7 Storytelling Mistakes That Are KILLING Small Creators

today we're talking about storytelling the easiest way to get your content to perform better is to tell better stories and the thing is most people just need a few small tweaks and then their content explodes so in this video I'm going to break down the seven biggest storytelling mistakes to avoid and as soon as you hear them I guarantee it will change the way you think about storytelling by the way I'm Callaway I've done billions of views have almost a million followers and this is all I do all day long all right let's dive in

now the first storytelling mistake is a big one and it will shock you you've probably seen this visual the story arc we all learned this in school it was touted as the best way to tell a story you start with some background initial conflict rising action some climax falling action and a resolution this is the prototypical structure of a great story well it turns out in this era that structure is completely wrong it's kind of like the food pyramid remember when you were taught that 50% of your diet should be bread yeah exactly turns out

that was outdated thinking as well same thing here the traditional story arc is not the best formula for telling winning stories in the internet era and I want to tell you exactly what's wrong with it the story arc is basically a single bell curve start low rise High come back down this is what Pixar does this is what Hollywood does this is how many of the greatest novels were written but it won't work online and that's because people have experienced time compression whether we like it or not because of the internet the storytelling Pace required

to hold someone's attention is much faster than we think our brains have just sped up and this means the traditional story arc won't work because 80% of your viewers will bounce before the rising action even gets interesting it's just way too slow to hold attention that old story arc was built when the only options for entertainment were 2hour movies 300 Page books or a drunk uncle around the fire at a family function you couldn't leave they had you captive and if you don't believe me when was the last time you were able to sit down

for a full movie in theaters exactly now the movies may have gotten worse but it's really because subconsciously you just prefer a faster speed this is years and years of slowly increasing your Baseline processing so as a Storyteller in the internet era you have to take a completely different approach the modern story arc I deated calling it the Callaway story arc looks something like this first its initial intro hook with context and characters but it doesn't start at zero intensity it starts at about 70 out of 100 the full intro has to be delivered at

this level then very quickly in the first minute or two there is some conflict or contrast introduced where the intensity graph spikes even higher to about 90 out of 100 this is actually the first major conflict moment and sets the stage for maximum attention captur over the next couple minutes the tension finally releases slowly heading back down to somewhere around 30 out of 100 this is like a wave The Tide is going out finally releasing some of that tension but then the story starts to build back up again until it Peaks back with another conflict

or head fake somewhere around 75 out of 100 and then again release and this cycle of peak and release continues on a 2 to 5 minute Cadence until the video is over now the biggest Peak can either be the first one with sub subsequent Peaks ramping down or the last one with all the Peaks leading up but either way there are some massive differences between the traditional story arc and the modern one first the intros are completely different on the internet you have to hook somebody initially or the rest of the story doesn't really matter

none of the last 95% of the work is even seen if somebody bounces after the first 5% so in modern stories that intro has to be above zero and then you can release tension later second the timing of that first conflict or contrast or Stakes moment has to be earlier for the same logic as the intro because now since there are infinite content options for people to choose you have to give them a reason to stay immediately and then third you'll notice that the rise and fall around the conflict is similar but there are many

more peaks in the modern version than traditional this is called reh hooking it's super important I'll explain more later how to do it so in summary stories have changed because attention has changed you can no longer hold people captive you have to earn the right to their attention in 5 minute increments and I got to say there will always be room for the pixars and the Hollywood Classics that still follow that traditional story arc but unless Christopher Nolan is watching this and Chris if you are please leave a comment the rest of us are not

in the business of making movies we're trying to hold attention on our content to help our viewer accomplish some task so mistake number one for beginner storytellers is not realizing that the strategy and Arc of modern stories has changed because of time compression now for the rest of this video I'm going to walk through six more tactical ways that you can reposition your story to take advantage of this the second mistake beginner storytellers make is that they build their intros in the wrong order I call this jumbling the W's you have who what where when

why and how I just mentioned how important the intros are to a modern story while traditional stories build their intros like this first they use where and when it was a long cold windy night in December or last month I was at a conference in Miami so they start by setting the scene context then they go into The Who and the what Billy was walking down the street or I saw the CEO of Disney speak and then finally they go into the how the why he fell because it was slippery he is worried about the

future of entertainment because of Regulation that's the traditional story arc in this order where when who what how why so it sounds something like this it was a long cold windy night in December Billy was walking down the street he fell because it was slippery or in a business context last month I was in a conference in Miami I saw the CEO of Disney speak he is worried about the future of entertainment because of Regulation and it sounds decent to our ear but it's just not that interesting and that's because you were leading with facts

that don't matter to the viewer I don't care that you were at a conference just tell me what the CEO said so the modern hook stack looks more like this first it's what and why the future of entertainment is going to look super different then it's who and how the CEO of Disney is worried about it and finally it's when and where he was talking in a conference in Miami about it so it reads like this the future of entertainment is going to look super different the CEO of Disney is really worried about it he

was talking about it at a conference in in Miami now this seems like a really subtle change right but think about it like this in your videos you will lose 50% of viewers in the first 30 seconds think about all that work you did after the first 30 seconds half of your viewers will not see every sentence matters the order of the sentences matters you want to first start immediately with what is happening and why it matters to viewers this is critical they need to opt in your story if you don't start with this they're

still uncertain whether this is for them or not and every second that goes by where they're certain you're losing a portion of them next you need to contextualize who it's for and how you know or how they should trust essentially once you say what is up and why it matters you need to prove that the information is coming from someone credible you or some source and then lastly you can use some personal details like where and when to add color but that's all it is color the where and the when is the icing you don't

