5 Elements of Good Storytelling (with an example)
Why do stories work? Why do stories inspire people? Why do stories inspire people to make confident decisions?
The answer to all the 3 questions above can be summarized in a single line:
People want to make their lives better.
It is a common belief among people that other people’s lives are better than their own. They are interested to know what the other person is doing to improve themselves so that they can take similar steps in their life. Usually, if people relate to the problem that the protagonist of the story has, they tread on to the story and read further.
People read stories to know what did those successful people do in order to be who they are today (and things to avoid as well). That’s what storytelling is all about — an attempt to connect with people, by people.
If your product or service helps people in making their lives better, you must use storytelling to inspire your audience.
While writing stories of real-life superheroes at Avasar.life, I felt that there were mainly five core elements of a GOOD story:
- Describe the protagonist and his/her environment — this helps the reader imagine the scenario or the situation in which the protagonist is.
2. Describe problems the protagonist is facing — This helps the reader to relate to & get emotionally attached with the protagonist.
3. Thought-process & the steps taken by the protagonist — this gives a direction to the story & explores various possibilities.
4. Impact of the decisions & actions of the protagonist — It affects the judgement part of the brain & we start thinking of what could be the alternative solutions and their conclusions etc.
5. The ending — Human brain wants a happy ending but that doesn’t happen with every story. Some stories are left incomplete for the readers to use their imaginations & think of other possible endings. This leads to the readers sticking to the story for a longer time (which is the ultimate goal, right?)
Tip: These elements aren’t restricted to written stories in blog formats & can be used for any form of presentation of any story.
Here is an example: This is a story of a real-life superhero that we published here (with due permissions) who was dealing with mental stress due to breakup. We also shared a fictional story in a Carousel format on our Instagram handle. So, you can see all 5 elements in function in both the formats.
Hope this blog was useful for you. If you want us to write for you, reach out to us at zenithec.ltd@gmail.com or check out our website.
