The 4 Storytelling Essentials Useful
guidelines from an actual storyteller and professional screenwriter. ! Carl Hartman, Best Selling Author President of Brand.gineering www.brandgineering.org

1. Conflict “The secret source
of humor is NOT joy but pain.” Mark Twain

Text No conflict, no story!
Conflict is absolutely required to create drama in any story, including marketing!

Not all conflict is a
fistfight! Marketing drama can be as simple as a product comparison. Break this rule at your peril. Bad stories have zero conflict.

2. Structure “…that which has
a beginning, a middle, and an end…” Aristotle, Poetics

Text 3 Acts are a
Requirement Don’t break the rules. Good stories all have the same structure. No argument.

Learn the structure first! Act
1 - The beginning; sets up the situation. Act 2 - The middle; is the complication or main conflict. Act 3 - The end; is the conclusion, resolution or catharsis.

Applies to all communication. A
business letter, a blog or a movie script, well conceived and written, should adhere to this structure. Learn how to weave your message around a story with great characters and plot. All your ideas should have plenty of complications, twists and turns. Those are what interests your readers or viewers.

“In nature we never see
anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it, and over it.” Goethe 2. Be Visual

Text Even words are pictures
The highest order of thinking is in pictures, even your words must evoke visual imagery.

Visual sticks in the mind.
Stop! Before creating anything else, read Sergei Eisenstein’s Essays in Film Theory: Film Form; the chapter entitled A dialectic approach to film form. Learn how imagery works. It is more than plopping images in a slide show from a stock photo company. The emotions imagery evoke are one of the keys to having your message retained. Learn how to use images properly.

NOTHING in the mind! Set
the visual stage for your viewer or reader, don’t allow them to control the visual experience. Stories need to play well visually and not just in your imagination. We all need an anchor or hook so the story sticks and that hook is always visual. However, music can achieve the same outcome as both evoke emotional triggers that cement ideas in our brain.

4. Sex and
Violence

Text Everything has sex and
violence! Sex and violence is a requirement of all stories or use their softer side, sensitivity and action.

Sex and Violence! Even your
marketing messages require these elements. Think of a foot race as high dramatic conflict or the sensitivity of a puppy in the arms of a child. They are just the softer side of sex and violence. Focus on the emotional response. Emotion is the key to cementing an idea or message, including a marketing message, blog or song.

The 4 Requirements of Story
Conflict (generates drama) 3 Act Story Structure Understand Visual Language Feelings and Emotions Generated by Sex and Violence

The 4 Requirements of Story
Why? We said it already. Emotion. Emotions, particularly high emotions, create altered brain chemistry that binds a message in our thoughts. This is why we attach memories to songs; like that song that was playing when you met your true love. These elements are classical and taught in most good film schools or in art. This is why artists can move you to do or feel things.

The 4 Requirements of Story
Most people that talk about “story” don’t know story. The term is over-used in our culture of blogging and content marketing. What most people call“stories” are pure information; they lack the essentials mentioned here. A true story has a plot and structure that includes a visual and emotional conflict between characters (even if those characters are products).

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