The Art of Storytelling: How To Use Stories To Influence People.

Since ancient times, stories have served as one of the best ways to transfer information between people. And since then, storytellers, philosophers, and writers understood that it was not enough to simply tell or write something. For a story to have an effect and be truly interesting, you need to follow certain rules.

In today's world, the art of telling stories has not lost any of its relevance, and it is used not only by writers but also by orators, politicians, showmen, businessmen, psychologists, and people from other professions. Today it is known as "storytelling", and we want to tell you what it is and where it can be useful, as well as give useful tips on how to create stories that anyone would want to read and listen to.

What is Storytelling?

Storytelling is the most effective method of conveying information to an audience, using instructive, moving, funny, and other elements with fictional or real characters.

Of course, storytelling should not be seen as some new method! It was introduced to the general public as a special method in 1992 by David Armstrong, the head of the American company Armstrong International, in his book "MBSA: How to Manage by Collecting Stories Around". He viewed storytelling as a tool for training newcomers and improving company performance.

Armstrong originally just used stories in his work, but he was so impressed with the results that he decided to tell people about them and about his experience, which he did by writing the above-mentioned book. Subsequently, storytelling almost became a whole science with its own psychological and managerial aspects. By the way, Annette Simmons' book "How to Use the Power of Stories" is very popular today, and we advise you to read it too.

Stories don't have to be long at all. They can be short life stories, metaphors, fairy tales, anecdotes, or even just phrases that contain information and motivate people to take specific actions to achieve particular results and goals. This can be of great benefit for business, marketing, public speaking, management, etc.

Using the psychological factor, you can come up with colorful, expressive, interesting, and fascinating stories that people associate with a personal situation. With a good story, Information penetrates into the subconscious of a person, leads to certain thoughts, and helps him find answers to some questions. That's why storytelling is great for the informal education of people.

Storytelling Application

Storytelling is "the art of storytelling" traditionally used by writers. But the scope of its application is far from being exhausted by fiction. Today, the skill of attracting and captivating the public with stories can be useful for educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, psychotherapists, marketers, and PR specialists.

Interesting stories will allow you to convince people much more than the most well-grounded arguments and motivational speeches, by listing opportunities, and benefits. Therefore, storytelling is also used in the field of personnel management, trade, public speaking, and politics. Given that people love to hear interesting stories, it's easy enough to use them to drum up interest in a particular topic.

The art of storytelling is also useful for building employee loyalty in organizations. For example, in a meeting, a leader can tell a great story about what he went through, what success he achieved, how he realized the value of his company's mission, rather than giving employees a boring lecture about corporate goals and values.

In addition, stories serve as an excellent motivation for learning, which once again testifies to the fact that storytelling can become an effective tool in the hands of educators, business coaches, and, of course, parents. Think for yourself: after all, it is much more interesting, for example, to solve a problem together with the hero of a story, than to write down the solutions and try to understand them.

And as for the business environment and corporate culture, stories often serve as a kind of folklore in this case. They exist in a semi-formal environment and help people understand how to work and how not to, they help show who is who in the team and so on. We shouldn't forget about marketing, because in marketing too, stories play a significant role — they allow people to understand what problems the products solve and what benefits they have. That's why most of the ads you see on Youtube or on television are usually some kind of plot or a scene, that illustrates a problem and solves it with the product in question. 

And in ordinary everyday communication, storytelling has been around for as long as we can remember. Anyone who knows how to tell stories in a cool way will always be able to dilute the atmosphere, cheer up his friends, and most importantly, convey his idea in an interesting and unusual form to make an impression.

Obviously, the field of application of storytelling is very wide:

• Culture.
• Production.
• Business.
• Education.
• Psychotherapy.
• Marketing.
• Management.
• Politics.
• Show Business;.
• Parenting.
• Everyday communication and other areas.

The demand for storytelling specialists (professional storytellers) is so great that now specialized trainings, seminars, and courses are held everywhere. And in the United States, storytelling has become a profession in general, and there is even an association of specialists in this field.

