We explore how understanding story process helps you build stronger brand stories. Learn why organising your story drives better storytelling. Read this to learn how to get more out of the story process.
You start the story process by gathering the core story elements that make up any story.
First, the hero / heroine. They lead the story and always face some sort of problem. A guide appears who helps them plan how to solve their problem. A call to action sets them off on their journey. They go through success and failure until they resolve the problem at the story’s climax.
However, to make the story keep the audience hooked, you need to organise these elements so that they connect and flow seamlessly together. They need to be in some sort of recognisable and believable order. In the story process, that means you structure your story.
Story structure is the sequence of events and details that cover the hero’s journey.
Almost all stories follow a common structure or arc.
The simplest and most common approach is to say all stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end.
There are several jobs to be done at each of these stages to establish the story arc. This is the flow or progress the story makes over its course.
The story has to have some sort of “movement”, otherwise the audience will lose interest.
In the beginning, we meet the hero / heroine. We find out who they are and what their current situation is. This beginning helps us understand the context of the story. Where and when it happens, and who it happens to.
However, we should also find out that this will soon change as we also discover the problem they need to solve. This might be something they’ve known about for a while, or a surprise after something unexpected happens.
The problem has to create a tension or struggle for the characters. From a brand storytelling point of view, this is where you hook the audience in to read more.
You want to make the character and the problem feel relevant to them. They must want to know the answer to the hero’s problem. So, think about what’s likely to bring the problem to life for the target audience. To make it seem like it’s talking directly to them.
Say you’re a plumbing business, for example. Far more impactful to start with “drip, drip, drip, doesn’t that leaky tap REALLY get on your nerves after a while?” than “hey, we’re a plumbing business”. The leaky tap is the problem you can solve.
Or say you run a pizza business. Better to start with “the widest range of tasty pizzas delivered within 45 minutes” than “hey, we’re a pizza business”. Not having the pizza you want and having to wait for it are the problems you can solve.
The middle of the story is where you see “the plan” come to life. You introduce the guide, and they help the hero / heroine build the plan.
Great stories share the steps the hero takes following this plan to move closer to their goal. This is done through a series of scenes that progress the story and action. These take the audience step by step towards the end.
But, as in real life, these plans never go exactly as you’d expect. There are always ups and downs in the middle of the story. Great stories have surprises in the middle.
The story’s middle should share the struggle to overcome these surprising challenges as the hero gets closer to the climax and the answer to their problem.
When brand storytelling, there’s a temptation to only show the “good bits”. And to cut all the “bad bits”. Those times when things didn’t go right, or didn’t go as planned. But this would be a mistake.
By showing your brand as less than perfect, you make your brand more relatable and human. No one is perfect. In fact, perfection makes most people suspicious. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.
When you show something going wrong, but also how you dealt with it, it’s a more engaging experience for the audience.
Every story then has a finale. A climax. A resolution.
Whatever happened has changed what the world was like at the start of the story. There’s a “new normal”. The hero / heroine defeated the evil empire. The police caught the diamond robbers. Whatever it was.
In brand storytelling, this end or climax is really to highlight what will happen for the target audience if they follow your brand as the “guide”.
Paint a picture of what “success” looks like. Show that using your brand solves the hero’s problem.
For example, if you sell to B2B customers, maybe this “success” climax is more customers? Or more engaged customers? Even more loyal customers? Maybe it’s less worry about their business? Or more headlines and positive coverage?
Whatever it is your business offers, use the climax in brand storytelling to demonstrate that end goal. Show what it means for the target audience to follow your brand as their guide.
Now you’ve identified the 3 key sections of the story, you next have to work out how they join together and how the story flows.
One well-known example of this is the story spine used by the movie company Pixar. The stories that they’ve created have been incredibly successful.
Whether you define success as stimulating the imaginative minds of future generations or simply putting billions of dollars in the bank.
Their story always starts with “once upon a time, there was …” where we get to meet the hero or heroine.
Then, with 2 sentences which start “Every day, …” and “one day, …”, we find out about the problem or challenge that will drive the story. So, the fish that needs rescuing. Or, the toys that got accidentally lost. Or even the dark force that threatens the future of the superhero family.
We then basically see “the plan” and the “call to action” play out through the middle of the story as the characters react to the problem with actions. “Because of that, …” this thing happened. And then “because of that, …” the next thing happened. The fish / toys / superhero family went on a quest to fix the problem at hand.
Each story then drives towards a resolution or climax, which you can sum up with “And finally, …” where the struggles are resolved. The lost fish or lost toys are recovered. The hero family triumphs over evil forces.
Once you’ve outlined what your story elements are and how you’re going to structure them, the real hard work begins. You start to write your story.
You lean heavily on your writing skills here. For example, you research the audience for and topic behind your story. You start to fill in the outline that your story structure has given you by adding characters, settings and events.
When it’s a brand story, you look at the brand’s tone of voice guidelines and make sure that the guide in the story sounds like you.
Once you’ve hammered out that first draft of the story, then your editing process takes over. You check the story for readability. Check it for typos and grammatical errors. You cut out unnecessary words so the story’s clear and concise. When you think your story’s in good shape, you share your draft with others and ask for feedback. That’s usually when you find out it still needs more work.
None of these challenges are easy. However, they’re all necessary parts of the story process if you want to build a great brand story. You don’t just write your brand’s story, you craft it.
The final point of the story process from a brand point of view is sharing it with your customers. You need to think about when and where you’ll share it and how customers will discover it.
So, you may want to build elements of it into your advertising and media plans. It almost certainly needs to figure in your customer experience planning, notably in terms of how you use it on social media and how it appears on your website.
Remember, stories should be transformational.
You want customers starting the story to recognise that it’s about a problem that’s relevant to them. And you want them to end the story with a clear call to action about what to do to help them solve their own problem.
The key here, when you build your brand’s story, is to recognise that it is a process. You have to work at it. It takes time. The story process helps you organise the story elements into a recognisable flow.
This makes it easier for customers reading your story to recognise that it is a story. We’re so familiar with story structure that it feels natural and not scary for us to read.
So, using the story process and story structure helps remove some of the mental barriers that customers might have otherwise put up. This helps draw customers in and makes them more likely to engage with what you have to say.
Though every story will be different, many storytelling researchers have identified common patterns that shape different types of stories.
It’s beyond our scope to cover here, but we explore one of the most well-known, Christopher Booker’s The 7 Basic Plots, in our separate article on story types. That includes examples like overcoming the monster and rags to riches, as well as more well-known story types like comedy and tragedy.
Following the shape of such familiar story types can help make your brand’s story even more engaging and compelling. They can give your brand story a shape that customers will instinctively recognise and be drawn to.
On the surface, stories might seem as if they simply appear from nowhere. But in reality, they’re carefully built using a clear story process.
This process gives stories a recognisable structure and helps to organise the story elements in a way that engages the audience.
This story process gives each story a compelling beginning. We meet the hero / heroine and understand their problem.
It gives us a rollercoaster of a middle where we meet the guide. They help the protagonist plan how to fix the problem.
All doesn’t go well, though, and the middle should be full of surprises.
The climax helps pull all the story elements together until we fully understand how the hero / heroine solves their problem. Brilliant brand stories show the brand’s benefit in the climax and how it helps solve the problem set up at the start.
We believe storytelling is a powerful creative skill that you can use to connect with customers and build your brand identity. With our coaching and consulting services, we can support you with knowledge, ideas and processes to help your brand tell a more engaging story.
Get in touch to learn how we can help your brand’s story end happily ever after.
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