Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I am lucky enough to be spending some of the best possible quality time I may ever spend with my daughter right now. Everything from enjoying the Burleigh Drum Circle together to negotiating loose baby teeth on their way out. Oh, and let’s not forget homework. My favorite homework activity is helping her write a story (minimum five sentences) every morning at breakfast. This activity is new for both of us and as we get down to basics we are both learning lessons in storytelling for top results.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
My wife is a school teacher and has specified the criteria each story must have. Now I love telling jokes and stories, however I had never really considered these essential elements of an engaging story. For best results each story every morning must include the following:
A setting
The setting of this story is my breakfast bar. As I make my daughter’s lunch and our breakfast on one side of our island bench, serious story composition is happening on the other side.
A character (or characters)
Of course my daughter plays the lead role in this story. I’m just an extra. Mind you, some of the lunches and breakfasts I’ve been turning out would have to be contributing to the creativity levels.
A problem
Believe me. Convincing my daughter to write five sentences as soon as she wakes up every morning is a challenge.
A solution (to the problem)
We have introduced some incentives that seem to be great for motivation, but working on fun subject matter seems to really work well. If it’s easy to write, it’ll be easy to read and some of the stories are great fun.
Some adjectives (to make it interesting)
I reckon my wife just threw this one in to make sure I was paying attention to the criteria. Adjectives (like most things) are great in moderation. Anyone who knows me (and my stories) knows that I’m quite partial to an adjective or two (or more). So there really was no need for encouragement. I guess the key objective here is to delight your readers.
One essential attribute of a good story that my wife left out was harshly articulated by Steve Martin in ‘Planes Trains & Automobiles’. When you are telling these little stories, have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener (or reader).
We have been telling and enjoying stories since before we even started recording history. Stories are one of the best ways to get a message across because they are enjoyable and we like to relate to them. These fundamentals can help your child develop important story telling skills and should be applied to your social media marketing strategy to help engage your reader’s, followers and fans.
If you would like any tips about how to incorporate story telling into your blogging and social media strategy please CLICK HERE. I hope that you have enjoyed this quick story about story telling and will share it with your friends. Thanks for reading and sharing. See you back here next week.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Tweet
Buffer
To expand on my wife’s storytelling criteria check out this excellent SlideShare presentation from Make a Powerful Point visualizing Pixar’s 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling:
If you enjoyed this post you might also like:
How do you add value to your blog posts?
The positive impact of being socially motivated
Three things my dog taught me about social media marketing
Image credit [Flickr, Wikimedia Commons] Video [Vine] Presentation [Slideshare]
The post Lessons in storytelling for top results appeared first on Social Strategies.