The storytime reel is the oldest format there is and the one most often done badly. It works on a single mechanism: the viewer wants to find out how something ended. Everything in the format either serves that or gets in its way.
Most storytime reels fail before the story starts, because they begin with context instead of trouble.
Start at the trouble
The shape
| Beat | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Trouble | Opens the question | One line |
| Escalation | Makes it worse or stranger | One or two lines |
| Turn | The thing that changed it | One line |
| Point | Why you told them | One line, short |
One incident, one point
The commonest failure after a slow opening is a story that tries to carry two lessons. A viewer will take away one thing at most from thirty seconds, and given two they take neither.
If the incident genuinely taught you two things, that is two reels. You needed one for tomorrow anyway.
Detail is what makes it true
The difference between a story that lands and one that sounds invented is almost always specificity. A place, a day, an amount, a sentence someone actually said.
A customer once complained about a delay is forgettable. A man stood at that counter for twenty minutes on a Saturday telling me the sweets were late for his daughter's engagement is a story. Same incident, and only one of them is believed.
- Name the place if you can, or the kind of place.
- Give a number — how long, how much, how many.
- Quote one line of what was actually said. A direct quote does more than a paragraph of description.
- Say when. Last week and three years ago produce different stories.
When the story involves someone real
Most good stories in a business involve a customer, a supplier or a member of staff, and most of them did not agree to appear in your marketing.
- Change identifying details — the name, the exact date, anything that would let a local viewer work out who it was.
- Never tell a story that makes a real, identifiable person look foolish. It reflects on you, not on them.
- Ask if the story is flattering and identifiable. People usually say yes and are pleased to be asked.
- Do not invent an incident. A fabricated story told as true is the fastest way to lose an audience that later works it out.
The short version
- Open at the trouble. Background is the first thing to cut.
- Four beats: trouble, escalation, turn, point. Anything else is not in the story.
- One incident, one point. Two lessons means none.
- Specific detail is what makes it believed — a number, a place, a quoted line.
- Change identifying details when a real person is in it.
- Never invent the incident.