Here I’ve collected some notes regarding the craft of storytelling. You are undoubtedly aware of some of these ideas, but maybe one or two of them will give you a little aha! moment. These ideas are independent of whether or not you use Narata Storytelling Cards in your work, and I hope you find some of them helpful.
What Happens Next
Regardless of what format, tradition, or medium your story belongs to, regardless of your genre, tone, or setting, always remember the First Duty of any storyteller – make sure the listener/reader/audience always wants to know what’s going to happen next!
Sympathy or Empathy
Sympathy is of secondary importance for a character to be engaging to an audience, and it’s often not needed at all. Empathy is what matters, that the audience understands how and why a character struggles. A bad guy with a heap of troubles to navigate through is engaging. A good guy who easily succeeds is the death of storytelling. So pile on the trouble for your hero and other characters!
Conflict or Difficulties
We all understand the importance of conflict in storytelling. But the term itself can easily lead us to create unnecessary negativity as if dramatic conflict only means quarreling, cursing, hatred, and violence. I prefer to think of this element as ‘difficulties.’ A lovable klutz who always wants to help can make difficulties for the hero without the conflict getting negative or dark.
“We can improve our storytelling by having symbols, visuals, and concepts that underline the theme and make the story and world feel complete and meaningful.”
Plot and Theme
When a story works, even with the most social realist, documentarian style drama, it’s still highly orchestrated and condensed. To make a story feel meaningful and cohesive, try to make each sub-plot and character express a variation of the central theme your story deals with. In Tootsie, the main plot and each sub-plot are all variations of the theme ‘how men treat women.’
Leitmotif
A German word for a theme, subject, image, or other element that recurs throughout a creative work. We storytellers pay a lot of attention to theme and message. Still, we can improve our storytelling by having symbols, visuals, and concepts that underline the theme and make the story and world feel complete and meaningful. In The Godfather – Part Two, children, children’s drawings, toys, playgrounds, and similar elements are used to subtly signify the loss of innocence that sits at the heart of the story.
Your Hero Sucks
The world’s greatest shark hunter trying to find and kill a giant white shark would be a pretty dull story. Much better to do what they did in Jaws. Make the hero a city boy who hates boats and is afraid of going in the water. This principle will elevate virtually every kind of story.
As Bad as it Gets
When you plot or revise your story, think about what could be the worst thing that realistically (in your genre and setting) could happen to your character. This awful thing may never actually happen in your story, but being aware of the potential for this ultimate bad outcome helps you ensure the stakes are high enough to keep your audience captivated.
“A good guy who easily succeeds is the death of storytelling.”
Respect Genre Conventions
Do not deviate too much from the elements associated with the genre your story belongs to. Add one or two twists or new components, tops. You can tell the story of an Italian violinist who’s lost his way in the old West and make an original Western. But a story about an Italian orchestra and their families trying to build an opera house in Dodge City might make a great story but would probably no longer be a Western.
Read Outside your Genre
A genre writer who reads or watches almost exclusively works within his preferred genre risks what I like to call creative inbreeding. Reading Of Mice and Men might inspire surprising new story concepts if you write horror. If you write spy thrillers, maybe the best romance writers have something to teach you.
Screw Plot
Well, only partially, and only sometimes. I think there has been too much focus on story structure, although with many projects, you of course do need to work hard on this. But I think the importance of the scene has been largely overlooked. If you master the art of writing engaging and suspenseful scenes, almost any storyline can work, with or without a pre-planned plot. I expect this attitude to become more prevalent among storytellers. We can already see this happening in the current golden age of TV drama, where storylines are often freeform and unending but kept engaging and often at a high level of drama through the mastery of character and scene.
I’ll add more storytelling notes from my writer’s notebook in the future. In the meantime, you can explore our blog for more information and thoughts about the craft of storytelling in general and about working with Narata Storytelling Cards.
Happy storytelling!
