Elements of Good Story Telling
How a story should be crafted — Thoughts by Aristotle
The story is a part of our everyday life. It plays a vital role in our growth and development. Stories help to develop imagination by introducing new ideas into their world — ideas about fantastical worlds, other planets, different points in time and invented characters. It’ll encourage the children to realize that they can, and should, imagine anything they want.
If you google Storytelling. This comes up as a first result:
Storytelling describes the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics, or embellishment.
It means, that is an activity, which involves the exchange of tales, experiences, and just information, from a person who is telling story i.e. A Storyteller to its Audience i.e. people who are receiving this information.
Storytelling…….It's Everywhere
Storytelling is a part of our basic human instinct. Whenever we learn, we try to share it with everyone we can find. We want someone to understand our situation, we tell them a story.
The same principles go for Design as well. Because Design, itself is a process of telling a story. It has an Audience, Problem, characters, Backdrop, solution, and a conclusion. And that is what Design is. A Process that helps others to understand the Story we created in the form of Design.
The Storytelling
Storytelling is an ancient art. Being able to tell a story that audiences will enjoy, remember, and engage with, is both compelling and difficult to accomplish.
So how can we improve our storytelling practices, what can be improved and what we can add to make it more compelling to our Audience? Is there any cheatsheet or something similar.
As it turns out, The Fundamental Aspects of the Good storytelling was already been defined way back during 300–400 BC in Ancient Greece.
Aristotle — Greek Philosopher, Student of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great (quite the resume) who is still considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time, worked extensively in the fields politics, psychology, and ethics, was a great storyteller, Some of his most notable works include Nichomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics, and Prior Analytics.
During this lifetime, he came up with the list of fundamental elements for good storytelling. And to my surprise, These fundamentals still play a vital role in creating a compelling narrative.
Since I like to write about Design and stuff, and I came across this topic in a Design Lecture, The main context of the article and the examples used to explain elements will be focused on Designing itself.
But still, these fundamentals are applied to our all story-telling methods, such as Movies, Television shows, Video-Games, even Music(somewhat) and of course, Design itself.
Elements of Storytelling
1. Plot
The plot is the most important part of any story. It defines what story is all about. What the audience will experience. It sets up the motivations, challenges, the Goal, and the road people are taking to fulfill it.
It helps the audience to empathize with the protagonist(User), connect and understand the underlying characteristics and details involved with it. A simple plot is all that is required to build a good story.
For example — Guess which movie I am talking about from this Plot
A Scared Father goes on an extensive search to find his lost son across the entire world. And found his courage and made new friends along the way.
From a design standpoint, it will help our team to get a clear headspace on what elements to focus on and how to overcome the impending challenges.
2. Character
Characters are the elements who are living in the story. The people who are being affected by the Plot, who has motivations, traits, personalities, weakness, fear, who takes actions based on their psychological traits. These are the element whose actions determine the flow of the plot.
To build a strong story, the characters have to be well-defined and consistent across the entire story because the audience can only believe, empathize with the characters if they can deduce their traits and can relate to them and able to see the justification behind character’s action. That is how the Audience will be able to build their trust in the character.
One of the most well-defined character, in my opinion?
He is the most popular character spread across all mediums. And almost everyone knows what type of character he is, what is his background, what are his motivations, why he does what he does and how he is able to afford everything that he does.
In the Design Thinking ideology, The character of a product is its users, Users who are in the center of the entire design process. Whose motivations, aspirations, problems and needs to justify what type of product or service we are going to design.
3. Theme
The theme is a word that can be defined in a few words
Setting where the Story is taking place.
The Importance of Theme cannot be understated. It has a great influence on way the plot is being perceived, Surrounding of a Story gives direct support to the character traits and gives an opportunity for the Audience to understand the underlying motivations and fear.
And it also enables us to reuse the plot and characters in different stories. Many stories have a somewhat identical plot, characters, motivations and such, but what really makes a difference in those sort-of similar stories is the Theme of the story.
This is one of the main things that Disney used in their earlier animated movies to differentiate between One Disney princess from another. They changed the Theme of the Story — and we have 2 different stories to perceive.
