After you have decided on a subject for your digital story, you need to decide how you will organize your thoughts. It’s crucial to take the impact of storytelling into account while crafting your message.
You can start to write a draft to find some answers to those questions:
- What is the point of the story?
- Who are you telling the story to?
- Why are you telling the story now?
- How you will map to your story? Is it in the past, or present or it has a timeline?
- How it starts, how it ends? Is it keeping the focus until the end?
While you are writing the draft, you will create a frame of your story and in a while, you can add or remove some parts. Before you complete your script, you can read aloud and record your voice to hear how it sounds. Also, this will give you the length of the story. Even if it is not obligatory to use your own voice to tell your story, it is always keeping the focus easier to follow the story if there is a teller’s voice.
The following are the stages of effective storytelling.
Recognize the target audience
Even if you are enthusiastic about a topic, if you don’t modify it for the intended audience, the message may be utterly misunderstood. Therefore, adjust the story for the intended audience so that they can genuinely comprehend the message you’re trying to convey. This stage is critical because it establishes the length of the story, the vocabulary and terms you need to use, the visuals you need to use, and the platform on which you would like to publish your digital story.
Develop a good relationship with the target audience
You need to be sympathetic toward others if you want to persuade others of your beliefs, solutions, or goods. In any case, it is difficult at times, particularly if you cannot observe the target audience. Even though your digital story is going to be on the internet thus not in real-time, the connection is still very much feasible.
The audience wants something in exchange for the hours they spend reading, listening, or watching your work. Use a quotation, figures, photos, or something else pertinent to get their attention. Bonding might also entail winning over the target audience’s loyalty or amusing them with humorous material.
So, attempt to engage with your audience rather than being such a professor who does not pay attention to their target audience.
Your digital tale must leave the audience with something they can use, ideally piquing curiosity in even more of your material. This is how you make sure you have established a relationship with the audience.
Be aware of the purpose of the story
People usually automatically pause to consider the objective before deciding on a specific decision. Without having a specific aim, what good does it do to blindly and randomly come up with market strategies? This is also true with the narrative. Each story that is told has the potential to serve a function, and those functions might vary greatly. Decide on the story’s conclusion beforehand, and then structure the plot to achieve it. Be certain of the message you wish to convey beforehand. Afterward, you incorporate several details into the story which will support your argument. Of course, you can also do it the opposite way too. And on occasion, it will succeed. But the majority of the time, you will have a story that is disjointed, illogical, and unclear in its purpose.
Support your digital story with examples and data
You may utilize supplementary material in the story in the same way that you use gestures, slideshows, or songs in presentations. Charts can be used, for instance, to show patterns or transformations. It will make the point you’re trying to make in the story much clear. Alternatively, you might support your statement with motivational quotations or images. Ensure the data is accurate, the plan is to utilize it in the story. If not, you’ll have the direct opposite results and lose the trust your audience has for you. So doing some preliminary study is undoubtedly necessary. Since, admittedly, there is a ton of conflicting information available on the internet. Make sure your resources are reliable. Although it takes some effort, the result is a more convincing story that is significantly more credible.
Incorporate excitement into the stories
Avoid making your tale uninteresting. You may be sure that the audience won’t read your article all the way through, missing the important lesson that was ready to be conveyed. Keep it interesting, then. It is not possible to accomplish it through a few statistics and a few attractive visuals scattered throughout.
During the plot, use tension. You may do this by assigning the protagonist of the story a task or by inventing a foe. You also might open the story with a startling, absurd, or touching circumstance. The audience is curious about how the story’s protagonist will survive.
You may also add some stereotypes or hunt for plot twists to make the story extra fascinating. Although the audience will be aware that things are not always either black or white by bringing up contentious topics sometimes, you may pique their curiosity and make them desire to learn more.
Never once will you hear anyone claim that telling a story is simple. However, if you can successfully convey your story, it will make a profound impact. We wish you well and we are excited to see your storytelling put to use!