- Story, story, story. Story. Storytelling is super important to be able to create
videos that are engaging so that someone wants
to continue watching. Our attention is divided up between all of these different
social media accounts and everything else that's
going on in the world. So you really don't
have a whole lot of time to be able to grab someone's attention and keep them engaged with your content for a long period of time. Now, storytelling will help you actually keep the viewer engaged and keep them watching. And in this video, I'm gonna give you five ways that you can actually
improve your storytelling, instead of just giving you a breakdown of what story is and structure of story. These techniques will
actually help you become a better storyteller so that when you approach a situation, you're gonna know, "Okay, this is what I need to do "to be able to tell the story "and create an engaging video." Now, before we get into number one, I just wanna mention that this is part of a series that I'm gonna do all around storytelling. I'm gonna break down different aspects around storytelling. So if you're part of the 86% of you that aren't subscribed to the channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button and turn on the bell notifications so that you don't miss when
I release the next video in this series. So number one is to
actually tell more stories. Now, this may seem obvious, but to become a good storyteller you have to tell more stories. And I mean just in everything that you're doing. So if you're talking to your friends or your family about a hike
that you did last week, put it in the context of a story and actually apply all
the rules of storytelling to be able to make it engaging and more interesting. So let me give you a
quick example from a hike. Here's what you shouldn't do. So last week I did this awesome hike with my buddy. We went up to the top of this mountain. And it had like the best view ever. That's not really a story. It's not that engaging. There's not a whole lot of context. There's nothing really going on when it comes to what
you're talking about. You're just giving some facts around something cool that happened. And you're not really diving
into the story element. So let's rephrase that and put it in the context of a story. So last week I had a super long shoot up in LA. It was five days. I was in a studio from morning until five o'clock at night. And my buddy, Jesse, was also on the shoot with me. Every night we'd get done shooting and we'd see this mountain
off in the distance. In LA there's actually some mountains surrounding the city. And in the location that we were at, we could see the peaks
off in the distance. And after being in a studio for long days, both of us just wanted to get outside and just be in nature. So on lunch during one of the shoot days, we were looking at AllTrails and just trying to find some good hikes in the area to go explore. And we found a trail that was 10 minutes away from the studio. And this is perfect because the time of the year that we were shooting, we only had like an hour of daylight left by the time we were gonna be wrapped. So we had very limited amount of time that we could get out and go hiking before the sunset. Now, this hike wasn't a super easy hike. It was about an 1,800 foot elevation gain, over the course of a couple of miles. So really, we were just going
straight up this mountain. Both of us weren't really prepared. We just started the trail
and started going up. And we were pushing ourselves to try and get to the summit because the sun was setting
off in the distance. We didn't really have that much time. But just as the sun was
dipping towards the horizon, we made it to the summit. And on the top of that mountain was one of the best views
that we've seen of LA. This mountain was positioned
in the perfect place to be able to see downtown
off in the distance, and all the way down the valley the other direction. It was an incredible view. And we got to see it right at sunset with all the lights
turning on in the city. So the next day when were on set, we jumped on AllTrails and we found a different hike. And every day that I was in LA, we hiked a different trail to catch sunset from this amazing viewpoint. Now, there was definitely a lot more that went into the second
story example here, but it's more of an engaging story. And that's what you wanna create. So to be a better storyteller, you just need to be telling
more stories like this. When you have an experience where you're doing
something that's really cool and you wanna tell your
friends or your family, try to put it in the context of a story and see how they respond. And see how you can tweak that story to tell someone else. And see if you can make it more engaging with the way that you tell it. Number two is build a structure and outline your stories. And it's easy to craft once you just know what
beats you need to hit. So number one is just giving
some history and setup. So when you're going to tell a story, you wanna give some context so the viewer is with you in this moment. You wanna put them in the scene. You want them to feel like they know what's going on. Because if you don't give any context, you don't give any history or set up to the story that you're gonna tell, then someone's not gonna be as engaged because they don't really
know what's going on. So the big key here is you wanna set the scene. And this could be as simple as just giving a quick context of what's going on, or it could be something longer where somebody needs a history and they need to know a bunch of different bits of information to be able to follow along on the journey. Now, the second thing
you need to establish is the challenge. So what's your goal and
what are you up against to be able to reach that goal? That's an easy way to think about it. So with my little hiking example, we wanted to get to the
summit of this mountain, but we were up against time because the sun was
