Cool Story Bro: 7 Storytelling Techniques

“Ideas come from the Earth. They come from every human experience that you’ve either witnessed or have heard about, translated into your brain in your own sense of dialogue, in your own language form. Ideas are born from what is smelled, heard, seen, experienced, felt, emotionalized. Ideas are probably in the air like little tiny items of ozone. That’s the easiest thing on earth, is to come up with an Idea. Then the second thing is the hardest thing on earth, to put it down.”~ Rod Serling (1972)

The easiest thing in this world is to come up with an idea. Out of the 7 billion people in this world we’ve all had ideas before, we’ve all been creative, we’ve all been storytellers, whether we realize it or not.

What separates good ideas, from great ideas, is how we put them down. We all have stories to tell, they come from our experiences, inspirations, and observations.

When we hear stories they all seem very different, however, every story shares similar attributes that connect them. How they take their forms is up to the writer to decide and how they are interpreted is for the reader to decide.

1) Write With Meaning

What is your purpose? Why do you write? Is it to send a message? As a writer, there are many tools at your disposal to draw attention and send a certain message. Tools such as theme, character moral ambiguity, literary elements, plot, can all be used to elevate your story and give it greater meaning.

Write with meaning, the dollar sign should have less value than the message. While for professional writers money will always be a part of the equation, it should never be the common denominator. The intrinsic reward, the inner feeling should outweigh the dollar sign.

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“They Send You Here For Life, And That’s Exactly What They Take.” ~Red from The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a classic example. In it, two men find solace after several years imprisoned. Patience, friendship, trust, freedom, transformation, and hope are all themes packed into this 142 minute, 7 time Oscar nominee prison drama.

2) Narrative

Narrative Writing Must Tell A Story. Fiction can tell a story, not based on any real events, and nonfiction can tell a story based on real events, both are narratives the essential part is telling the story. The story can be told linearly, nonlinear, quest, or viewpoint.

An unreliable narrator is a great way to pull the literary veil over your audiences’ heads. The audience has a disposition to always trust the narrator but never questions how much of it is made up. Use that trust to your advantage. Just remember once it’s broken it can never be the same.

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Writing a narrative is characterized by the main character in a setting who engages with a problem thus something happens. The cause and effect relationship is essential for narrative writing. Think, The Lord of The Rings, Frodo has responsibility thrust upon him when given the “One Ring To Rule Them All,” therefore he has to set out on a quest to destroy the ring.

3) Literary Devices/ Elements

Write with literary elements, they highlight important concepts in a text, strengthen the narrative, and help readers resonate with the characters and themes.

These are something your English teacher loves to go on and on about, and for good reason. Literary elements are produced by the reader as much as the writer.

There are dozens and dozens of them but if you can just narrow in on a few that would help immensely.

• Allegory
• Metaphor
• Irony
• Personification
• Chiasmus
• Simile
• Imagery
• Juxtapose

Allegory

An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have a secondary meaning. It usually takes a character and gives him qualities that represent something else. In westerns, the Sheriff usually represents the law, while the Outlaw is the embodiment of crime and lawlessness.

The fable, The Emperor’s New Clothes is a textbook example of an allegory. On the surface, it’s about a foolish king that believes he’s wearing clothes and everyone else feels foolish for not seeing it. While in reality the king is completely exposed and naked.

For a second meaning, it points out the foolishness in conformity by accepting and not going against the views of the crowd. It says we should address the elephant in the room when something is not right regardless of everyone else’s opinions.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech meant to represent something not literal, intended for rhetorical effect. It refers to something while mentioning something else.

Examples:

Grandpa’s hair is white as snow

Tom is a shining star

raining like cats and dogs

the engine is loud as thunder

She has a heart of gold

Irony

The irony in simplest terms is when the reality is the opposite of what is expected. The keyword is “opposite”, it’s supposed to contradict something that is intended. As in what we say vs what we mean, or what we expect and what does happen

Dramatic Irony is shown in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In the end, both lovers believe the other is dead which leads them to kill themselves. A double suicide both tragic and very ironic.

Personification

when a thing or abstraction or something non-human is represented as a person with human characteristics. Embodiment, incarnation, and epitome are similar concepts. “Like” is commonly used before describing this non-human abstraction.

The wind sang softly through the trees like a lullaby

The overstuffed chair squatted in the corner

My dog pranced around like a beauty queen

Chiasmus

Is used when two parallel sentences are inverted. Why would anyone want to do that? The fact is it is more persuasive and chances are you’ve heard them before.

