story story story story
storytelling is super important to be
able to create videos that are engaging
so that someone wants to continue
watching our attention is divided up
between all of these different social
media accounts and
everything else that's going on in the
world so you really don't have a whole
lot of time to be able to grab someone's
attention and keep them
engaged with your content for a long
period of time
now storytelling will help you actually
keep the viewer engaged
and keep them watching and in this video
i'm going to give you five ways that you
can actually
improve your storytelling instead of
just giving you
a breakdown of what story is and
structure of story
these techniques will actually help you
become a better storyteller
so that when you approach a situation
you're gonna know
okay this is what i need to do to be
able to tell the story and create an
engaging video now before we get into
number one i just wanna mention that
this is part of a series that i'm gonna
do all around storytelling i'm gonna
break down different
aspects around storytelling so if you're
part of the 86 percent of you that
aren't subscribed to the channel
make sure you hit that subscribe button
and turn on the bell notifications
so that you don't miss when i release
the next video in the series so number
one
is to actually tell more stories now
this may seem
obvious but to become a good storyteller
you have to
tell more stories and i mean just in
everything that you're doing
so if you're talking to your friends or
your family about a hike that you did
last week
put it in the context of a story and
actually apply all the rules of
storytelling
to be able to make it engaging and more
interesting so let me give you a quick
example from a hike here's what you
shouldn't do
so last week i did this awesome hike
with my buddy we went up to the top of
this mountain and it had like the best
view
ever that's not really a story it's not
that engaging
there's not a whole lot of context
there's nothing really going on when it
comes to
what you're talking about you're just
giving some facts around something cool
that happened
and you're not really diving into the
story element
so let's let's rephrase that and put it
in the context of a story
so last week i had a super long shoot up
in la it was
five days i was in a studio from morning
until like five o'clock at night
and my buddy jesse was also on the shoot
with me
every night we'd get done shooting and
we'd see this mountain off in the
distance like
in la there's actually some mountains
surrounding the city
and in the location that we're at we
could see the peaks
off in the distance and after being in a
studio for
long days both of us just wanted to get
outside and just be
in nature so on lunch during one of the
shoot days we were looking at all trails
and just trying to find
some good hikes in the area to go
explore and we found a trail that was
like 10 minutes away from the studio and
this is perfect because
you know the time of year that we were
shooting we only had like
an hour of daylight left by the time we
were gonna be wrapped so we had very
limited amount of time that we could get
out and go hiking before
the sun set now this hike wasn't a super
easy hike
it was about a 1800 foot elevation gain
over the course of a couple miles
so really we were just going straight up
this mountain both of us weren't really
prepared
we just started the trail and started
going up and we were pushing ourselves
to try and get to the summit because
the sun was setting off in the distance
we didn't really have that much time
but just as the sun was dipping towards
the horizon
we made it to the summit and on the top
of that mountain
was one of the best views that we've
seen of la
this mountain was positioned in the
perfect place to be able to see
downtown off in the distance and all the
way down the valley the other direction
it was an incredible view and we got to
see it right at sunset with all the
lights turning on in the city
so the next day when we're on set we
jumped on all trails and we found a
different hike and every day that i was
in la we hiked a different trail to
catch sunset
from this amazing viewpoint
now there was definitely a lot more that
went into the second story example here
but it's more of an engaging story and
that's what you want to create
so to be a better storyteller you just
need to be telling more stories like
this when you have an experience or
you're doing something that's really
cool
and you want to tell your friends or
your family try to put it in the context
of a story
and see how they respond and see how you
can tweak that story
tell someone else and see if you can
make it more engaging
with the way that you tell it
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number two is build a structure and
outline your stories
and it's easy to craft once you just
know what beats you need to hit
so number one is just giving some
history and setup
so when you're going to tell a story you
want to give some context so the viewer
is with you in this moment they you want
to put them in the scene you want them
to feel like they know what's going on
because if you don't give any context
you don't give any history or setup
to the story that you're going to tell
then someone's not going to be as
engaged because they don't really know
what's going on so the big key here is
you want to set the scene
and this could be as simple as just
giving a quick context of what's going
on
or it could be something longer where
somebody needs a history and they need
to know a bunch of different bits of
information
to be able to follow along on the
journey now the second thing you need to
establish
is the challenge so what's your goal and
what are you up against to be able to
reach that goal
that's an easy way to think about it so
with my little hiking
example we wanted to get to the summit
of this mountain but we're up against