As a Designer, Theme helps you differentiate your product from your competitors. Both products may have the same plot, same characters, but the concept and the surrounding between two products is the difference that the audience is looking for. And that can give your product an advantage over its competitor.
4. Dialogue
It is the way how characters connect with each other and to you, The Audience. The choice of words used in the story. The tone used, the words being used and how it caters to the Audience it has been designed for. Because this element enables the story to resonate with the intended audience. The factors that affect the Dialogue of a story ranges from:
- The Audience
- The Message
- The Platform used for Distribution of Story
- And the Brand story is under.
As a Designer, this element converts in the way the product speaks to its intended audience. Is the audience expecting an authoritative and helpful voice or they are thinking along the line of a Friend? Do the syllables used are easily understandable by the Audience in their natural settings or not?
The tone of the dialogue of a product depends upon the solution it is providing for the user and under what circumstances. If a product is providing assistance for a task, It is necessary for the product to use a tone that suits the situation which is calm and easily understandable.
5. Melody
By hearing the word Melody, almost everyone thinks of — the Music, the Tune or some Audio. True to the point, they are in fact correct. Melody provides familiarity with the audience about the story and what they are about to perceive. It also helps to trigger certain emotions into audience psych and the audience can recognize or get an idea of what they are about to perceive and what they can expect.
For example, A beat of John Williams’s Star Wars theme is enough to let the audience know that “They can expect a Space Adventure, or see, Darth Vader, choking someone while telling them not to choke on their aspirations.”
From a product perspective, Melody translates to the familiar set of patterns, color schemes, placement of interface elements, and recognizable layout, for the product or service. The form of presentation, content that is being presented, the presenter itself, everything that the user exposed to, should be familiar and recognizable. So that user can have clear expectations.
This is where a consistent Design system of a Brand comes into play for an Interface Design.
6. Decor
The Decor translates to the Visual aesthetics of the Theme. The graphics that are being used to support the Theme, that has a certain look and feel.
Humans are visual learners, we see things, and that’s how we learn and remember stuff. So the graphic in storytelling plays a really important part in establishing the world in which our Plot and Character take place.
From a Product standpoint, It ranges from Modern Design, Simplistic, Intensely Detailed, Brutalism, or to-the-point. Depending upon your audience's taste and what message product/service wants to convey.
A Product’s Decor is the Graphic Design.
Mind you, Decor can also be painted using the words as well. A Skillful story-teller knows how to establish the decor from their words and paint the picture clearly inside Humans' brains.
7. Spectacle
The spectacle is something of an event that is memorable, unexpected and left the audience wondering about its appearance.
In order to create an impactful spectacle, it needs to be unexpected, yet meaningful, for the audience. But as Aristotle described, It should not be allowed to control the entire story. The plot should always be strong enough to carry the Story, not relying entirely on Spectacle.
Coming back to our Star Wars analogy, One of the major spectacles we encountered was in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
Reveal was shocking, but It didn’t affect the entire storyline as a whole. Storyline maintained its power and delivered an awesome movie. (Star Wars is Good).
For a product, Spectacle is the feature that stands out your product. Its the stuff people talk about when they are not using the product/service. The Minute surprises, small app bubbles, and helpful notifications.
For example, Uber giving you a small notification to let Passengers Know When Surge Pricing Ends.
For a product, Special Features are its Spectacle.
Conclusion
And there you have it, the Ancient Greek wisdom by Aristotle himself, condensed into this small article.
The story is great, everyone has one, and everyone wants to listen. But it takes special skills to Tell the Story. It takes effort to engage your audience, even if the size of the audience is one.
Same goes for design, Design is a field, which heavily relies on Designer’s ability to tell a story through its design.
If you want to be a good Designer, Be a good storyteller.
How to be one? Soak in this Greek wisdom and tell your story…and practice.
Specify your target audience, Make your plot as simple as it gets and compelling. With the characters well-defined traits, motivation, and goals. Think of your theme and the decor that goes with it to make it authentic and believable. Use the Dialogue which fits perfectly with your audience. The melody that makes your Story familiar and recognizable with the brand. And when the audience feels like everything is getting recognizable and familiar in the story, surprise them with a spectacle.
Am I a Good Storyteller? Do let me know about that and any feedback, thoughts, criticism in comments.
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