Because communication is crucial in exchanging information on every level, people can benefit from improving on their storytelling skills. Becoming a good storyteller can help in virtually any career or activity. Good storytelling involves developing good narrative skills, which means being able to stitch together information into a coherent unit.
Storytelling skills are vital with public speaking, editing audio and video, storyboarding, marketing products, or spreading public service information. Skills in storytelling helps people with being able to get a message across for purposes beyond entertainment.
What is Storytelling?
People tend to think of storytelling as something related to fiction for books, movies, and television shows. However, storytelling plays an integral part in nearly every form of communication, including news, education, marketing, and advertising by using narration. Narration can be described as a container. This container holds information together for the stories that people tell to help both them and their audience fit the pieces together through storytelling.
Narration stitches together information into a coherent unit by relaying experiences, testimonies, and anecdotes that helps people make sense of what is being discussed by connecting to a subject. There are courses available for becoming a better storyteller that help more effectively connect audiences in writing, teaching, and marketing by communicating visually, audibly, or digitally. Enrolling in courses that improve storytelling skills can open up new methods of communication.
Learn Storytelling
- Up to $20 off your first class
- 10% Reward Points
- Price lock guaranteed
- No added fees
Thousands of classes & experiences. As featured in Time Out.
Benefits of Learning Storytelling?
With communication being at the center of conveying information on any level, anyone can benefit from training to improve on skills with storytelling. Becoming a good storyteller can help with virtually any career or activity. Good storytelling involves developing good narrative skills, which means being able to stitch together information into a coherent package.
For example, a college professor has to be able to get students to connect with content for a course to understand how that content relates to their lives. Students may protest, “What do I need math for?” or “When will I ever need to use subject-verb agreement?” Explaining how parts of speech with language, fundamentals with math, or events in history play a significant role in their education is a function of storytelling. For instance, understanding statistics and percentages is something students will need to know in handling their own finances with mortgages, credit cards, or taxes. Understanding basic composition as well as being able to follow instructions for writing assignments is important when applying for jobs, which usually includes composing a cover letter that must be free of errors and coherent in detailing an individual’s qualifications. Therefore, being a good storyteller can help a college professor better connect with students to get them to relate to what they are supposed to be learning and how their course will be relevant in establishing the future of their everyday lives.
Skills with storytelling are crucial for careers related to public speaking, editing audio and video, storyboarding, marketing and advertising, or conveying public service information. Storytelling helps people connect not just for being entertained but for staying informed.
What Will People Need to Know to Learn Storytelling?
Being able to tell stories is usually associated with discussing fiction. However, newspaper publishers, television news organizations, and film documentarians apply storytelling for conveying information. In a normal working environment, storytelling is an essential tool for informing employees.
Storytelling helps with converting raw data into coherent information for analysts, scientists, teachers, students, businesses, and non-technical users through text, charts, graphs, and other media. Storytelling helps people comprehend the abundance of information produced in today’s data-saturated world where analysis is essential for helping with business forecasting and financial optimization.
Storytelling also helps in marketing products. From the little old woman in the Wendy’s commercial shouting, “Where’s the beef?” to Mister Whipple’s obsession with squeezing Charmin toilet paper, storytelling helps with moving products, spreading news, or getting the word out to the public about an impending weather event for helping dozens to millions of people.
Is Learning Storytelling Difficult?
While it might look effortless for some people, storytelling is not easy. Storytelling has likely been around since people first started speaking to communicate, but it is likely that even during the early stages of speech that people had difficulties with putting the right sounds together. Today, improving on skills for storytelling in any line of work can help in accomplishing goals at any level. Storytelling means creating a narrative that requires putting together information into a coherent unit, which can be difficult depending on how complicated that information may be. This information can be raw data, video, audio, photographs, or content from social media. Whether it’s putting together information for a company meeting, teaching a class, or marketing a product, storytelling can help an audience better understand whatever is being discussed.
Storytelling for Everyday Use
People tend to think about storytelling as something related to fiction with books, movies, or TV shows. However, storytelling is an important element in any area of communication, including news, marketing and advertising, and education. In a nutshell, storytelling structures ideas by allowing people to present information in a comprehensive package through narration.
Narration stitches information together into a coherent unit for presenting experiences, testimonies, and anecdotes that help others make sense of whatever is being discussed by connecting them to a subject.
How to Start Learning Storytelling
There are several ways for improving skills in storytelling. People can enroll in a variety of courses to get formal training for comfortably engaging audiences, including in-person classes, virtual learning courses, and on-demand programs. Informally, anyone interested can find free online seminars or online videos from various education providers or on YouTube for self-training.
In-Person Classes
Some people feel more comfortable learning inside a classroom and having direct interaction with their instructor. Another benefit to improving storytelling skills inside a classroom is that a student can directly test approaches on classmates by being able to gauge their reactions and adjust.