The popularity and demand for the skill is due to the fact that storytelling allows you to achieve many goals that are very important for business, in sales, public speaking, writing, and other areas. Here are just a few of the results that can be achieved by telling stories:

• Impact on the subconscious and thinking of the listener, viewer, or reader;
• The most accurate delivery of information and thoughts;
• Teaching all age categories (children, adolescents, students, and adults);
• Vocational training and retraining;
• Minimization of conflict situations in teams and other groups of people;
• Simplification of relationships between people;
• Stimulation to achieve new goals, perform certain actions;
• Strengthening of authority;
• Increase in sales;

And that's not all. In the USA, for example, psychotherapists use storytelling techniques in their work with critically ill patients, successfully awakening in them the desire to continue living and fight their ailments. It turns out that with the help of stories you can not only make money but also improve the life of society and even save human lives.

But this is only possible if the stories are told correctly. Below we will briefly introduce you to the secrets of this art, but beyond that, we recommend that you consult the thematic literature (David Armstrong, Annette Simmons, and others of our suggestions).

How To Create a Compelling Story

The main principle of storytelling is that the story should be comprehensible to anyone and follow a specific script that will help to solve the problem the storyteller is facing.

In order for the story to be effective and lead to the desired result, it must include several components:

• A real or fictional character (it can be a person, an animal, a fantastic creature, an organization, or an entire state).
  
  
• Events and changes that are vital for the character (otherwise the story is meaningless).
  
  
• Emotional saturation (so that the listener associates himself with the character and empathizes with him; so that he himself wants to tell this story to someone).
  
  
• The realism of the described events (events should be limited to a specific time and place).
  
  
• Specifics (the story should be understandable, contain living examples, clearly convey the idea).
  
  

You don't have to look far to find examples of good stories. Just remember how parents and grandparents tell stories to their children and grandchildren; how the authors of fables and parables convey their essence to listeners and readers.

But, as you understand, storytelling is not only an oral skill but also a written one. Stories work very effectively even if people read them in books, magazines, newspapers, or on websites and forums on the Internet. And in the case of visual storytelling, you also need to adhere to a number of rules:

• The information offered to the reader should be new and useful for him. Therefore, the author should consider the details before writing his story. Even if the plot is already ready, you need to think about how it can be supplemented, how you can better reveal the topic and deliver the idea.
  
  
• When telling a story, it is important to understand the subject. To do this, the author must work through the subject, studying it in depth, so as not to create an amateurish and low-quality "masterpiece. It is equally important to have the skill to dive quickly into the material.
  
  
• A visual story should be accompanied by pictures or photographs. This allows you to immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the story and better present the material. Media content can also include audio and video materials. It makes the story look much richer and more alive.
  
  
• From the very first seconds, bright, catchy, and out-of-the-box headlines help attract the reader's attention and interest. Think of examples of headlines that made you want to read the article. The ability to make such headlines can be called a true art.
  
  
• Subheadings are just as important. A lot of people today use cross-reading when only headings/subheadings and text splits are read. If the eye catches on something interesting, the person begins to study the material in more detail. It is also desirable to visually highlight headings and cutouts.
  
  
• Every story should be told in a lively, interesting, and varied language. There is no place for monotony, repetition of the same thoughts and ideas. It is desirable not to use often the same words — it is worth replacing them with synonyms or expressing thoughts differently.
  
  
• When designing a visual story, you must adhere to the principles of unity and contrast. The material should be in the same style, and indents should be made between blocks of text. To create contrast, it is enough to use only two different fonts.
  
  

By following the above rules, you can create an interesting story that attracts attention, express a desire to consume it in full. But it is still not enough to get a really worthy result. A story will be impressive only when the author observes the basic principles of storytelling.

Main Principles Of Storytelling

There's no argument that a story that affects the listener or the reader will be told beautifully by a professional storyteller or writer. If you mumble under your breath, you can ruin the coolest story, and if you write illiterately and mediocrely, no one will want to read it.

But nevertheless, almost any person, with the proper desire and diligence, can learn to skillfully tell stories, following certain principles:

• The story should not be too long. When creating it, it is necessary to take into account that a person can be maximally attentive for about 20 minutes, after which his concentration decreases.
  
  
• The story should have a hero who is one hundred percent interesting to the audience. He should be similar to "your" people, so that they become attached to him, try on his ideas, actions and decisions. Keep in mind that one story can't hook absolutely everyone — stories need to be tailored to specific audiences.
  
  
• The story should not have an open ending. This means that the audience should not have to speculate about the outcome or the moral of the story. People should get answers to specific questions.
  
