storytelling in writing

Storytelling: ‘what’s and ‘how’s

Storytelling is the spice you add to your writing to improve readability, engagement, and build loyalty to your blog.

What storytelling in writing isn’t:

  • it’s not an actual story that you write in your article
  • it’s not an anecdote or some personal experience to create a story and tell the readers

Storytelling helps ensure that your article is smooth to read, easy to remember, and not boring.

In this article, I’m showing how to incorporate storytelling into your articles effectively.

Note: This guide is intended for solely for web articles; it may not apply to marketing materials.

How to become a better storyteller?

Before anything else: better storytelling is achieved through the correct article structure and the type of article you’re creating.

So, if the purpose of storytelling is to smooth out your article, then you should definitely know the basics. I’ve discussed the types of articles and how to write an article which I strongly recommend reading before diving into this topic.

Now let’s get back to our guide on storytelling.

First..

Decide on the topic

As I read articles, I often see that the title and the article don’t match, feels like a waste of time. In rare cases, I either re-read the article or simply leave it. Anyway.

First, decide what’s your main topic. Let’s say you want to write about something like ‘the usage of electron cigarettes amongst the young generation’. So, your broader topic is ‘electron cigarettes’ and your main (focus) topic is ‘electron cigarettes usage amongst the young generation’.

You should remember your main topic for anything you will write in the article should relate to it.

Decided on your topic? Next.

Know your purpose

So, you know what you want to write about. Now, decide your purpose for writing about the main topic. Do you want to share personal experience with witnessing young people vaping? Talk about the disadvantages, or perhaps highlight any advantages? Maybe you aim to provide information or some facts? Or, your article is commercial and you want to promote a certain product?

Without clarifying the main message, the purpose behind your writing, and the point you want to make, your article may create unintended impression. For example, you wanted to discourage young people from using electron cigarettes, but your readers may end up smoking more. lol.

Then..

Craft a nice title

A title says a lot about the article – its purpose and type. For example, you write something like “Why younger people should quit smoking electronic cigarettes?” for the title. This includes that your article is about ‘younger people smoking’, ‘smoking electron cigarettes’, ‘why stop smoking electron cigarettes’. Also, this title suggest that your article is gonna be argumentative in nature.

Working on these three aspects (main topic, purpose, and title) and thus understand your article type (argumentative) before starting to write is foundational step to become a better storyteller.

Write the outline

By now, you know the main topic and the primary purpose of your writing. Next, choose the main ‘attributes’. By attributes, I mean the arguments, statements, facts, personal experiences, etc. that you’re going to use to back up your points and achieve the purpose of your writing. These ‘attributes’ again depend on the types of article: argumentative, persuasive, personal insights, etc.

Create an outline for your article. As you write your rough ideas and craft the outline, always and always and always and always remember the purpose.

Know your readers

Knowing your audience will help you to choose your vocabulary and the tone of voice to make storytelling better.

Back what u sayin’

Whatever the type of your article is, to incorporate storytelling make sure you’re using facts, statistics, highly related personal experience, and the right arguments and accurate statements. If none used, then bid farewell to your readers.

Why should I read your articles if I’m only going to see the combination of words?

Sound natural

If it’s your personal blog, write as if you’re speaking in person while considering whom you’re talking to (audience). If you’re a ghostwriter or writing for a company’s blog, be sure you follow their style to keep the consistency.

Create conflict

Good storytelling should also evoke specific emotions in your readers. You can be assertive and bold knowing that it’s ok to create tension intentionally to keep your readers engaged.

Note that you may need to use certain words and language to generate emotions such as tension, love, excitement and any other feelings. To achieve this, you need to improve your vocabulary with adjectives.

Sometimes I become so immersed while writing, and I feel that a reader will definitely sense my current mood through the words and sentences structure I use.

Keep it short

Just learned a new word: pleonasm. Yes, avoid it.

Pleonasm. noun : using more words than necessary to convey a simple idea.

Know that these days people don’t sit and read long ass articles unless they searched for your article and intended to read. Keep your article concise and short to save readers’ time while preventing them to get bored, exhausted, and overloaded with information.

Use visuals

If you feel like visuals will help you convey your message better, use some to improve storytelling. Note that people remember visual information better.

Add personal touch

This is also a broader ‘how-to’ topic to talk about personal touch in writings. Shortly, to add a personal touch to your writing, you can:

  • add humor
  • write in the first person – using “I” or “We”
  • share personal experience
  • use your voice – writing in a conversational tone that reflects your natural speaking style

Work on intro and conclusion parts better

Make sure you give hints what your article is covering and what readers can expect from the beginning. It pisses me off when I start reading an article and don’t get what I will learn before spending time on the whole article. Clarity is crucial.

Also, wrap up your article at the end, or write TL;DR section at least. I personally love the TL;DR parts.

Re-read & re-write

After completing your outline, review it to ensure you haven’t missed any points relevant to your purpose. Additionally, once you’ve finished writing the article, set it aside for a day or two, and then revisit it to tweak storytelling.

Becoming better at storytelling requires hell lotta practice.

Other than those above-mentioned steps, avoid monotonous tone, long sentences, and for God sake don’t use (copy & paste) AI generated content.

I do use Chat GPT a lot and have used some AI writing tools before. I use the Chat GPT to get new ideas and proofread the copy to avoid grammar mistakes. These tools are great way to save time by getting the summaries of existing online information. AI writing tools give you what’s on the Internet already, so don’t rely on them.

Read a lot

Read, read, read a lot, consume a lot. Nothing to write about this ‘heading’.

Yes!

Read a lot.

READ. A. LOT. EXCLAMATION MARK.

Read.

Just read.

A LOT.

Wrapping up..

In short, to improve storytelling in writing:

  • know the fundaments of writing an article (check)
  • read a lot
  • decide on the topic (first general, then make it specific)
  • determine your purpose, message, and the point you want to make, and stick to them while writing the article
  • read a lot
  • write compelling title that match to your topic, purpose, and the type of the article
  • know your readers, be natural, add personal touch
  • keep it short, entertaining, visually informative and engaging
  • read a lot 🙂

Lastly, understand that without application and practicing, the ‘knowingness’ is useless.

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

That’s what I know about storytelling. Should I missed any point, let me know.