Why Storytelling is My Favorite Writing Style

Yesterday I wrote about how I fell in love with writing, and for today's #OneBlogADayInOctober I wanted to share just a bit more detail about my personal writing approach -- storytelling.

I first learned about storytelling from Judith Magyar while she was giving a workshop at the SAP International office in Miami called "Storytelling for Creative Communications." I still have my certificate from that session, as I felt it was incredibly impactful and it shaped my writing style from there on out.

It's been 10 years and some change since that session where I remember feeling like I had finally understood my voice as a writer within the confines of corporate communications. I think it stems from my own love of verbally telling stories, which I'm pretty sure I inherited from my maternal grandmother, who has always had the most colorful way of sharing details about her wild life.

The way I tell stories is very pragmatic. I like to get a lot of context when I'm being told a story, and so I do the same for my audience. I include all of the relevant backstory elements so that everyone can accurately understand the importance of certain details, and more importantly, the point of the story.

Although writing in the technology sector doesn't always give room for too much ?sparkle?, I definitely think that storytelling makes tech easier to understand, more engaging, and fun.

My approach to storytelling for tech depends on the type of asset I'm writing and the audience it's intended for:

• If I'm writing a blog to be published on a technology company's website, I'll make the point right away within the first paragraph (which is an SEO best practice anyway) and then develop the context and "characters" (the end-users who will ultimately benefit from the technology) in the body of the blog.
• An eBook, on the other hand, allows me to go much deeper as I dive into the topic. I will typically start outlining a multi-layered problem that workers face today accompanied by statistics that confirm my claims; then I will start tying the features of a software to the layers of the problem I outlined at the beginning to showcase how it solves them; at the end, I will close with use cases, testimonials, product screenshots, or any other supporting material that can help me land the story as realistically and with as many relatability points as possible.

In my experience, this approach tends to garner a higher engagement with readers, and it makes it easier for salespeople to walk them through the software demos because they already have a base level understanding of the capabilities they're looking at. Before you get technical, it's imperative to let the prospect build familiarity with the basics.

If you notice, my approach remains consistent through all of the blogs I've written as part of my personal challenge to write on a daily basis this month, including the one you're reading now, of course. I could write a post that simply outlined storytelling norms and tips, but that's not what this series is about. Instead, I shared how I learned about storytelling, how I realized it had always been a part of me, and then I showed you how I inject it into my work. As I asked you all to allow me to reintroduce myself, I'm leveraging the storytelling approach so that I can showcase both who I am and how I got here.

One last parallel to finish driving the point home: a movie that I really think uses storytelling brilliantly is Slumdog Millionare. In the film, the protagonist wins the grand prize on the popular gameshow Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, which is notoriously difficult to do as the series of questions asked during the show are from a myriad of topics. The show runners practically waterboard the protagonist to force him to admit that he cheated, and to tell them who fed him the questions in advance. This is when the movie becomes a shining example of storytelling, because they showcase the moments in his life where he learned a life lesson that ended up being a question he was asked on the show, all via flashbacks. It's so engaging, riveting, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat until the end.

This is why I love storytelling, and even better when it's done creatively.