I’ve only ever had two ‘eureka’ moments in my life. The first involved unwittingly growing crystals on a microscope slide which I’d left lying around the x-ray lab untidied for nine months.

The second was when, having signed up to perform science stand-up comedy, I panic-googled ‘how to tell a story’.

This was the moment that I first realised the potential of storytelling to transform how I worked as a scientist. I’ve since used storytelling techniques to make people laugh, to win prizes at conferences, pass my PhD viva with no corrections, be awarded national level funding and write a popular science book. (If you’re interested, you can read more about my background on the About page).

Fast-forward ten years from that fateful, fitful search session, and I founded Storyology because I strongly believe that storytelling can help other communicators of technical content* do what they do, better, through the study of story.

(*By technical content, I’m talking science, engineering, research and tech. Stuff that’s not traditionally been the realm of story. These are the worlds I know best, which is why I’ve built Storyology to primarily focus on them, but I’m sure storytelling tools can be useful far beyond these industries, too...)

If that sounds like you, then I hope you’ll benefit from spending time with Storyology, either through this blog, the podcast, the free online Storytelling Foundations course, all our different workshops, story consultancy or one-to-one coaching sessions.

Okay, that’s enough of the hard sell. Without further ado, here are my Seven Reasons for Storytelling.

1. You’re already good at storytelling

Stories are an incredibly powerful force in our lives. They’re everywhere; not just in fictional books and TV shows, but also in the news, in advertising, and even how you talk to your friends down the pub. Our friendships, cultures and societies are built on shared stories.

Stories and narratives are also how we process what’s going on in our own lives, and practice empathy towards others. To tell stories is to be human.

So, by the fact that you’re human, you’re already a storyteller. And it’s this humanity that’s often missing from technical communication, and can cause us to lose our audience’s attention.

Of course, Storyology isn’t about fictionalising or overly-dramatising your scientific paper or technical presentation. Instead, I like to think of storytelling as a thought process for ourselves that can help us to make sense of what we’ve got to say, and to give it to our audience in a way that makes sense to them. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Storytelling makes sense

Technical work is often a highly non-linear process. It can involve iteration, dead-ends, failed attempts and background tinkering.

Our challenge - and it’s a big one - is to untangle this mess and present information in a way that’s logical and understandable.

Stories can help with this, by helping us shape our technical content into a logical, linear narrative. So, thinking like a storyteller can really help us to understand what to leave in and what to take out to simplify the message, as well as encourage us to provide narrative explanation between points.

3. Storytelling helps us to engage through emotions

In my storytelling workshops, I’ve asked thousands of people what their favourite story is and why. What’s clear is that we love stories with relatable characters and exciting plots. But often our favourite stories are tied up with memories. People often name childhood stories as favourites in this exercise, and I think that this is because of how those stories made us feel then, and make us feel now. Our favourite stories might make us feel inspired or brave or safe. And we can remember these stories years after we hear them, because of how we engage with them emotionally.

When we hear a story, we follow a main character along a journey, and we empathise with their struggles. When you tell the story of your work, you’re the main character in that story, and you should take us on that journey of what you’ve done or what you’ve found out, including how it made you feel; frustrated, excited, intrigued etc…

Creating an empathic bond between you, the protagonist, and your audience, can help them to like you, to pay attention to you, and remember what you’ve told them.

‘I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ - Maya Angelou

4. World-building gives context

Once upon a time…

At the beginning of every story, good storytellers invite their audiences into the world of that story. They show the audience how the world works; who lives there, who’s in charge, if there’s magic, what’s the history…

One of the biggest pitfalls that I see clever and technical people make when they’re trying to communicate something is that they jump straight in with the detail and don’t spend enough time inviting their audiences in to the context of why it’s important, and why they should care.

If what you’ve got to say to your audience is new or unfamiliar or complex, one of the best things that you can do is to spend a bit of time at the beginning inviting them into the world of the story.

5. Narrative gives Structure

There are many different types of story structure. You might have heard of a simple three act structure that involves a beginning, a middle and an end. There are also four- five- and seven-act structures that many writers will follow.

All cultures have their own archetypes and their own archetypal story structures. There’s the Hero’s Journeys, a very western type of storytelling, celebrated in Hollywood circles and beyond. There’s Kishōtenketsu which is a storytelling structure from Japan, and a world full of others.

For our purposes, what a story structure can do is to give you ‘not a blank page’, it gives you something to work from. I’ve found writing from story structures cuts my writing time in half and helps me to draw out forgotten or hidden details that can make the story more engaging and more interesting for my audience.

6. Story taps into curiosity

All stories ask a question. I’ve read that Hollywood screenwriters call it the ‘what if?’ of the movie or TV show. The question comes near the beginning of the story, and the story itself is the exploration of the answer.

What if a disgustingly rich family lose all their money and have to start again in a tiny town called Schitt’s Creek?
What if a plucky young scientist called Dr Frankenstein animated a monster?
What if an 11 year old orphan got a knock on the door and was told that he was a wizard?

Technical communication is just the same. In the sciences we might call it a hypothesis, or ‘the research question’. But client work also revolves around questions or finding out something that they don’t know. This is why technical work is particularly well-suited to being communicated as a story, because both stories and technical work are predicated on questions and answers.

And questions make people curious.

7. Stories centre change

Finally, as technical communicators, we’re in the business of communicating change. If you think about writing a report or giving a presentation, what you’re talking about is what you’ve learned, or what you’ve discovered, or what you’ve done. In a job interview or in an investor pitch, you’re persuading them to try and make a new thing happen.

And story is all about change. Almost all stories (unless it’s something weird like Kafka) centre a change; change to a place or change to a person.

To get deep about it - perhaps that’s the whole point in stories; they help us to process our constantly changing lives.

So, those are my seven reasons as to why storytelling is particularly useful for our purposes of technical communication;

You’re already good at storytelling
Storytelling makes sense
Storytelling helps us engage through emotions
World-building gives context
Narrative gives structure
Story taps into curiosity
Stories centre change

What do you think? Have I missed any other strong reasons for using storytelling in technical communication? Let me know in the comments below.

To learn more about storytelling for technical communication, check out my free online course Storytelling Foundations.

Seven Reasons for Storytelling