Are You Forgetting Your Storytelling?
You have expertise. You put it in a listicle format so it’s easy for people to digest. Nobody reads.
Why?
Because you’re probably treating your bullet points or sections like encyclopedia entries.
You can list out steps or points and still tell a fantastic, engaging story. This video elaborates.
[Transcript summary]
Hello, everybody. I am Wanda Thibodeaux, sole proprietor of takingdictation.com, and as a business writer, I can tell you, most of the people who are professional, if they’re writing content that they want to show their expertise with, what’s the format that they’re going to want to choose?
Most of the time, you know, sometimes they do choose essays, but the majority of time they want a listicle. And that’s because it’s very easy to show directives or things — individual things that they’ve learned. You can just have each bullet hit it out. It’s very easy to make action steps that way.
But the problem with listicles is that people forget the art of storytelling. Just because you have a listicle doesn’t mean that you can’t keep that activity, that storytelling going. And that’s what I think a lot of people miss.
So, my challenge for you when you are creating your own content, whether it’s on your own or maybe with a ghostwriter or content creator, is challenge them to include the storytelling within the bullet points. You can do things like have dialog in a bullet point. If you were talking to a partner or client or something that that’s where you learned that bullet point, you know, idea from, include the dialog.
So, you can keep telling the story. Show them literally what happened. There’s nothing saying that you cannot do that. And sometimes, it actually ends up being more succinct and more impactful if you do it that way. Take care, everybody. Bye.