. The deeper you go, the more interesting stories you can find, and the richer the details you can share with your reader. And the deeper you are, the more unique your story is going to be (simply because nobody else is talking about it).
This explains why “Satisfy your curiosity” is common advice for beginners.
Because your curiosity will lead you to the topic you are meant to write about.
This curiosity comes in the form of self-reflection and observation.
Self-Reflection
Can you describe what it was like the first time you won something? Or the first time you failed? Or the first time you saw a mammal giving birth in your Biology class?
Most first times are memorable because the feeling was brand new to us.
They hold a unique set of emotions that are super hard to explain. This unique set (if communicated well) is what’s going to get our readers to experience what we experienced. And the only way to unlock it is to self-reflect. How?
You ask yourself a series of questions to force you to be curious about why you are feeling what you are feeling:
- What happened in the past that influenced what I’m feeling right now?
- Is this really the first time it happened? Or was it from a somewhat similar experience?
- This feeling that I’m feeling now, what does it reveal about me?
- What combination of emotions am I feeling? But why? Where is it coming from?
It sounds like you’re performing self-therapy, but you’re just reflecting deeply on an experience.
Self-reflection can trigger a story or a series of stories you can write about.
Every day, every moment, our moods are never the same. And with each mood lies a story that we tell ourselves. It could be from our past, a movie we saw, or a story shared by someone else. Story after story after story. Each is connected in some way that leads to a common insight.
This “common insight” is the insight you should be sharing because it is unique to you.
How you “connect the dots” is highly influenced by your experiences and personality. It’s what makes your stories unique. The way you mix and match your stories and the details in them is what’s going to make your story stand out from others.
And because they’re unique, you catch more attention. Then inject it with all the juicy details (from self-reflection) that invite your readers to feel a certain way, thus, improving your readers’ engagement.
Observation
When you’re curious, you observe with intent.
And when you observe with intent, you capture more details about an event or situation. I’m referring to details you would normally ignore:
- Did you see the twitch in his eye when he told a lie?
- What about the tone of that someone’s voice when they answered the phone? What emotion do you think they are feeling at that moment?
- What is it about this place that makes you feel at home?
The point is — when you observe with intent, you uncover the sensory details you can add to your story to move your reader to feel a certain way.
Movies can make you experience excitement, fear, laughter or awe because they hit both your visual and auditory senses. Audiobooks may lack the visual part of the event, but they provide enough details to make you imagine what’s happening. The same thing can be said about fiction books: they are written with enough details to trigger you to imagine what is happening.
That’s what makes them so entertaining.
A 5-second scene in a movie is probably 3 pages of details if written in a book. That’s how long it typically takes to tell your story such that the feeling you get from reading it is the same as when you are watching it. That is the goal.
But it starts with giving all your attention to the present moment. That means, avoiding living in your head and being more present.
Storytelling is easier when you pay attention
Storytelling is a skill that requires you to be good at finding the right stories and providing enough details to deliver a lesson.
Aesop’s used animals to tell a lesson. Jesus Christ used parables. Homer used poems. All deliver lessons in the form of stories.
If you can be…
- Curious like a toddler trying to figure out how things work;
- Self-aware like a Meditation Teacher; or
- Observant like a scientist.
…you will have a wealth of stories and details you can mix and match to deliver a lesson (like the storyteller you look up to).
All of these traits can be practised by simply paying attention to details.
