the art of storytelling isn't as easy as the instagram gurus say

hiiii friend,

i tried to diversify my content a few months back. new formats, new structures, testing things that had nothing to do with each other. and no matter what i made, the same posts kept winning. every time.

it wasn't the format. it wasn't even close to being about the format. it was storytelling.

and look, i know. i know how that sounds. storytelling has become one of those words in the content world right now, thrown around in every carousel telling you how to "storytell your way to a million followers."

i really do not want to add to that noise. but it's a buzzword because it's true, not because it's easy. it just gets treated like a simple trick when it's actually one of the hardest things to get right.

so that's what today's newsletter is about. not a hack. not a formula you can copy paste onto your next post. just how i actually think about storytelling and why i think it's the real thing separating content that connects from content that just exists.

storytelling is the easiest way to connect with someone. you do it every single day without realising. you come home to your partner and tell them about your day. that's a story. you're showing them how you think, how you view the world, how you move through it. and depending on their own values and experiences, they either feel connected to that or they don't.

that's exactly what happens on socials, just at scale.

when you're building an engaged audience, storytelling is the structure and the vehicle that gets your audience to feel something. and the reason you want people to feel something specific is because humans are wired to chase emotions.

it's the same reason you binge a tv show or pick up a hobby you love. you're not doing it for no reason. you're doing it because it makes you feel a certain way and you want more of that feeling.

they create a space for someone to feel a specific way, and the audience keeps coming back for that feeling. nobody is consciously thinking "this creator equals this feeling," but that's really what's happening underneath it all. and the best catalyst we have as creators to evoke that feeling, again and again, is storytelling.

so how do you actually do it? i think it comes down to three things: structure, emotion, and art.

the bones. structure is how you get someone from point a to point b. it's the easiest way for a viewer to follow along without getting lost or confused. for short form, the version i use is set up, conflict, resolution.