Storytelling is a crucial element for communicating information in nearly every aspect of life. While there are plenty of live online classes for training to improve skills in storytelling, some people simply feel more comfortable learning inside a classroom with their instructors standing right there in front of them. For those individuals, there are courses available throughout the country for enhancing skills in storytelling.
For example, anyone living in New York City who’s interested can attend the American Management Association, located at 1601 Broadway, Sixth Floor, to enroll in the Business Communication Certificate Program. This course can help students develop skills in storytelling for improving rapport and influencing audiences. Stories allow people to connect by creating an emotional bond developed through establishing a shared experience.
Someone living in Los Angeles looking for a relaxing way of improving on skills with speaking publicly can enroll in Storytelling for Comedians, which is available through DBA Flappers University, located at 102 E. Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. This workshop helps people enhance their skills with storytelling, which can be used for a variety of purposes. Using comedy can be especially effective in connecting with an audience, including a reverend on the pulpit leading a congregation in relating to a biblical passage, a teacher in a classroom helping students make sense about the content of a lecture, or a coworker tasked with making a presentation before colleagues hoping to break the ice during a meeting.
Live Online Courses
Virtual learning to improve skills for storytelling provides hands-on training from expert instructors who can give students the same level of education that they would get from sitting inside a classroom without ever having to leave home.
For anyone working in any busy city in North America who’s thinking about taking classes, it’s understandable that some people might not look forward to getting back out into traffic after a long day at work to find a classroom somewhere. This is why live online training provides an appealing option. For instance, virtual learning courses can improve anyone’s skills in storytelling from lessons with expert instructors who can help students learn techniques for communicating more effectively by establishing a narrative flow that audiences can connect with. Live online training provides a convenient option for learning how to better organize information for personal, social, and professional purposes.
Anyone looking to improve on skills with storytelling can enroll in live online courses at the Columbia Business School, which offers Strategic Storytelling: Maximum Impact in a Digital World. Smartphone technology has turned everybody out there into a videographer recording everything from mundane everyday activities to world shaking headline events. With the convenience of being able to record or photograph anything for anyone and everyone to see, many people have developed a passion for recording videos and soon realize they have a talent for the medium. The trick is corralling the abundant content produced into a coherent narrative for audience consumption.
This course emphasizes storytelling as essential for communicating the human experience by helping people make better sense of the world around them. Since human beings have been able to throw together symbols in speech and writing, expressing independent thought by creating a narrative has helped people be able to understand others as well as themselves. In today’s digitally saturated world, being able to make sense of content is the key to communication. Training for this class provides participants with frameworks, methodologies, and real-world examples that will enable them to better communicate in today’s complex digital landscape.
Upon completing this course, students will have a better understanding of the purpose of narration, which includes balancing objective facts with subjective storytelling for effectively communicating with audiences in education, entertainment, work, and marketing.
On-Demand Training
Finding on-demand training allows anyone interested in improving on skills with storytelling through learning at their own pace and on their own time. For example, CCSME (Co-Occurring Collaborative Serving Maine), located at 94 Auburn Street, Suite 110, in Portland, Maine, offers the Storytelling 101 for Behavioral Health and Recovery on-demand course that trains participants about the role that storytelling can play in maintaining mental health. This on-demand program introduces students to how storytelling can help in personal interactions through sharing narratives that may uplift people in addressing their behavioral health challenges. This on-demand course costs $10 for four video-sessions that last between 15 and 20 minutes each, which can be viewed whenever the participant chooses.
Free and Low-Cost Online Seminars
There are plenty of free and low-cost online seminars available for improving anyone’s skills with storytelling. Those interested can take advantage of Storytelling 101: Character, Conflict, Context & Craft, which Skillshare offers as an online training seminar for free with a 30-day trial. This course trains students in a better understanding about what makes a story captivating.
Video Tutorials
Anyone interested can find video tutorials offered through various outlets, including several online education providers as well as social media platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube. For example, Class Central offers Storytelling for Video, which is a free video tutorial that helps students learn how to create engaging stories.
Key Takeaways
- Developing storytelling skills can help with being able to stitch together information into a coherent narrative for communication.
- People typically think of storytelling as relating to fiction, but storytelling is an integral component for everyday communications, including news, education, and business through narration that connects with audiences.
- Becoming a good storyteller can help with virtually any career or activity.
- Storytelling helps with translating raw data into something coherent that helps people comprehend complex information.
- Improving skills for storytelling in any field can help in accomplishing goals in several industries.
- Anyone interested can enroll in storytelling courses taught inside classrooms throughout the country for enhancing skills in communication.
- Live online classes for improving skills in storytelling offer hands-on lessons from expert instructors who can give students the same level of education that they would get from sitting inside a classroom without ever having to leave home.
- On-demand online training courses help individuals improve on their skills in storytelling by learning at their own pace and on their own time.
- Anyone interested can find video tutorials from various online outlets, including education providers and social media platforms like LinkedIn or YouTube.