gonna set within an hour. So time is a great way to set a challenge. If you only have so much
time to do something, that is a challenge. You only have this amount of time to finish something. And you'll see this time and time again in YouTube videos. Challenges are great when
it's a 24-hour challenge or a 48-hour challenge. There's so much story
built into that structure because you have to try and finish what you're doing by the end of the time period. And your audience is gonna want to know, "Well, are you gonna be able to finish it "in that time period?" It piques the curiosity of somebody who's watching your video and they wanna see if
you actually fall through or make it to your goal. Recently, I did a video
where I was overlanding with my buddy on the Pony Express. And one of the things
that I was up against was I only had three days to do this trip. And instead of just showing you the trip, I set up this time crunch and it became a challenge
that was a through line for the entire video. Every time we ran into a
roadblock of some kind, it would put us back and we would get further
away from our goal, which we only had so much time to achieve. The key thing here is you
wanna set a challenge, something that you're up against that's gonna make it harder to be able to reach your goal. Now, number three is complications. So what are different beats that happen along your journey that push you back away from your goal? So this is just the little story beats throughout the video that push you further away or bring you closer. So as you're telling a story, you wanna have things pop up that will pull you away
from actually achieving what you're going out there to get. So as the journey of your story goes through your video, you wanna show challenges. You wanna show things
that are pushing you away from your goal. And that's different complications. Now, these can be things
that you could set up when you're crafting a
story or outlining it, but they're also things
that naturally will happen. And that's the beauty of vlogging or creating YouTube videos or adventure films, whatever it is that you create is that when you actually
go through the process, very rarely does everything
happen as planned. And when you're telling a story, you'll start noticing that these different
complications will happen and you'll spend a little bit of time actually filming them so that they can become
elements within your story. Number four when it comes to structure, is the payoff. Did you achieve your goal? Did you not? Or is it kind of just
somewhere in the middle? You wanna have a resolution to your story and you wanna know what that element is because you set that up at the beginning. So stories are very structured in that you set everything up in the beginning, you go through this journey, and then you either achieve your goal or you don't. And then the fifth part of the structure is how did this change you? Now, when you're watching a film or you're reading a book, there's usually a big profound change that happens with the main character. When you're creating YouTube videos or you're vlogging, there's not gonna be
these massive changes, once in a while, maybe. But you still wanna look
for some sort of change. After you went on this journey and you reached your goal or you didn't reach your goal, how did it make you feel? Because your audience is
on this journey with you, and they wanna see how
this journey affected you at the end of it or your main character. Now, I know this seems
like a lot to think about just for a simple vlog or a YouTube video, but when you watch the big
creators on the platform, you'll see the story structure time and time again. So let's just break down one of MrBeast's videos real quick and you can see how he
integrates the story structure into everything that he does. And there's a reason that his videos have a ton of engagement and people wanna follow along. So he did a video titled "I Got Hunted By A Real Bounty Hunter" So in this video, he starts right at the
beginning with the setup so that you know what's about to happen. - This is a professional bounty hunter. And if he successfully hunts me down, he gets $100,000. He has until midnight to
steal this backpack from me. And all I gave them was a knife. This is going to be craziest chase ever. I have a helicopter lined up. A dozen cars. I have everything. He is not hunting me down. - Immediately, he tells
you the goal of the video and he tells you the challenge. And this is something with
creating YouTube videos is you have to make these
story beats happen much faster to get someone into your story so that they actually wanna be engaged. MrBeast is a master of this because he does it so quick. Within the first 30
seconds of a MrBeast video, he's gonna give you all the setup, the context and the challenge. And he does this in such a way where you're up to speed and you're ready to go
on this journey with him. So right at the beginning, he gives you exactly what's
gonna happen in this video. There's a bounty hunter. He's chasing him. And he has all these
different obstacles set up to try and escape this bounty hunter. Now, this hero's journey
actually focuses more on the bounty hunter. Because you wanna see Mr.Beast get caught, and you want this bounty hunter to win $100,000. So the complications throughout this video are the different obstacles that MrBeast has set up to try and trick the bounty hunter from actually capturing MrBeast. And there's a ton of them in this video. And you wanna see whether
MrBeast is going to escape, or if this bounty hunter
is going to catch him. Now, the payoff at the end of the video, the climax, the ending scene, is that the bounty
hunter does capture him. And what is the change? Well, watch this clip. - I got a young child at home. And this money sets him up. This is his college fund. This changes my life. Thank you so much. - And MrBeast included this clip because this was the change that happened when the bounty hunter was
