You can study how to influence people for a long time, or you can study the art of storytelling once. This skill is thousands of years old, but only in recent years has it become a separate niche. This skill will come in handy for all those who in one way or another influence people by the written word. And if you are one of them, then these 10 tips on storytelling are definitely for you. Our tips will help make your story vivid, lively, and memorable.
Now read on and get to grips with telling your stories with new Perspectives. Let's start!
Introduce The Action From The First Words
Have pity on the reader. Every day he has to see dozens of headlines and read a lot of text. And he still has to like it, write a comment, and take a sip of coffee during a break. Do not bother him with a long introduction. Start the action with the first words. Then you can outline the terrain, the context, and the hero. But you have to make him fall in love with you at first "read", because you have too many competitors, you must stand out!
Add Details
Simplicity and fast-paced actions are essential to grab the reader's attention. But in order to retain it, you need to create a lively and vivid story and a believable one at that. To do this, you need to add details to the story. For example, some striking feature of the character's appearance that makes him memorable. Or a few touches about the peculiarities of the scene. Recreate in the reader's imagination smells, sounds, shapes - he should feel your story. But don't overdo it. Details are the spice of the story and should be used in moderation.
Tell The Story Through Personality
A story should evoke emotions. The best emotions are expressed by people. So you have to have people in your story, even if you're talking about things. There's nothing stopping you from humanizing them, giving them personality and character. Show how that person went their way, how they changed or changed someone else. And how, as a result, they got the reward or punishment they deserved.
Give Flaws To The Hero
The times when idealized heroes won hearts and minds are a thing of the past. Now we are more interested in people just like us, with their own strengths and weaknesses. If you talk about a "product" in your story, don't be afraid to bring its flaws to the surface. It will only increase the reader's confidence and make your story true.
Create a Conflict
Conflict is the engine of stories. Colliding two or more elements results in something new. It throws the main characters off-balance, and it becomes interesting to watch. You want to see how it ends, whose side wins. "The Cat Lies on the Mat" is not a story. But "The Cat Lies on the Dog's Rug" is. The conflict does not necessarily arise with another character, it can be an internal struggle or related to the world around us. Man's struggle with nature is a classic example of this.
Illustrate Your Story
Vision is the most important channel of information perception. And in the context of storytelling, it is the most powerful weapon in the war for human attention. The right visual sets you in a certain mood, makes you interested, sets expectations from the text, makes it three-dimensional and bright. Think back to when you were a child and you loved picture books. They seemed much more interesting than boring "adult" books, didn't they? Eventually, you learned to absorb solid canvases of text. But your brain still loves pictures. And so does your reader.
Use Natural Language
If your character communicates in slang, don't clean up his speech. It should sound natural, the way people speak in ordinary life. But don't go the other way either - don't use special terms. What might be misunderstood will be misunderstood. Write simply, without clericalism and complicated constructions. Reread the text aloud, and if any places seem too artificial, rewrite them.
Show, Don't Tell
Professional writers know that you should write (or tell) in images, not in facts. If you're describing the process of frying bacon, don't talk about a pan that's on the stove and bacon is frying on it. Describe the squirming of melted fat and the drool-inducing smell. Get the reader's imagination working, and you'll tie them securely to your story. If your character is, for example, in extreme pain, you don't say "Edward was in pain", you describe how he reacts to that pain, let the reader make the conclusion that Edward is actually feeling pain. In other words, you show the reader, you don't tell him!
Drop Hints
It's a simple way to grab the reader's attention and get him to read the story to the end. Stir up curiosity by slightly revealing the future. Even crude hints work, like "He had no idea where this decision would lead," "But it turned out to be much more interesting. Sometimes you can use a vague spoiler, saying that the future is a happy ending (or vice versa). The reader will still wonder exactly what happened. Just make sure you don't really disappoint him at the end. Insert hints closer to the middle of the story, when he's immersed in it and he won't quit halfway through.
Don't Tell The Moral Of The Story
A good story always has a specific meaning, purpose, idea. It should say something to the reader and encourage him to take action. In a good story, the authors themselves sometimes reveal the idea in plain text. They say something like: "The moral of this story is such and such, and therefore you have to do this and that." In an ideal story, the reader himself comes to the desired conclusion. And if he independently made such a conclusion, then he would sooner agree with it and take the appropriate steps. Don't become a mentor. Tell the story and let the reader make their own choices.
Conclusion
A good story engages the reader from the first words, immersing him in an authentic reality. It tells the story of a person who changes as he struggles. The reader empathizes with the main character because he sees himself in him. The story speaks in images, not facts, and it must have visual elements and a natural look. Also, the ideal narrative stirs curiosity but does not tell its idea directly. The reader must draw his or her own conclusions and take action. If you want to learn the art of storytelling in-depth, you can find it in this article.
We wish you good luck, and may your stories always be memorable!
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