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Three great story formulas

Lisa Poulson / March 24, 2016 / Communication, Leadership, Storytelling /

Last week I told you that great communicators tell stories.  How, you may ask, does one create a great story?? Thank heavens for the Internets! When I’m helping clients develop stories, we look at these three well known models.

First – the classic – Fairytale Story Structure

  • Problem: What’s going wrong?
  • Good and evil: Who’s obstructing, who’s constructing?
  • Magical elements: People, animals, objects, or technologies!
  • Happy Ending: Resolution of the problem
  • Moral or Lesson: Reinforces our values

Second – The Silicon Valley-style story structure from a great Hubspot post:

  • Setup – the why: Use story to introduce characters; set audience expectation on what they’ll get and why they should care
  • Confrontation – the how: Detail the problem (the villain) and the solution (the hero); support with data, examples
  • Resolution – the what: Resolve the conflict; end with hope and a call to action

Third – the beloved Pixar story structure – elucidated in a great piece on Pixar’s 22 story rules:

  • Once upon a time . . . (introduce the world and the characters)
  • Every day. . . (daily life is smooth and lovely)
  • One day . . . (change happens!)
  • Because of that . . . (more change happens! Crisis!)
  • Because of that . . . (crisis!)
  • Until finally . . . resolution, in a new way, in a new place

And if you’d really like to go deep with storytelling – Jay Golden is one of the great storytelling experts we have. Soak up his wisdom here.

Go forth and create great stories! You have more to share than you realize!

 

 

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