STORYTELLING TECHNIQUES

It is wonderful that we are focusing on storytelling skills for digital media in class this quarter. In a field crowded with technical terms and technical-sounding words like “functionality” and “metadata,” it is refreshing to be talking about a folksy, old-fashioned idea like storytelling.

I love telling, reading and listening to stories. I think all of us do. Whether it is the plot of a film, a joke or a piece of gossip, we all sit up and pay attention to a good story. Strangely, however, it is very difficult for me – and for most of us – to explain what makes a good story or even define what a story is.

Perhaps the reason for this is that stories, like art and music, speak more directly to our emotions and instincts than they do to our logic. Yes, there are definitions, limitations, structures and conventions that are used to create stories, but when you encounter a good story, none of these are apparent. Likewise, I believe that a lot of good writers and storytellers are not thinking about rules and structures as they weave their tales.

When you do start thinking about story structure, as we will be doing in this class, it is surprising to discover how many conventions we use routinely when we create stories and how similar seemingly different stories really are. Once learned on a conscious level, these conventions can certainly be useful as guidelines for good writing. If taken as more than guidelines – if applied as inflexible rules or in place of intuition – conventions can, however, impoverish storytelling and therefore impoverish communication.

I had never heard of the “inverted pyramid” theory of newspaper writing before, but I have certainly experienced it. It makes perfect sense, in a newspaper and in many other formats, to tell the most important part of the story first, and then gradually proceed to more and more detailed and (ostensibly) less and less important information. I found it fascinating to learn that this structure evolved to accommodate typesetters, who never knew exactly how much space they would have for a story and so needed to be able to cut it off at any point without leaving the reader hanging.

But the inverted pyramid is certainly not the only, nor the best writing structure available, as Roy Peter Clark suggests in his article “How to Write a Good Story in 800 Words or Less.” He encourages writers to experiment with conventional formats and he quotes Rick Zahler of the Seattle Times on “thawing out” the “Who, What, When, Where and How” of a story – in other words to bring some human warmth and passionate heat to the bare bones of a story.

Clark’s most important pieces of advice about writing are “focus, focus, focus,” and “revise to eliminate that which fails to support the focus.” Asking good questions, he writes, is the best way to find focus. Personally, I write in an almost entirely emotional manner, with virtually no idea of where I am heading, so I frequently get into a briar patch. The best way I have found to get out of trouble is to stop and ask myself what I am really trying to say, and then simply write down my answer.

I am glad that Kristen Zibell pays tribute to the wisdom of George Klare’s 1963 essay on “Useful Information for Communicators.” Ironically, however, I find that writings from communications scholars and like Zibell are often among the driest and least effective pieces of communication I have ever read. Zibell uses what I consider to be the most over-rated and least imaginative writing formats in existence: “Say what you are going to say, then say it, then say what you have said.” Sure, I understand that this format makes it easier to skim an article; it helps the reader understand where he is and how much further he has to go; and that repetition helps to drive ideas home. Maybe this is the best format for scientific articles and other stuff I don’t plan to read, but when I am subjected to this kind of article or lecture, I find it as boring as a ritual incantation. Where is the drama? Where are the surprises? These are very important elements of storytelling and for keeping the audience engaged. Isn’t this what we want to do? I have read academic papers that were as thrilling as detective novels, and you can be sure the authors did not give away their surprise endings in their opening paragraphs by using this tired writing formula.

I was not especially impressed with Jacob’s Neilsen’s “F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content.” Of course people are going to scan websites in an F-shaped pattern, because that is the way most websites are designed! Most web designers put a header running across the top, a navigation column running down the left, and the most important content running horizontally just above the middle of the page, so naturally most people’s eyes are going to go to those places first. If trends in web design change and important content migrates to different places, I predict that people’s scanning patterns will change accordingly.

Nathan Wallace presents some very good pieces of advice in his weblog post on “Web Writing for Many Interest Levels.” His main theme is that web writing needs to be structured so that it is equally accessible to everyone from readers with little interest to those with great interest. He also presents some intriguing ideas on making web pages as IN-ACCESSIBLE as possible to readers who have no interest. This concern seems odd at first, but Wallace points out its economic importance, writing that accidental visits to websites by people with no interest in the subject matter “wastes valuable bandwidth and server resources.”

The techniques Wallace presents for making sites accessible to multiple audiences include the use of descriptive headers, summaries and highlighting of important information within paragraphs. These techniques, he writes, allow readers who are in a hurry or have limited interest to quickly scan a website or an article and get basically the same information as a more dedicated reader, only with less detail. This may be true, but personally I find this method of presentation (which he utilizes fully in his own weblog) to be annoying if I am fully reading, rather than skimming, a piece of writing. The headers, summaries and paragraphs are often redundant, and the use of highlighting and frequent headers and paragraph breaks I find distracting. Rather than a nice flow of text with a few headers down a page, the type in Wallace’s format looks to me as if it had been splattered onto the page. My eye jumps all over the place involuntarily. While trying to read a paragraph, the next header or bolded text is always calling to me from my peripheral vision, keeping me from concentrating fully on what I am reading.

I suppose this reaction marks me as being of an older, non-multitasking generation of dinosaurs. I get distracted easily. I mean, I can’t even watch television any more because of the station logos broadcasters have started superimposing in the corner of screens during programs. Every time the logo fades in, my eye goes to it. I read it, I think about, and I can no longer fully enjoy the program. Then, if the station starts scrolling advertisements for upcoming shows across the bottom of the screen, I completely lose all concentration or enjoyment. When I was growing up, words scrolling across the bottom of the screen meant that a world leader had just been assassinated or something like that.

Now that everyone is so overloaded with information, I guess it is necessary to make our writing scannable and grab people’s attention by the scruff of the neck, so to speak. I guess we have to think of readers and website visitors as people walking through a carnival midway being shouted at by vendors on every side. We need big signs that flash in neon colors while we shout “Pea-NUTS! Step right up! Get yoooooooooor RED HOT PEA-nuts!!!!!” I guess it is important to pay attention to studies and eye movement charts and follow the guidelines of writers like Wallace. But I think that it is also important to remember that we also have opportunities, as writers and designers, to be leaders: to create new and meaningful ways to capture and hold our readers’ attention, rather than being slaves to trends or using cheap, manipulative techniques. If we create good content, perhaps we can draw our readers into our pieces without having to simultaneously present them in Cliff Note form.