Taylor Holland, in her excellent blog post discussing the use of short-form storytelling in marketing, mentions that she has “often worried that brevity will become a lost art” —a concern, she adds, that has lessened with the rise of short-form or “snippet” storytelling social media. This week, we learned about the challenges and benefits of this medium by creating our own live-Tweeted snippet story.
For my story, I was inspired by the short-form Twitter ghost stories that I’ve been reading this week to go on my own adventure: walking into the river valley to take a peek into a creepy playhouse that I had been afraid of for over two years. Rather than creating a fictional story, I decided to lean into the storytelling principles of authenticity and relatability. Marketing entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck advises, “Document, don’t create” —that is, share your genuine experiences and thoughts to build a connection with your audience. In this case, I evoked authenticity by writing in my speaking voice, and added short video clips to make the experience more relatable.
To tell an effective story, I built tension through publishing Tweets one at a time, drawing the reader in just as I experienced anticipation while descending the river valley. As I neared the climax and reached the house, I chose to incorporate more video clips. As Ashley Fell discusses in her TEDx Talk, which I covered last week, visuals are powerful tools to harness a digital audience’s attention; as such, I relied solely on video as I finally peered inside the house. Finding no ghosts, but lots of graffiti, I returned to a text-based medium that would break the tension and lead the audience to the resolution of the story. The final Tweet attempts to convey my own feelings that the “curse” has been lifted, now that I had taken the step to indulge my curiosity.
On the other side of this live-Tweeting experience, I believe that the challenge of Twitter’s word limit is the true power of snippet storytelling. The medium itself forces us, as creators, to distill our thoughts to their purest form. In doing so, it becomes easy to arrive at your most authentic voice, showing the world your personality. I look forward to incorporating these lessons into my long-form stories.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 