Example: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy

They are not used infrequently but, are use more frequent, than one may notice.

Juxtaposition

It highlights the contrast of two opposing sides but also shows the comparison. It shows the best and worst, the biggest and smallest, two sides of the same coin. It’s best used for rhetorical effect for the characters, good and evil, criminal and justice, light, and darkness, day and night, virtue, and vice, the list goes on and on, there’s never a dull moment in finding new ways to juxtapose characters, setting, ideas, themes, and conflicts.

For example in The Wizard of Oz, filmmakers effectively juxtapose black and white film with bright technicolor to showcase the differences between Kansas and Oz. Kansas’s black and white is mundane, dull, and boring while OZ’s colors are saturated, lively, and playful.

4) Theme

In literature, a theme is an underlying message that the author wants to get across to the audience and the author uses the story as a means to spread the message.

Most times it can be replaced as morals or ethics, interchangeably. It can be the central topic of the story or just a part of the subject matter.

It is a unifying or dominant idea in a work that connects everything in the story.

Can be conveyed using characters, setting, dialogue, plot, or a combination of all of these elements. There are many types of themes, some stories have multiple overlapping themes.

Common Themes:

Good vs Evil: Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight

Ambition: Julius Caesar, MacBeth, The Social Network, Pursuit of Happiness

Romance: Romeo & Juliet, Gone With The Wind, Bonnie and Clyde)

Justice: To Kill a Mockingbird, 12 Angry Men, The Dark Knight)

Peace and War: Gone With The Wind, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Pianist(2002)

Vengeance: Kill Bill, Django Unchained, The Revenant, Sin City

5) Write Character Moral Ambiguity

We all have beliefs, a set of principles that keep us in character. In writing a story have the character lose those beliefs always makes things more interesting.

It’s how a character can relate to an audience on an emotional level. By taking a character who has principles that will never be wavered and put him in a situation that compromise them.

For instance, take a school kid that believes in non-aggression and constantly picked on by the school bully. The victim becomes backed into a corner that he has no other choice but to fight back.

6) Right Audience

Know your audience. Who are you writing to? Construct a persona and create a connection by being relatable. For whatever psychological reason, audiences always love to see themselves in fictitious characters on the screen or personalities in real life. This relatable factor becomes influential when creating a connection.

Also, be informative by knowing your audience you will know what they want to hear. For example, if you are creating a fast-food health documentary for a health-conscious audience, then know your facts on the health risks associated with fried foods, sugary drinks, sweets, etc…

Whenever the writer writes with the audience wants, then he runs the risk of compromising his values, identity, morals, any meaning. There should be a balance between writing for the audience and writing for the writer’s self creativity. If you are passionate about what you do then you can use it to still appeal to an audience and your own interests parallel.

7) Plot

Plot and story are synonyms with each other. You can’t have a story without a plot, therefore this is the most essential part of the story. A story without a plot is just words and things, there’s no point toward the story.

Without plot, It is just a journal about things without having any structure. Think of it as a timeline in order of events that happen, boy meets girls, boy and girl run away together, boy and girl get found, boy and girl kill themselves.

For example only one of these is the right plot, can you guess it?

A. A boy finds a new family in a traveling circus run by orphans.

B. An immigrant comes to the United States to start a new life.

C. A king dies and then the queen dies out of grief.

D. A high school girl discovers love from an unexpected source: a centuries-old vampire.

If you picked C you’re right. But why? Why not A, B, or D? That’s because a plot is the chain of connected events that make up a story. Only C is an event that leads to another event therefore it is a plot. The Plot can be sometimes very confusing and unclear, but by identifying it, you will be one step closer to analyzing, writing, and creating your own.

There are 5 elements of a plot or the storyline, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution:

Exposition: Is the introduction to the conflict, setting characters, etc..,

Rising action: Is when conflict unfolds and tension builds,

Climax: Is the highest point of tension and suspense,

Falling action: Is the release of tension and conflict

Resolution: Is the answer or solution to the conflict or problem

Summarize

In conclusion write a cool story, bro. The simplest thing is an idea, there are always possibilities to take these ideas to the unimaginable extremes, to the incomprehensible heights of new expectations and glory. There are many attributes in learning the craft of the written word. When done right it can be a powerful persuasive tool that can sway the entire readers’ focus and outlook