The best storytellers always define a clear purpose prior to crafting their story.
What is the story trying to achieve? What does success look like with this story?
Commit to answering these key questions before doing anything else.
Storytelling is a superpower.
A key to unlocking growth in your writing, startups, marketing, business, or career.
THREAD: 10+ principles of effective storytelling (that you can start using today):
The best storytellers always define a clear purpose prior to crafting their story.
What is the story trying to achieve? What does success look like with this story?
Commit to answering these key questions before doing anything else.
Every great story begins with a well-defined audience.
Who is the audience? What do they consciously (or subconsciously) want from the story?
Be deliberate with this exercise.
Be honest with yourself. The audience may look different than you expect.
“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” – Steven Spielberg
Stories need structure.
Clear narrative arcs (like Pixar’s “hero’s journey”) work well.
Playwright Kenn Adams created a neat framework - “the story spine” - for establishing structure:
Once upon a time there was [blank]. Every day, [blank]. One day [blank]. Because of that, [blank]. Until finally [bank].
Fill it in and watch your story take shape.
Emotion is what makes great stories stick with you.
Think about your favorite stories. How did they make you feel?
It’s a safe bet that they elicited a strong emotional response.
Learn from this. Weave emotion into the foundational fabric of every story.
Every great story is infused with novelty.
Novelty comes in many different forms:
Fresh, new perspectives. Surprising insights. Shock-and-awe moments. Unexpected twists.
The goal is to make your audience say: “Oh, wow!”
If you’re falling short, dig deeper.
Storytelling expert @nancyduarte coined the “what is vs. what could be” framework.
First, describe the reality (“what is”).
Next, describe the potential future (“what could be”).
This framework forces you to create contrasts to craft a captivating narrative.
Disney is the greatest storytelling empire of all time.
Walt Disney was famous for his focus on suspending reality for his audiences - allowing them to experience his new reality while still being in their reality.
Take a lesson from the best. Suspend reality.
“Make it simple, but significant.” - Don Draper
A good story may be complex, but a great story is always simple.
Try to elevator pitch the story to an uninformed party. Are they able to understand it? If not, you still have work to do.
When in doubt, simplify!
Shared community is an insanely powerful force.
The best stories (and the best storytellers) foster community - they elicit a sense of shared purpose, shared membership in a group, or shared experience.
Stories that build communities last forever.
Stories are meant to be shared.
The story “K-factor” - a viral marketing metric for growth - should be high.
This requires high shareability.
To enhance it: Keep it simple and make it easy to “take down” into shorter, alternative versions.
Most great writers and storytellers agree on one thing: starting is the hardest part.
There is nothing more daunting than a blank page.
So start fast - get a draft down (and don’t worry about how bad it is).
Then slow down - write & rewrite as necessary.
If you start using them, I guarantee you’ll unlock growth across the diverse realms of your life.
Enjoy this post? Follow me @SahilBloom for more writing on writing, business, and mental models.
The piece will be released in the coming days.
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More from Sahil Bloom
Short Squeeze 101
If you follow financial markets (or if you watch Billions), you've heard the phrase "short squeeze" used quite frequently.
But what is a "short squeeze" and how does it work?
Here's Short Squeeze 101!
👇👇👇
1/ First, the basics.
The "short" in "short squeeze" refers to the concept of short selling.
The basics are covered in my thread below.
https://t.co/xecJYNCxMs
TL;DR - short selling is a way of betting against a stock - i.e. betting that its price will decline.
2/ "Short interest" is a measure of how heavily an asset is shorted by the market.
It is the total number of shares that have been sold short (borrowed and sold), but have not yet been covered (bought and returned).
It is usually measured as a % of the # of shares outstanding.
3/ A "short squeeze" occurs when a heavily-shorted asset experiences a rapid upward price movement.
When this happens, short sellers may be forced to close their short positions (i.e. buy the stock and return it to the broker), further accelerating the upward price movement.
4/ Let's look at a simple example to show this in action.
We will use Tesla, one of the most heavily-shorted stocks in the world.
Imagine the stock price is $1,000 per share. This seems crazy. Ricky Rational decides to short the stock at this level.
If you follow financial markets (or if you watch Billions), you've heard the phrase "short squeeze" used quite frequently.
But what is a "short squeeze" and how does it work?
Here's Short Squeeze 101!
👇👇👇
1/ First, the basics.
The "short" in "short squeeze" refers to the concept of short selling.
The basics are covered in my thread below.
https://t.co/xecJYNCxMs
TL;DR - short selling is a way of betting against a stock - i.e. betting that its price will decline.
1/ Short Selling 101
— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) July 6, 2020
With the markets continuing to rally, there has been more talk of \u201cshorting\u201d or \u201cshort selling\u201d stocks.
But what does that mean and how does it work?
Here\u2019s a quick educational primer: Short Selling 101 pic.twitter.com/JTrJmuY7fI
2/ "Short interest" is a measure of how heavily an asset is shorted by the market.
It is the total number of shares that have been sold short (borrowed and sold), but have not yet been covered (bought and returned).
It is usually measured as a % of the # of shares outstanding.
3/ A "short squeeze" occurs when a heavily-shorted asset experiences a rapid upward price movement.
When this happens, short sellers may be forced to close their short positions (i.e. buy the stock and return it to the broker), further accelerating the upward price movement.
4/ Let's look at a simple example to show this in action.
We will use Tesla, one of the most heavily-shorted stocks in the world.
Imagine the stock price is $1,000 per share. This seems crazy. Ricky Rational decides to short the stock at this level.
More from Marketing
eComm and D2C will be acutely impaired by the ATT opt-in mechanic coming to iOS (rumored made mandatory in March). ATT doesnt exclusively impact app advertisers, & in fact may disproportionately damage eComm and D2C. Some thoughts on how those advertisers should prepare (1/X)
2/ In the @MobileDevMemo 2020 mobile advertising predictions post, I posit that D2C ad spend may drop by as much as 50% in Q2 2020. FB revealed in December that app-to-web campaigns will be governed by ATT opt in, severely limiting campaign efficiency
3/ FB had only previously discussed ATT in terms of app campaign relevance. This new revelation likely stemmed from further instructions from Apple following FB's initial guidance
4/ FB affirmed in Dec that app-to-web campaigns will be: conversion event limited, aggregated at campaign level, and limited wrt attribution windows (default: 7-day click). This effectively replicates the privacy treatment of app campaigns on app-to-web campaigns
5/ Adam Lovallo from https://t.co/baV6VrUW7E describes 28-day click / 1-day view the "gold standard" for D2C. Why would FB change the default to 7-day? Because it is aggregating conversions at the campaign level -- universally, with what it is calling Aggregated Event Measurement
2/ In the @MobileDevMemo 2020 mobile advertising predictions post, I posit that D2C ad spend may drop by as much as 50% in Q2 2020. FB revealed in December that app-to-web campaigns will be governed by ATT opt in, severely limiting campaign efficiency
3/ FB had only previously discussed ATT in terms of app campaign relevance. This new revelation likely stemmed from further instructions from Apple following FB's initial guidance
4/ FB affirmed in Dec that app-to-web campaigns will be: conversion event limited, aggregated at campaign level, and limited wrt attribution windows (default: 7-day click). This effectively replicates the privacy treatment of app campaigns on app-to-web campaigns
5/ Adam Lovallo from https://t.co/baV6VrUW7E describes 28-day click / 1-day view the "gold standard" for D2C. Why would FB change the default to 7-day? Because it is aggregating conversions at the campaign level -- universally, with what it is calling Aggregated Event Measurement
