“Dani!”
He turned off the metal music he was blasting through his headphones, took them off and stopped typing. ‘Oh dear,’ Dani thought. ‘What does he want now?’
Tom is typing...
“I’ve got an idea. I want you to write a book!” Dani gave that quizzical eyebrow raise. That one that “The Rock” used to do but fell into the writer’s repertoire of odd facial expressions.
He’s always wanted to write a book. He picked up a tiara that he kept in his desk drawer and placed it on his head. “Go on,” Dani said, his intrigue piqued.
Tom ignored the tiara, but noticed the eyebrow. ‘Standard Dani,’ he thought. “It’s a good one. We need a short book about the awesome power of storytelling for an upcoming event. You interested?” Dani nodded. He knew a bit about storytelling, after all. He’d written courses on the subject, and blogs.
He knew we learn through storytelling, and have done since the dawn of humanity. Those years of history handed down through generations, firstly by word of mouth, and then later through writing.
Tom continued: “I need you to talk about how eLearning benefits from storytelling. How when we learn a new skill, we don’t have to stare blank-eyed at a PowerPoint presentation. We need content with stories, characters, themes, and plot.”
Dani felt an unreasonable deadline was looming, so he took a sip of water before saying, “Look, Tom, I’m snowed under with scripts and social posts, and if I don’t finish those, Rebecca is gonna be annoyed.” “This takes priority, mate,” Tom replied. “I’ve got to get the artwork sorted and get them into print. I need the draft completed by tomorrow.”
Now both Dani’s eyebrows were raised. “I don’t think that’s possible.” Tom smiled wryly and continued: “I’ll help you out. I’ve done the bulk of the content for this already. Have a read of these top tips to help businesses adopt storytelling into their workplace learning and tell me what you think.”
“Tomorrow?!”
Consider your audience
Learning should be accessible for all, but certain subjects aren’t suitable for everyone’s needs. Too high-brow and you’re gonna alienate some of your audience. Too simplistic, you’ll potentially make more skilled learners “zone out.” Work out who your audience is before starting your learning. For example, in this book, we want a nice, conversational style. Did we get it?
All good stories have a start, middle and end, and so should your learning.
Introduce characters and follow their journey, painting a picture of problems they may be having (like unreasonably tight schedules), so you can use the learning to resolve them at the conclusion. You know, like having the boss provide the bulk of the text.
Don’t get carried away with plot, theme, and character development
Yes, this seems a bit backward considering the rest of this story. But if you’re creating eLearning content, for example, all that stuff should be in the background. Learning should be your primary concern. In eLearning, you can tell much of the story visually rather than explicitly telling learners what’s going on and distracting them from the subject at hand.
Characters should be memorable
We can all recognise a stock image when we see one. We tend to zone out when we do, they blend into the background. How do you tell a story with boring characters that aren’t like your employees? Choose colourful characters, created to suit your brand. Or in this case, inspired by real-life events which are relatable.
Use the bizarreness effect
Writing something bland that only covers off the learning objectives won’t draw people in. However, if you do something more creative, and a little bizarre, you can get better results. Something simple like having your “metalhead” character wear a tiara. Don’t overdo it though because learners will ONLY remember the “weirdness” and not the learning.
Use plain, simple language
If you want people to take the learning in, tailor the content for your audience. If it’s a more formal environment, then use appropriate formal language. But we find a friendly, conversational style such as this one, where complicated terms are explained easily is best. It might be a well-known acronym in YOUR business, but not everyone has the same background and experience as you. We humans like to read as we speak.
Make music from your words
Five-word sentences are fine. Even three words. One. But to really create a musical rhythm with your words, you need to vary the length. Aim for fifteen-word sentences as a maximum, unless, like this, you want to engage your learner further, for longer. A combination of short, medium, and long sentences creates copy that learners love to read.
‘Actually, that’s pretty good advice,’ thought Dani. ‘I couldn’t have written it better myself.’
“Ok mate, so all I need to do is explain why we prefer content with storytelling? That it helps key learning to stick, and that having it weave through eLearning makes it engaging, relatable, and simple?”
“Don’t forget that even if the story is there, it should never mean the learning is an afterthought. We want people to learn without feeling like they’re learning,” replied Tom.
“Like this conversation?” “Exactly.” Dani felt immediately more relaxed. Like that indescribable feeling of joy when a job that’s been hanging over his head has been completed. “Well, in that case, I’ll rustle something up tonight. But I expect a bonus, yeah?” “Naturally. I’ll sort that out for you,” promised Tom.
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