time because the sun was going to set
within an hour
so time is a great way to set a
challenge if you only have so much time
to do something
that is a challenge you only have this
amount of time to finish something and
you'll see this time and time again in
youtube videos
challenges are great when it's a 24-hour
challenge or a
hour challenge there's so much story
built into that structure
because you have to try and finish what
you're doing by the end of the time
period
and your audience is going to want to
know well are you going to be able to
finish it in that time period it peaks
the curiosity of somebody who's watching
your video
and they want to see if you actually
follow through or make it to your goal
recently i did a video where i was over
landing with my buddy on the pony
express
and one of the things that i was up
against was i only had three days to do
this trip
and instead of just like showing you the
trip i set up this time crunch
and it became a challenge that was a
through line for the entire video
every time we ran into a roadblock of
some kind it would put us back
and we would get further away from our
goal which we only had so much time to
achieve the key thing here is you want
to set a challenge something that you're
up against
that's going to make it harder to be
able to reach your goal now number three
is complications so what are different
beats that happen along your journey
that push you back
away from your goal so this is just the
little story beats throughout the video
that push you further away or bring you
closer so
as you're telling a story you want to
have things pop up
that will pull you away from actually
achieving what you're going out there to
get
so as the journey of your story goes
through your video
you want to show challenges you want to
show things that are pushing you away
from your goal
and that's different complications now
these can be things that you could set
up
when you're crafting a story or
outlining it but there are also things
that naturally will happen
and that's the beauty of vlogging or
creating youtube videos or adventure
films whatever it is that you create
is that when you actually go through the
process very rarely does
everything happen as planned and when
you're telling a story
you'll start noticing that these
different complications will happen
and you'll spend a little bit of time
actually filming them so that they can
become
elements within your story number four
when it comes to structure
is the payoff did you achieve your goal
did you not or is it kind of just
somewhere in the middle
you want to have a resolution to your
story and you want to know
what that element is because you set
that up at the beginning
so stories are very structured in that
you set everything up in the beginning
you go through this journey and then you
either achieve your goal
or you don't and then the fifth part of
the structure is how did this change you
now when you're watching a film or
you're reading a book there's usually a
big profound change that happens with
the main character
when you're creating youtube videos or
you're vlogging like
there's not going to be these massive
changes once in a while maybe but you
still want to look for some sort of
change
after you went on this journey and you
reached your goal or you didn't reach
your goal
how did it make you feel because your
audience is on this journey with you
and they want to see how this journey
affected you at the end of it
or your main character now i know this
seems like a lot to think about just for
a simple vlog or youtube video but when
you watch the big creators on the
platform
you'll see this story structure time and
time again so let's just break down one
of mr beast's videos real quick and you
can see how he integrates the story
structure
into everything that he does and there's
a reason that his videos have a ton of
engagement and people want to follow
along
so he did a video titled i got hunted by
a real bounty hunter so in this video he
starts
right at the beginning with the setup so
that you know what's about to happen
this is a professional bounty hunter and
if he successfully hunts me down he gets
100
000 he has until midnight to steal this
backpack from me and all i gave them was
a knife
this is going to be the craziest chase
ever i have a helicopter lined up a
dozen cars
i have everything he is not hunting me
down you in immediately he tells you the
goal of the video
and he tells you the challenge and this
is something with creating youtube
videos
is you have to make these story beats
happen much faster to get someone
into your story so that they actually
want to be engaged mr beast is a master
of this because he does it so quick
within the first 30 seconds of a mr
beast video he's gonna give you all the
setup the context and the challenge
and he does this in such a way where
you're up to speed and you're ready to
go on this journey with him so right
at the beginning he gives you exactly
what's going to happen in this video
there's a bounty hunter he's chasing him
and he has all these different obstacles
set up
to try and escape this bounty hunter now
this hero's journey actually focuses
more on the bounty hunter
because you want to see mr beast get
caught and you want this bounty hunter
to win a hundred thousand dollars
so the complications throughout this
video are the different obstacles that
mr beast has set up to try and trick
the bounty hunter from actually
capturing mr beast and there's a ton of
them in this video and you want to see
whether mr beast is going to escape or
if this bounty hunter is going to catch
him
now the payoff at the end of the video
the climax the ending scene
is that the bounty hunter does capture
him and
what is the change well watch this clip
get to it i got a young child at home
and
this money sets him up this is his
college fund changes my life
thank you so much and mr beast included
this clip