able to capture MrBeast. So go watch any of MrBeast's video and think about story structure when you're watching them. You'll see these different beats happen in most of his content. Go to another channel like Yes Theory, you'll see the same
structure happen again. Story structure is super important to be able to keep your viewer engaged and keep them on the journey with you. Number three to become
a better storyteller is consume more stories
and less tutorials. Now, understanding how your camera works, learning how to shoot cinematic B-roll, all of these things are
great and their aspects around creating interesting
videos to watch, but really story is more important. So if you spend all your
time consuming tutorials and how to videos and no time consuming story, then you're not really gonna
be seeing story in action. One of the keys to becoming
a better storyteller is to watch more stories, consume more stories, and see how the structure actually works for that video or that book, or that podcast, wherever you're engaging with the story. Stories can come in all forms. So you wanna consume more
of that kind of content, and you wanna be more observant. You don't wanna just sit there and be entertained by it. You actually wanna think through all the elements that
we've been talking about in this video, and how they apply to that specific story that you're watching. And this brings me into step four to be a better storyteller. And that is actually
go through the process of writing down structure for the stories that you are consuming. So take the five steps
that I gave you in step two and actually apply it to the stories that you're
watching or reading, and write down these different beats. Now, in the description, I'll include a PDF that you can download that just gives you these story beats, and you could just fill out what each of them is when you're actually watching a video. And start doing this more often. When you're watching a video, enjoy it, watch the video, experience it, but then take a step back and look over the sheet and say, "Okay, what was the challenge? "What was the setup? "How did this creator
get me into the story "and make me wanna keep watching?" You also wanna look for when stories don't do this and if they actually fall short. So if you're watching a video and there is no structure to it, are you engaged with that story? Do you wanna keep watching it? And if you are still interested in watching that video, why? Is it just because you enjoy the content? Or is there something else going on that's keeping you engaged? Most of the time, you'll find that the stories that keep you the most engaged and the ones that wanna
keep you watching longer to the end of a video are ones that have story baked into them. And the more that you could see this and the more that you can pick out these different elements, the easier it's gonna be to start crafting your own
stories in your videos. Now tip five for being
a better storyteller is actually become a visual storyteller. So if you're creating vlogs or you're creating videos here on YouTube, it's a visual medium. We're creating videos. We're not just telling stories. So you wanna start applying these different elements that we've been talking about, setup, challenges, complications, resolution, and pay off. And you wanna start thinking, how can I tell this using visuals? Now, in vlogs, a lot of times we like to
just talk to the camera, but a lot of times it's better to actually
show what's happening rather than just telling. An exercise that I do is try to just tell visual stories. And yeah, you're not gonna have the same complications and challenges and things like that that you might have with a bigger vlog, but if you're just doing
quick visual stories, you wanna set up the scene, you wanna take someone on the journey, and then you wanna to
have some sort of payoff. So for example, I'll go to the park with my family. But I'll try to tell the story just with some quick visuals. So I'll set up what's happening. I'll take the viewer on the journey. And then try to show some
sort of payoff or ending. And so like this quick little video is my wife taking my daughter to the park and just showing how
excited my daughter gets when she likes to go on the swing. And instead of just filming one shot family style with your iPhone, actually take your camera and try to tell it visually. So try to capture different things that are happening within that moment. Try to use wide shots, closeups, mediums. Become a storyteller with
the way that you shoot. And try to take someone on a journey from the beginning to the end. To become a good storyteller, it just takes continual practice. It's something that is
going to be evolving for you and you're gonna find different strategies or techniques that work better for the content that you're producing. So don't get down on yourself if your story's not super exciting. Take every opportunity to
try and tell more stories and try to infuse this kind of structure into the videos that you're creating. If you're just someone who's
shooting vlogs of your day, try to set up a goal for that. Try to set up some challenges to be able to get you to that goal and try to set up complications. So instead of just turning on the camera and just shooting whatever happens, think through what is the goal? What is the objective? And what are some things that are gonna stand in your way to be able to achieve that goal? And even if it's quick and you just do some
notes in your notepad, putting more emphasis in
creating the structure is gonna help you make better videos that are more engaging and more people are
gonna wanna watch them. Now, next, I highly suggest you check out this video right here. It goes through storytelling structure, but also shooting, editing, and how it all comes together in an edit to tell a story while you're vlogging. All right, guys. I'll see you over there.
