007. How to Tell a Story on YouTube (and Anywhere Else)

Story Greenlight with Jeff Bartsch

What do you do when you’re one of millions of creators on a platform like YouTube, and you’re looking to connect with your audience AND set yourself apart from the crush of digital humanity? You use storytelling in your content, that’s what you do.

In this episode, Jeff talks about how storytelling isn’t some shiny new tactic – it’s one of the fundamental ways that human beings connect with each other. We all do it all the time, and anyone can do it when they use the right tools the right way.

And it works for your content too, especially if you think your stuff doesn’t work with story. We promise you, it does.

Think of this episode as the distillation of film school, plus 20 years of content shaping for some of the biggest media companies on the face of the planet, filtered through what works and doesn’t work for YouTube. No need for pointless film school theory and screenwriter snobbery, just skip right to the good stuff right here.

SHOW NOTES

0:00 A pretty epic introduction, if we do say so.

4:58 A Million Miles in A Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story, by Donald Miller, https://amzn.to/3mmFcDU

7:12 Where the actual power of story comes from, and who it's for

8:28 Story mirrors life – the difficulty of empathy without story

10:04 The Master Story Framework

11:10 Expanding the Framework is HARD – why “Hollywood movies suck”

14:20 About The Hero’s Journey

15:30 Adding Hero’s Journey elements to YouTube – importance of The Guide

16:48 What does our audience want? Emotional change, or an answer to a question

17:15 Condensing the Framework is EASY – importance of CHANGE

18:36 Two kinds of change – external and internal

20:09 The importance of stakes

23:17 Using story structure in story-driven pieces – missing elements that sabotage stories

26:03 Using story structure in non-story-driven pieces – the mental shift

29:54 Everything hinges on your viewer’s desire for internal change – 4 steps to do that

31:27 The role of mini stories – Story Nuggets

33:19 What if my people just want information? The danger of only giving information…

35:45 Story formats for non-story-driven pieces: Story Bookend

37:00 Fix This Build That: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHYSw4XKO_q1GaChw5pxa-w

37:26 Story format: Intercutting Segments

38:24 Intercutting Segments: Dan Thompson from Guns and Guitars: I built my DREAM Rickenbacker...then gave it away https://youtu.be/9jFJNcQt8mk

39:42 Intercutting Segments: Debi’s Design Diary – My Favorite Uploads playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVwr-Pr6V4ivgiYRUXA-t4Y-83sYy_K2I

40:57 Story format: Story Nuggets

41:49 Jeff’s change of mind about the role of story – story isn’t enough all by itself, but it adds fuel to everything else that needs to be there. And the payoff is well worth it.

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If you like these kind of ideas and want to apply them specifically to YOUR content, then you should join our private community called The Green Room. It’s all about leveling up your content, leveling up yourself, and getting things DONE with the support of an active community of creato

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