lead with the icing you lead with the cake you need to operate on an assumption that everyone listening to your story has an invisible timer in their head some are 5 Seconds some are summer 30 but when that timer strike zero if they don't understand what's in it for them or at least the stakes of why they should care they're bouncing and you've lost don't jumble the W's okay storytelling mistake number three is that you get somebody to buy in with the hook but then you don't get them to Reby in think about poker remember

in Casino Royale when James Bond initially loses the 10 million but then reys in and wins the game essentially he could have bounced but that Reby saved him he stayed hooked on the game you want to think of your stories in the exact same way you have an ini IAL conflict or contrast moment it rises it Peaks you release but you don't want to let the viewer off the hook right there you need them to Reby in with their attention and to do this you need to rehook them the way to reintroduce them is to

tee up new Stakes or reintroduce a new paino after you've solved the first one so for example let's say you're a marketing startup and you're trying to make content to educate startup Founders on why they should run their paid ads a certain way maybe the most critical paino you're talking about is the creative and how if they don't have the creative solved they're going to lose all this traction so you Crescendo first to the solve for the creative and then right as you tell them how to fix it you say something like but the truth

is if you have great creative it'll be underutilized unless you solve for this see so you gave them something but then you created a new problem that they have to stay to solve this is called reh hooking you just keep closing existing loops and opening new ones until the end of the video and after three to four Loops closed they will trust you more because it feels like you solved four of their problems in one but the reality is you just solved their one main problem and then created three new ones to then solve but

the whole time they would have stayed watching and this is critical because social algorithms push your stuff largely based on average view duration how long did someone stay on the video if you want avd to go up you need to rehook throughout the video so they watch for longer and guys it's easy for me to talk about these Frameworks confidently because I've done nothing but study storytelling over the past few years even with these videos knowing what to do is one thing but doing it consistently and making it second nature it's super tough and I

know how hard this was to learn actually took the challenge of trying to distill this thinking all these Frameworks and formulas into a product that made it automatic for people to use on their own videos and it's called sand castles if you struggle with the storytelling and script writing side of videos sand castles takes all the time to go from idea to script and does it automatically 60 minutes a day of work compressed down to 60 seconds and the reason it works so well is because I've spent months trying to figure out how to compress

all these formulas and bake it into the DNA of the product there's really nothing like it so if you think that might help you check out we have a massive weight list so make sure you're on it sand castle. a okay so far we've talked about the general Arc of the story The Hook layering with the jumble W's and then reh hooking throughout now let's get into some specifics around character and plot that can help improve your stories the fourth big storytelling mistake that beginner creators are making is that they're missing a villain stories are

great when they have contrast the hero alone is cool but the hero vers the villain now that's Blockbuster and it's better with a villain because the distance between hero and villain is bigger than hero and nothing this is contrast now you don't actually have to have a character villain in the human sense the villain can be anything for example if you make videos for startup Founders the villain could be Corporate America if you make videos for one career path the villain could be the other you want to pick the thing person group or brand that

is the antagonist of your hero and paint them as the villain accordingly you could use frames like they do this but we we do that this contrast makes it easier to build up the hero and get people more interested and this speaks to the fifth storytelling mistake AK you're not giving the viewer something to root for stories are great when they have Stakes the more likable the hero or relatable the situation the more people have something to root for and get invested in watching you want the viewer to see themselves as the protagonist whether it

be a character or a movement the best way to do this tactically is to make the hero subject likable by building Common Ground the more you can contextualize why your story matters for the Target viewer the more they're going to root for the hero for example I make these videos because I genuinely want entrepreneurs to be able to make more money from content because of that I can share examples in my videos that directly relate to entrepreneurs and when they hear this that makes them want to root more for me as the Creator and for

the formulas and Frameworks that I'm sharing that can help them when people root for you they get optimistic and optimism always wins so give the viewer something to root for now the sixth biggest storytelling mistake you're making is a massive one as well if you can solve for this you are golden in the internet world and the mistake is that you're lacking Atomic sharability so what does this mean Atomic sharability is the ability to condense a story or idea or plot down to a single unit so small that a viewer can take it and go

share with their friend after just a single Watch I think of this as the Paul rever effect think about it Paul rides through Massachusetts and he's screaming the British are coming the British are coming a full story in just four words immediately I imagine everyone in the town is scurrying around the British are coming the British are coming that is 1700's OG virality now the reason this message and that story was able to spread so quickly is because it was said in the most concise unit possible the atomic form of the message this means others

can pass it on super easily so when you tell stories cut all the unnecessary fluff simple words simple ideas Punchy sentences tell your stories in a way that others could retell now I find a tactical way to do this if you're talking about a complex or Niche topic is to say your points twice the first time explain it like you would explain to a colleague but then the second time restate the point and use a metaphor like you were explaining it to a child this will help contextualize the point and reframe it in an easy

iier way to digest now the last mistake I see beginner storytellers making is that they're not doing a good enough job painting the picture you really need visuals if you don't give a visual to help someone absorb the point then you have to paint that visual completely with words they have to try to imagine what you're saying and this can be fun but in most cases it just causes comprehension loss it is so much harder to make a point without also visualizing that point because the human brain was designed for visual input I say this

a lot but a picture is worth a th000 words a video is worth 1,000 pictures so use video visuals to help contextualize the message now with my videos I have Charlie and eek who are absolute Wizards at this hiring them was the greatest thing I could have done as a Content Storyteller I can't emphasize it enough if you're trying to scale up your story quality and you feel like what you're missing is killer visuals I'd recommend exploring teaming up with an editor like this if you want to find editors at the Quality that I have

I have a link in the description all right guys that's all I've got for this video let me know what you guys want to see next I use the comments to guide what videos I create so if you if you have a pain point or a struggle with content drop it in the comments so I know where to focus and until that next video we'll see you guys on the next one peace