  
• The story should not be boring. The text (especially the beginning) should arouse interest and desire to know what will happen next. The narrator should evoke emotions with his story: joy, laughter, anger, fear, indignation, but never leave people indifferent.
  
  
• The story should not impose the author's opinion on people. People should come to specific conclusions on their own. In particular, this applies to sales: You cannot tell people that they owe or need something. You have to get them to want something.
  
  
• Storytelling requires the use of metaphors, hyperboles, and other figures of speech. But it must be done skillfully, so that among all these "colors" the main idea is not lost.
  
  
• There must be moments in the story that give people's imagination and thinking a new impetus. It is great when events take an unexpected turn, giving the story new ways to develop.
  
  
• When creating stories, it is important to think carefully about details such as the setting, the characters, their opinions, and dialogue. This creates intrigue, which is one of the foundations for success.
  
  
• The story should have unexpected and even shocking elements. They are what make people remember stories, because exciting and emotional moments stimulate the memory.
  
  
• When telling a story, people's imaginations need to be called upon to activate their senses. They should feel smells and tastes, hear sounds, and imagine things happening.

When planning your presentation or simply going to tell a story with friends or colleagues, the storyteller must remember that there must always be a beginning, a conflict (the main part, the climax), and a denouement. The whole story should revolve around the problem and its solution.

At the same time, you must not overdo the descriptions so that the story remains succinct and clear. It should contain only what is necessary and important, and no unnecessary details are needed. Among other things, it should be understood that the story should not be perfect, i.e., you should not tell only stories of success and triumph. Stories of failure and defeat often have a much more powerful effect.

And one more important note: Storytelling is not only about rules and principles to be followed. Success in this business largely depends on confidence in yourself and your abilities, enthusiasm for the storytelling process, and the ability to improvise. These qualities and skills need to be developed. Then storytelling will become a powerful tool for influencing people.

How To Learn Storytelling

Everyone is different. Some people like to be the soul of the company, to tell stories, and to see those around them listening to them with rapt attention. Others tell stories in a dry, unemotional way, just reciting facts. Others speak only occasionally, preferring more to listen. But either way, people want to be heard and understood.

So storytelling is, first of all, a skill that is necessary, important and useful to develop, and secondly, a skill for everyone. Anyone can learn to make up stories (or tell real stories). To do this, you first need to know that a "working" and engaging story has several components: plot, meaning, emotion, and empathy. This is the base.

Storytelling is able to raise your communication to a new level and make your communication with people more effective. But this skill has to be applied wisely, which means that you can't just learn it once and expect that everything will go on as usual. This skill needs to be constantly developed and honed.

You can begin to learn the art of storytelling by watching and analyzing successful and unsuccessful performances of different people, as well as your own (even telling a story in a circle of friends at a campfire in the evening can be called a performance). And the material for your stories can be taken from anywhere: watching people, listening to the stories of others, reading books, broadening your horizons, being inquisitive about the world and life...

The true storyteller draws inspiration from everything: his own life and the lives of his family and friends, his work environment and the lives of his colleagues, books and movies, the manifestations of nature and the lives of animals and even insects. Experiments with one's own mind and life, such as quitting bad habits or taking a new route on the way to work, can also be a source of material for stories.

You can develop inspiration and imagination in many ways and exercises. One such exercise is called "Who is this person? The idea is very simple: you walk down the street or sit on a bench, look at people passing by and try to determine what they do, who they work for, how their day began, what worries them, what thoughts swarm in their heads.

Another equally effective exercise is to keep a diary. Surely from time to time you find yourself in some unusual situations, you hear interesting stories from people with whom you communicate, you encounter useful ideas and thoughts. To keep it all in your memory, keep notes - put everything in your diary that seems interesting, that you can use in the future in your stories.

But this is all lyricism, and to master the skill of storytelling, we still recommend learning it from professionals. As we said, there are various trainings and master classes today. But if there aren't any in your city, you have a great opportunity to learn valuable experience from books:

• Annette Simmons in Storytelling. "Whoever Tells The Best Story WINS”.
  
  
• Paul Smith. “Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire”.
  
  
• Vladimir Propp. "Morphology of the Folktale".
  
  
• Robert McKee. "Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting".
  

The information you get can be used in sales, for business and speeches, in marketing, and in ordinary everyday life. So don't waste precious time and start learning in any way you like.

We hope that you learned something from this article. And finally...

Many thanks for reading.