If you want your content to perform better, you need to learn how to tell better stories.

So in this video, I'm going to walk through my six favorite storytelling techniques that will massively improve your content.

After watching this, I guarantee you will think differently about the way you write scripts and make videos.

By the way, I'm Callaway.

I've pulled over a billion views on short form video.

I've got 500,000 followers, and I think about this stuff all the time.

All right, let's dive in.

Tip number one is what I call the dance.

All great stories are like a dance between context and conflict.

You give a little context.

The characters on a mission, they're doing something.

And then, oh no, here comes a conflict.

You give a little bit more context.

The characters have solved that first conflict.

They're on their way.

And then, oh no, another conflict.

This dance is how you keep the viewer locked in.

It could be a feature film or a short form video.

The dance is always there.

Now, why does this work?

Conflicts create open loops in the brain, and then context helps close those loops.

The best explanation I've ever seen for how to tactically implement this dance idea is from Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

They're the ones who created South Park.

They were giving a talk at NYU.

Watch this.

We found out this really simple rule that maybe you guys have all heard before, but it took us a long time to learn it.

But we can take these beats, which are basically the beats of your outline.

And if the words and then belong between those beats, you're f***ed.

Basically, you got something pretty boring.

What should happen between every beat that you've written down is either the word, therefore, or but, right?

So, so what I'm saying is that you come up with an idea and it's like, okay, this happens, right?

And then this happens.

No, no, no.

It should be this happens.

And therefore this happens, but this happens, therefore this happens.

And that, as soon as we are able to, and literally sometimes we'll, we'll write it out to make sure we're doing it.

Uh, we'll, we'll have our beats and we'll say, okay, this happened, but then this happens and that affects this and that does to that.

And that's why you get a show that feels like, okay, this to that, to this, to that, but this here's the complication to that.

So it's tactically, it's as simple as using the words, but, and therefore consistently throughout your script that will create those open conflict loops.

If you're using the words and then it'll feel like you're piling on detail after detail, after detail, and the viewer will lose interest.

Now let's quickly take a look at one of my best performing videos.

You'll notice there are four, but then conflict loops in the first 30 seconds.

Watch this.

Something crazy is happening with Stanley cup.

You have to assume one of these Stanley cups, Stanley cup, Stanley cup, racking up 6.7 billion views.

This 40 ounce Stanley quencher has become the Louis Vuitton of drinkware.

It's a status symbol.

New releases are selling out in seconds.

People are flipping them for hundreds on eBay.

Stanley, the company 10 X its revenue in four years off this single product.

But the real question is how'd they do it?

How did Stanley cups go from a construction workers thermos to the dream Christmas gift?

It's a wild story.

So in 2019, Stanley was actually about to discontinue the cup, but this group of mom bloggers, the buy guide knew they were making a huge mistake.

So they cut a special affiliate deal with Stanley to bulk order 5,000 cups with a twist.

Stanley had to make them pastel colors.

Those 5,000 cups sold out in five days and completely changed their philosophy on design.

But it gets even better.

A few months ago, Stanley had the burning car moment.

So I'm consistently setting up these head fakes to keep the storyline moving.

Use this, but then framework next time you're writing a script, I guarantee it'll uplevel that video.

All right.

Tip number two is rhythm.

I talk about this a lot, but there's this natural subconscious pacing and rhythm that is soothing to the brain.

You can hear in my delivery.

I'm pretty decent with this like natural ebb and flow.

The rhythm of the syllables when I talk is soothing to listen to.

Now I used to be a rapper and I was a drummer growing up.

So this pacing and rhythm is kind of embedded in me, which I think is why

I'm naturally good at talking in this way.

But I do have this tactical way that can improve anyone else at rhythm.

Take a look at this image, which was written by the legendary author, Gary Provost.

Now listen, as I read this, this sentence has five words.

Here are five more words.

Five word sentences are fine, but several together become monotonous.

Listen to what is happening.

This writing is getting boring.

The sound of it drones.

It's like a stuck record.

The ear demands some variety.

Now, listen, I vary the sentence length and I create music, music.

The writing sings.

It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.

I use short sentences and I use sentences of medium length.

And sometimes when I'm certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals.

Sounds that say, listen to this.

It is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences.

Create a sound that pleases the reader's ear.

Don't just write words, write music.

You see how when all the sentences in the same row are about the same length, it creates this monotonous predictability.

Subconsciously, people get turned off by this.

This is what makes them churn to the next video.

What you want is to use a variety of sentences and syllable combinations to create this unpredictable rhythm.

Now, if you look at my script document, I write every sentence on a separate line.

If you look straight down, it'll look like a jagged edge.

And that confirms that I'm using different length sentences.

Next time you're writing a script, try to look for this.

If you see your document and all the sentences seem to end at around the same point, you don't have enough diversity and it will feel like this monotonous plotting.

All right.

Lesson three is tone.

The most successful creators in every discipline are the ones with the most conversational tone.

It really feels like you're right in the room with them.

Emma Chamberlain ascended to stardom so quickly because she was naturally amazing at this.

