Having the ability to write a flawless piece does not guarantee that your writing will catch the attention of your target audience, cause them to take the desired action, grow a community of readers, or even generate income for you. It takes more than being able to put words together to create content that drives results. Every content has the ultimate goal of creating an experience for the reader, it is therefore essential for writers to master the ability to deliver content that will stir the right reaction from the readers.
A critical study of popularly recognized successful writers brings to the fore one denominator that sets them apart from other writers. In this blog, you will learn the number one writing skill that helps them rake in more results than their counterparts.
The Mastery of Storytelling
Storytelling is the art of using words to engage the imaginations of your readers and bring them into a targeted experience. If you cannot subtly get your reader into an imagination mode, where they begin to put pictures and feelings to your words, you will hardly get them hooked on your story or motivated enough to take the required actions. The power of skilful storytelling lies in its ability to keep your readers or audience engaged and, most importantly, emotionally connected. This is the number one skill that sets successful writers apart from the rest. Irrespective of your writing niche, gaining mastery in storytelling gives you a competitive advantage.
Unfortunately, many writers think that storytelling is all about crafting a full-blown story and then connecting one’s points to it. Unless you are writing a storybook, you do not need a full-blown story to stimulate the imagination of your readers in the direction of your writing goal. Far from it. With a few words, sentences, or at most one or two paragraphs you can bring your readers into the targeted experience e.g. to feel pity, to feel a need, to get emotional, to feel happiness, to laugh, to cry, to think from a certain point of view, etc. Storytelling is such a rare skill and one that distinguishes skilful writers from the crowd.
To help you get started on your path to the mastery of storytelling, here are some relatable story starters that can help you seamlessly infuse a story into your captions, blog posts, non-fiction books etc.
Simple story starters for kickstarting your storytelling:
- The Experience Throwback – this is used to refer to a past experience that taught one a lesson or offered insight into certain issues. You can use this to tell your story and bring your reader to connect with your experience. Examples – ‘The first time I knew how heartbreak felt was when my father left us…’, ‘My first experience of luxury lifestyle was when my boss took us to a company-sponsored dinner …, etc.
- The Situation Observation – This is often best used in the opening section of an email, blog, social media caption etc. It shares a recent observation to get reactions from the readers. Here are some examples: ‘I am just realizing that being called a baddie is a positive compliment to the Genz, while we were growing up being called baddie meant…’ ‘Is it me or is there something in XYZ tea that makes you just want to lie in bed all day after taking it…’ This helps you to get readers roped into your line of thought right from the first sentence. It also stirs reactionary responses from them.
- The Resolution: This is a perfect story starter for copywriting pieces or other forms of marketing content. Examples – ‘I will never do XYZ again…’, you can share a mistake or a regret and sell the alternative action that you have figured out to be the best for you. It works also for starting a community discussion rather than the formal kind of posts.
These are not the only ways you can infuse the art of storytelling in your writing project but they can guide you as you come up with starters that best fit into your project. Here are other things you need to consider when creating your own story starters:
a. Have a goal: You must decide on what your writing goal is, and ensure that your content is crafted in a way that will help you actualize that goal. Your story should be focused on helping you achieve this goal. For example, if the goal of your content is to pool in donations for an orphanage, your story should provoke pity and a sense of urgency towards meeting their needs, it should be relatable to people who had to live at the mercy of other people’s kindness at some point in their lives.
b. Consider the writing niche: You should ensure that your story starters are befitting for the niche of your writing. A story starter that is ideal for a non-fiction book may not be ideal for a marketing copy. So, it is important to have various options for different niches.
c. Keep your target audience in mind: To get the best response to your story, you need to weave your narrative keeping in mind your target audience, their realities, pains and needs. Understanding your target audience enables you to write a story they can relate to, without that connection, it will be difficult for your readers to be pulled into your targeted experience.
If you want to stand out from other writers and drive results through your writings, you have to prioritise mastering the art of storytelling and the only way to become perfect at it is to practise consistently. Start practicing today. You can use the story starters shared above to create content today, take note of how your readers responded to it and repeat the pattern with other options.
Be reminded that at Pen-impact, we offer content writing and management services for faith-based and non-profit organizations. We can take the stress of creating the perfect content for your organization, while you focus on other important works of impact you are doing in your community. To get in touch, send us an email via info@pen-impact.com