stop telling stories 3

STOP TELLING STORIES

Why storytelling isn’t the answer to good content

Monday, 3 October 2011

1. It’s not an English lesson2. Collect content, not stories3. Content is needy4. Arguments for arguments

1. It’s not an English lesson

• Tone of voice• Language• Stories• Character• Audience• Points of view

Content?


Content has come to be understood in terms of ‘The kind of stuff people who did English know about’.

WHY STORYTELLING?• Sounds warm and wholesome• Sounds like something anyone can do, while implying a skill• Sounds social and/or interactive = hip• Sounds like meaning and learning will result• Sounds accessible. We all think we know what it is


Storytelling has become a huge word in the world of marketing and strategising, massively associated (wrongly) with content, massively associated (wrongly) with writing for the web, and massively associated (wrongly) with superior accessibility of message.

CONTENT ISN’T ‘STORIES’


Content without context has no reason. ‘Story’ implies something complete, opinionated and meaningful -- and is a really dangerous way of viewing content. A story is a word for a self-contained report, or message, but content refers to a substance more fluid and interconnected. Vague memories of English lessons are exploding in a big meaningless mess, and rigour is going out the window.

CONTENT IS JUST WHAT GOES IN


Content is the stuff that isn’t the structure. It is regulated by the structure, but it isn’t the structure. It’s not the ‘how you say things’ or the ‘what’s best to say’. It’s just stuff you put in.

THE STUFF THAT FILLS THE GRID


More than anything, content needs a place to go.

2. MAGAZINES ARE EVERYTHING


The purest and most successful form of content collection and distribution on earth = the magazine. Most things are magazines now. Most social websites are magazines of sorts, collecting themed information after a set of principles. Collaborative websites *are* limits about collecting and distributing. THE ACTUAL PIECES OF CONTENT ARE THE LAST CONSIDERATION. A lot of content is interchangeable, within certain parameters, it’s relatively arbitrary. It can be swapped about, can come and go.

No, content isn’t king. The REASON governing content is king.

•All issues are united by CONTEXT, not content•Grids are rules.

MAGAZINES ARE GRIDS OF REASON


1. Issues of a magazine are not united by common content but by the identical context they impose: the format.2. Grids are rules, they accept some things and exclude others

•Unlike stories, content is needy.•Rationale comes from formalism, not English lessons.

3. Content is needy


*Unlike stories*, content demands a context – a rationale that justifies every bit of stuffʼs inclusion. Rationale means understanding the disciplines of formalism, not cobbling together half-remembered ideas from third year English.

“Content is a glimpse of something, an

encounter like a flash. It’s very tiny, content.”

- Willem De Kooning


The significance of content depends entirely on how it’s framed. It gets its meaning from context. Stories, on the other hand, take their meaning with them wherever they go.

We don’t need more content strategists

We need more content-ambivalent formalists

Because you can’t start with content

Because stuff needs a reason to be there


Reason/co ordinates/ rationale/structure/

form/point/argument/ defense/ case/justification/

grid/rules

Decisions about specific content

THEN

FIRST


Content has two phases, by the far the most important of which is the first.

•Truth-seeking.•Testable.•Frameworks for inserting optimal ideas.•Precede everything.•Don’t need an ‘expert’; do need intelligence.•Go hand-in-hand with the unrepresentable.

4. The argument for arguments


•They put things in context. They are a truth-seeking point of view for situating data in the universe.•They are programmes to be replicated in the head of the recipient, ending with realisation, rather than feelings.•They are frameworks in which to insert the ‘best case for’... the ‘best case for’ a good tone of voice. The ‘best case for’ including this content over that one, etc.•They’re more persuasive, compelling, and comprehensible than ‘strategies’, whatever they may be.•They arise out of the unrepresented. Non-representational work always asks for a case to be made. Representational work (paintings, movies, stories) ask you to believe without interrogation or standards.•For these reasons, the non-representational is open to mockery, and people veer towards the representational.

Content locks together. Stories don’t.


Pieces of content are battleships that can interlock on a grid. Stories, on the other hand are nuanced and temperamental. They don’t usually like to fit together, each one wants to be the star.

Stories don’t like arguments• They’re representational• ...and self-contained• Online, social storytelling means expressing feelings

and showing off• No reason here. You either ‘get it’ or you don’t


Stories are representational. They are artful. No one is excluded, so there are no restrictions, so there are no reasons. They are roundabout ways of delivering messages, and by asking us to provide our own personal mental context, they play host to multiple interpretations. They are an expression of a point, do not answer to reason, and do not ask to be trusted.

• A subjective view• Exist outside of any rational context• Self-sufficient, with self-governed meaning• Online social ʻstorytellingʼ is dominated by inward-looking artefacts that put the self at the centre • No reasoning means no reason to make sense.

You either ʻgetʼ it, or you donʼt

WHICH IS FINE


But it does give them a form factor thatʼs incompatible with a lot of other formats.

CONTENT ISN’T STORIES!

EVERYTHING IS A MAGAZINE

ARGUMENTS AND REASONS GIVE CONTENT NECESSARY LIMITS

SO...


In summary, then.

stop telling stories 3

Design

content grids

common content

content strategists

signicance of content

lot of content

content locks

content isnt king

reason governing content