because this was the change that
happened when the bounty hunter was able
to capture
mr beast so go watch any of mr beast's
video and think about story structure
when you're watching them you'll see
these different beats happen
in most of his content go to another
channel like yes theory you'll see the
same structure happen again
story structure is super important to be
able to keep your viewer engaged
and keep them on the journey with you
number three to become a better
storyteller is consume
more stories and less tutorials now
understanding how your camera works
learning how to shoot cinematic b-roll
all of these things are great and
they're aspects around creating
interesting videos to watch but really
story is more important
so if you spend all your time consuming
tutorials and how-to videos
and no time-consuming story then you're
not really going to be seeing story in
action
one of the keys to becoming a better
storyteller is to watch more stories
consume more stories and see how the
structure actually works for that video
or
that book or that podcast wherever
you're engaging with the story
stories can come in all forms so you
want to consume more of that kind of
content
and you want to be more observant you
don't want to just sit there and be
entertained by it
you actually want to think through all
the elements that we've been talking
about in this video
and how they apply to that specific
story that you're watching
and this brings me into step four to be
a better storyteller
and that is actually go through the
process of writing down
structure for the stories that you are
consuming so take the five steps that i
gave you in step two
and actually apply it to the stories
that you're watching or reading
and write down these different beats now
in the description i'll include a pdf
that you can download that just gives
you these story beats
and you could just fill out what each of
them is when you're actually watching a
video
and start doing this more often like
when you're watching a video
enjoy it watch the video experience it
but then take a step back
and look over the sheet and say okay
what was the challenge
what was the setup how'd this creator
get me into the story
and make me want to keep watching you
also want to look for when stories
don't do this and if they actually fall
short
so if you're watching a video and there
is no structure to it
are you engaged with that story do you
want to keep watching it
and if you are still interested in
watching that video why
is it just because you enjoy the content
or is there something else going on
that's keeping you engaged
most the time you'll find that the
stories that keep you the most engaged
and the ones that want to keep you
watching longer
to the end of a video are ones that have
story baked into them
and the more that you could see this and
the more that you can pick out these
different elements
the easier it's going to be to start
crafting your own stories in your videos
now tip 5 for being a better storyteller
is actually become a
visual storyteller so if you're creating
vlogs or you're creating videos here on
youtube
it's a visual medium we're creating
videos we're not just
telling stories so you want to start
applying these different elements that
we've been talking about
setup challenges complications
resolution
and payoff and you want to start
thinking how can i tell this
using visuals now in vlogs a lot of
times we like to just
talk to the camera but a lot of times
it's better to actually show what's
happening rather than just telling
an exercise that i do is try to just
tell visual stories
and yeah you're not going to have the
same like complications and challenges
and things like that that you might have
with
a bigger vlog but if you're just doing
quick visual stories
you want to set up the scene you want to
take someone on the journey and then you
want to have some sort of payoff
so for example i'll go to the park with
my family and i'll try to tell the story
just with some quick visuals
so i'll set up what's happening i'll
take the viewer on the journey
and then try to show some sort of payoff
or ending and so like this quick little
video is my wife
taking my daughter to the park and just
showing how excited my daughter gets
when she likes to go on the swing
and instead of just filming like one
shot you know
family style with your iphone actually
take your camera and try to tell it
visually so try to
capture different things that are
happening within that moment
try to use wide shots close-ups mediums
become a storyteller with the way that
you
shoot and try to take someone on a
journey from the beginning to the end
to become a good storyteller it just
takes continual practice it's something
that is going to be evolving for you and
you're going to find different
strategies or techniques
that work better for the content that
you're producing
so don't get down on yourself if your
story's not super exciting
take every opportunity to try and tell
more stories and try to infuse this kind
of structure
into the videos that you're creating if
you're just someone who's shooting vlogs
of your day
try to set up a goal for that try to set
up some challenges
to be able to get you to that goal and
try to set up complications
so instead of just turning on the camera
and just shooting whatever happens
think through what is the goal what is
the objective and what are some things
that are going to stand in your way to
be able to achieve that goal
and even if it's quick and you just do
some notes in your notepad putting more
emphasis
in creating this structure is going to
help you make better videos
that are more engaging and more people
are going to want to watch them now next
i highly suggest you check out this
video right here it goes through
storytelling structure but also shooting
editing and how it all comes together in
an edit
to tell a story while you're vlogging
all right guys i'll see you
over there