Different Storytelling Techniques You Should Learn

Photo by Min An

A great storyteller is equipped with compelling storytelling techniques infused with the gift of narration, music, art, and poetry.

“Piece-A-Way Crossroads” by Gloria Gipson Suggs brings you to a world where you are part of the storytelling. You, the reader, as a character, will engage with the story’s main girl, Jeannie. She will walk you home in a piece-a-way. She tells a story of her family through different parts of history, such as the Civil War, in varying forms. Sometimes, they are infused with music, poetry, and narration.

Here are different storytelling techniques you should learn as you tell a character’s life to your audience:

The Basics: The Fichtean Curve

The Fichtean Curve is the basic technique for good storytelling.

It follows three parts:

–         Rising Action

–         Climax

–         Falling Action

This structure introduces the protagonist to the conflict. As the story progresses, the protagonist fights for his goal until he clashes with the antagonist, bringing it all to a climax. In this part, the character finds a resolution for the conflict. After the conflict, the story goes to falling action, where the readers get to relax, and the resolution takes effect.

The other story structures follow this technique and follow more details and strategies to make the stories more engaging.

The Power of a Three-Act Structure

So, we have been introduced to the basic story structure. It is time to know the Three-Act Structure, which follows the Fichtean Curve but divides the structure into three acts.

An act gives the readers time to breathe and to get ready for the next parts of the story. The Three-Act Structure is a powerful tool that most novels and plays follow, particularly comedy, drama, romance, and thriller. The story guides the readers into different points and plots of the story. This structure follows the Set-up, Confrontation, and Resolution steps. Each step is well-defined, putting the protagonist into different incidents and turning points.

Structure:

Set-Up

–         Exposition

–         Inciting incident

–         Plot point 1

Confrontation

–         Rising action

–         Midpoint

–         Plot point 2

Resolution

–         Pre-climax

–         Climax

–         Dénouement

The Call of Adventure in the Hero’s Journey

Popularized by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, this storytelling technique follows a hero in his adventure towards his goal. Just like the first two techniques, this storytelling strategy also uses a three-part structure that is defined, giving the hero more difficult challenges to pursue. Here, the readers follow different stages where the hero can fail in reaching his goal and stand up again to regain his honor and try to find his way to achieving his goal.

Structure:

Departure

1. Establishing a place of comfort
2. Hero’s reason for adventure
3. Hero refuses the call for adventure
4. A mentor guides the hero
5. The plot begins following the three-act structure

Initiation

1. Gaining allies and facing new enemies
2. Hero approaches goal, but the outcome is uncertain
3. The hero faces a great challenge to overcome
4. Hero gets a reward for overcoming the challenge

The Return

1. Hero achieves the goal, but something worse happens
2. Hero tries to fight the worst and uses everything he learns
3. Resolution of the conflicts

The Show, Don’t Tell Technique

This technique employs sensory details, actions, and dialogues, taking the audience on a journey towards the gist of the story. The Show, Don’t Tell format is most commonly used in different formats, such as fiction, creative writing, songs, poetry, podcasts, audio stories, and other media.

The storytelling technique uses active voice, concrete nouns, and verbs, creating vivid images of the story to actively engage the audience. It discriminates against passive voices and adverbs. Instead, it lets the audience immerse in the experience.

“Piece-A-Way Crossroads” by Gloria Gipson Suggs uses this type of technique.

The Rhythms and Twists of The Rule of Three

Story genres such as Horror, Humor, and Mystery follow this structure. Speeches and presentations also follow this technique to keep the audience engaged. As a rule, this technique always uses three elements. For example, the story should have three characters, three events, or three sentences that brings in the mystery or the catch.

It uses patterns, repetition, and symmetry that help build anticipation, twists, and satisfaction for the audience.

Starting from the Middle: In Medias Res

In Medias Res is a technique where the story introduces a clash between characters right away. Here, we don’t know what the real conflict is, but the clash will let you expect something big. It uses juxtaposition or backstory layers to give details to the audience.

Structure:

–         Clashing of characters or ideas

–         Rising action

–         Explanation

–         Climax

–         Falling action

–         Resolution

The storytelling techniques become stronger with the writer’s creativity and imagination. All mentioned techniques originated from the most basic ones, modified to bring the audience to a specific direction of a story. Authors can also create their own technique that suits the universe they imagine. So, what’s your best technique for storytelling?

In Piece-A-Way Crossroads by Gloria Gipson Suggs, Jeannie tells different stories. What technique did she use to tell varying stories to your character in the story?

You can buy a copy of the book on her website.