The Art & Science of Storytelling
Stories within a story
Great stories have the power to move mountains and connect people. From a young age, we learn about the world and who we are through stories. We’re born for them and stories affirm who we are, and nothing does a greater affirmation than when we connect through stories. Great stories can cross the barriers of time, past, present and future, and allow us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others, real and imagined.
Andrew Stanton, Filmmaker of Toy Story and WALL-E, shares what he knows about storytelling in The Clues to a Great Story that storytelling is knowing your punchline, your ending, knowing that everything you’re saying, from the first sentence to the last, is leading to a singular goal, and ideally confirming some truth that deepens our understanding of who we are as human beings. It’s not exactly dry science or art of storytelling that makes a story compelling, but it’s when preparation meets creativity that makes a story unpredictable and get people connected.
Traditional stories have an arc of beginning, climax, and finale, but a brand’s story isn’t a film or a book. A brand should have no end but instead keep growing and that’s where micro-storytelling comes in. Micro-storytelling allows content to be concise and focused on the messages while creating a more meaningful effect as it connects at a deeper level and remains in our memories. Imagine if you could recreate the magic of a book or a film so you can tell it over and over in different ways to target different audiences. Such strategy differs from traditional storytelling by not relying on one big idea at a time. It’s the smaller and more frequent narratives that will deepen connections and create bonds with people by expanding on the core stories. Each stream of the stories will be the new little doors that you leave open for people to walk through and become involved with the brand.
Macro to Micro
In The Art of Story Telling, Michael Mitchell, Verbal Identity Consultant at Interbrand, suggests that rather than an arc, a brand’s story has more of a trajectory angled up out toward the future on a constant quest toward progress. We can then plot these smaller stories along that trajectory. Whether you’re tweeting or writing a press release, based on the larger story behind your brand, the trick is to find where these smaller stories fit in. With the foundation set, think of the smaller stories like the flashbacks in TV series where they aren’t just there to remind the audience something they’ve already seen but to advance the larger story. Great micro-stories can also help realign brand expression with business goals and help strengthen the brand where it may be falling short.
There are many ways to deploy micro-stories along the larger brand story, but the key is to stay strategic and rooted in the brand messaging. A strong content strategy can help determine whether to flex a micro-story across a brand’s larger story or hone in on a specific point of focus; whether to create an arc that emphasizes the brand’s philosophy or a tangential storyline that’s inspired by your most progressive ideas.
As importantly, here are a few tips that will get you a better chance of getting your micro-stories to resonate:
- Offer an emotional experience through narration and personal experiences — sincerity will bring you closer to your target audience
- Use the classic story arc for your micro-stories: beginning, climax, finale
- Make every word count: simpler words, no jargon
- Leave people with a cliffhanger to engage the audience in the process by asking them to fill in the blanks using their own experience
The key to effective storytelling at all levels, is finding that balance between having a living and breathing expression while still remaining true to the core of the brand. This ensures that your micro-story resonants with your audiences, make them feel part of the story, and increases the chance of them returning to your brand time and time again.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in seed-stage companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
Sign up here if you are not already subscribed to our blog.