Casey Neistat's another one that's really good at this.

When you watch his videos, you listen to him talk.

It feels like he's right in the room with you.

Now, the person I learned from most about this was Steve Jobs.

If you watch his original keynote from the first iPhone launch in 2008, he is amazing at creating this conversational room like you and him are just golf buddies shooting the shit.

Now, this is very intentional and took years of practice for him to hone in.

He's also very gifted at it.

By doing this, Emma, Casey, Steve, and others are able to break down that conscious barrier of personal identity.

Instead of you questioning to yourself, am I getting sold to you?

Get out of your own mind and just feel like you're in a conversation.

Like you would have to answer a question that they ask you directly in a way you forget where you are.

And that's the magic of this.

Now I'm still working on this myself.

I've only been making content for like 18 months, but if you go back to my first 50 videos, it really does feel like I'm talking at you instead of with you.

The best tactical way to get better than this other than just a hundred reps is to write and film your videos as if you're talking to one close friend.

If you have to just print out a picture of them and tape it on the bottom of your camera lens.

So you're literally looking at them as you record and when you write your scripts, make it so like you're typing a text or recording an audio note directly to them.

Over time, you'll get better at this conversational nature, but it will feel like you're having a one-on-one conversation.

That's how you break down this barrier.

Tone is one of those things that inevitably you will get better over time.

The more you film, the more you forget that the camera is just a camera.

All right.

Tip number four is direction.

This may seem counterintuitive, but the best place to start when you're writing a story is the end.

Figure out what the end is going to be and then work backwards from there.

I like to call the last line of my script the last dab because I want it to be so memorable that if that's all someone heard, they'd be willing to share it with a friend.

In short form video, especially the video is designed to loop.

So the last line is actually a setup for the first lines as it replays.

I think of this a lot like baseball.

The nine hitter is supposed to set the table for the top of the order.

It's the exact same thing with the last line or two of your video.

When you're thinking about how to write the script, focus on where you want to take the viewer.

What do you want to leave them with?

What do you want the last thing they hear to be?

Then you can work backwards from there and build up that dance in the middle.

When I think about someone that does this super well, it's Christopher Nolan.

Think about his films, Tenet, Inception, Interstellar.

These are extremely complicated plot lines that inevitably he had to work out the end before he could build up the conflict in the middle.

Now you're probably not shooting feature films, but this same logic can be applied to all types of content.

Usually when I'm writing scripts, I'll write the first and last line.

I'll go in between, create a bunch of space, and then I'll fill it in.

That's a good tactical way to try to get better at this.

All right, tip number five is a concept that I call story lenses, and it's a way to get better at producing unique content for social media.

In today's day and age, finding a cool topic is not enough.

Unless you're super niched down, there's likely dozens of other people that are talking about that same topic.

So how do you differentiate?

A story lens is your unique angle or spin on a particular story.

Imagine a beam of light.

The beam of light's coming across the screen.

The naked beam, everyone looks at and sees the same thing.

It's like this white beam of light.

But as soon as you put a lens or a prism in front of the light, what people see will look differently than the main beam.

Think of that prism or that lens as your story lens.

It's your unique fingerprint and how you uniquely tell the story about that topic.

Let's take an example.

When Taylor Swift went to the Super Bowl, the most common lenses would have been to talk about what she's wearing or when she's getting there or what her facial reaction is to something.

A lot of people covered those exact same stories.

A less common lens would be to talk about a prediction for what you think might happen. Less people would have that.

But an even less common lens would be to talk about the business impact that she was driving on the NFL for being at the game.

And that's the lens that I chose to take because I thought I could be a category of one. That's why I ultimately made this video and it pulled a million views.

It was different.

My story lens was something unique that people hadn't seen before.

All right, the last tip, number six, is the hook.

Now, I left this for last because everybody always talks about the hook first.

And it makes sense. It is very important.

If people churn on the hook, the rest of what I talked about doesn't really matter.

So I've got two ways to level up your hooks.

The first is that your first line should be as punchy and as indicative of the plot as possible. If the video is about your best garden techniques, the hook should be some derivative of these are the best garden techniques for X or I've got these garden techniques or this thing is a garden technique that you should study.

You shouldn't start your hook with some open, opaque line like, wait till you see this or you're never going to believe this.

Because if the first line doesn't immediately grab the viewer in short form video, you're dead.

The second point on hooks that's extremely powerful and something I overlooked for a long time is that visual hooks are 10 times more effective than audio only hooks.

What does this mean? When you're on the screen and you're saying something, but the only thing the viewer can see is your mouth moving and maybe the captions dancing. That's going to be way less effective than if you put a visual on the screen for them to look and react to because people's eyes perceive faster than their ears can hear. So you want to complement what you're saying with a visual on the screen. This is a visual hook.

Somebody that's really good at this is my friend Kevin from Epic Gardening.

If you watch his videos, he immediately shows a visual that confirms what he's talking about. Like this one about strawberries.

Before I hear anything he says, I see a strawberry on the screen.

It's vivid red. Immediately I know this video is going to be about strawberries.