--- title: Storytelling description: Storytelling is the art of structuring narratives to engage and influence audiences. You will understand how to build compelling plots, develop relatable characters, and use emotional arcs to communicate messages effectively across various media and professional contexts. category: personal-development subcategory: communication difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/communication-storytelling --- # Storytelling Storytelling is the art of structuring narratives to engage and influence audiences. You will understand how to build compelling plots, develop relatable characters, and use emotional arcs to communicate messages effectively across various media and professional contexts. ## Available Resources 1 Videos • 5 Books • 2 Courses • 6 Websites ## Videos ### 1. David JP Phillips' talk 'The magical science of storytelling' **Author:** David JP Phillips A TEDx talk by presentation coach David JP Phillips on how stories trigger specific hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins. Viewers learn to choose and structure anecdotes deliberately to hold attention, build trust and make a message memorable. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj-hdQMa3uA **Tags:** storytelling, public-speaking, persuasion, presentation-skills, ted-talk ## Websites ### 1. Pixar in a Box - Khan Academy Khan Academy's collaboration with Pixar breaks filmmaking into interactive lessons on story structure, character, visual language and the math behind animation. Working through the exercises shows how narrative decisions and technical craft shape a finished film. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar **Tags:** storytelling, story-structure, animation, filmmaking, character-development ### 2. Helping Writers Become Authors K.M. Weiland's long-running craft blog and podcast covering story structure, character arcs, outlining and scene construction. Readers get a consistent structural vocabulary of beats, arcs and act turns for diagnosing why a draft stalls and revising it. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/ **Tags:** story-structure, character-arc, creative-writing, outlining, revision ### 3. Story Grid Editor Shawn Coyne's method for analysing narrative, using a spreadsheet that tracks genre conventions, obligatory scenes and value shifts scene by scene. Applying it gives a concrete diagnostic for where a manuscript loses tension or breaks reader expectation. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://storygrid.com/ **Tags:** story-structure, editing, genre-conventions, scene-analysis, narrative-craft ### 4. duarte.com Duarte is a premier presentation design firm that helps individuals and teams craft persuasive slide decks through design, storytelling coaching, and training services. The site offers information on their services, case studies, speaking engagements, and resources such as articles and books on presentation design. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://duarte.com **Tags:** websites, personal-development, communication ### 5. themoth.org The Moth is a nonprofit dedicated to storytelling, presenting live, unscripted personal stories told on stage and distributed as podcasts, radio, and video. Explore a vast archive of true stories, catch upcoming events, and access resources for aspiring storytellers. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://themoth.org **Tags:** websites, personal-development, communication ### 6. Storytelling with Data **Author:** Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's site on communicating with data, with blog posts, makeover examples, a podcast and community challenges. It teaches how to choose effective charts, remove clutter, direct attention and build a clear narrative around quantitative findings for business audiences. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://storytellingwithdata.com **Tags:** data-storytelling, chart-design, data-communication, decluttering, presentation-design ## Courses ### 1. Storytelling and influencing: Communicate with impact An ambitious vision for the future of your organisation isn’t enough – how do you communicate this vision to get your colleagues on board? The ability to effectively communicate and persuade others is a key leadership skill. Traditional and common-sense models of communication and persuasion often fail to capture the complex nature of ‘influencing’. Via structured learning activities (video lectures, quizzes, discussion prompts and written assessments) this course will develop your capacity to communicate appropriately in different situational and cultural contexts, making you a highly influential leader. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/communicate-with-impact **Tags:** storytelling, influence, persuasion, leadership-communication, business-communication ### 2. The Power of Storytelling IESE Business School's course on using narrative in professional settings, covering story structure, emotional appeal and delivery. Participants practise building talks and pitches that hold attention and make an argument memorable rather than relying on data alone. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-art-of-storytelling-iese **Tags:** courses, personal-development, communication ## Podcasts ### 1. Speak Up Storytelling **Author:** Matthew and Elysha Dicks A weekly podcast that plays a recording from a live storytelling show, then breaks down why it worked: structure, stakes, opening and closing lines, and the small concrete moments that carry a personal story. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://speakupstorytelling.com **Tags:** storytelling, personal-narrative, public-speaking, story-coaching, podcast ## Books ### 1. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting **Author:** Robert McKee Distilled from McKee's long-running Story seminar, covering story values, scene design, act structure, subtext and the gap between expectation and result. Provides a working vocabulary for diagnosing why a scene or script fails to move an audience. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060391685?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, personal-development, communication ### 2. The Storytelling Animal **Author:** Jonathan Gottschall Gottschall draws on psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary theory to argue that humans are compulsive storytellers, examining dreams, play, conspiracy belief and fiction. Readers come away understanding narrative as a cognitive adaptation rather than mere entertainment. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0544002342?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, personal-development, communication ### 3. The Story Factor **Author:** Annette Simmons Annette Simmons explains how to use stories to influence people at work: six types of story to tell, including who-I-am and vision stories, and how listening and delivery shape persuasion. Readers learn to build stories that win trust where facts and argument fail. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465078079?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** storytelling, persuasion, influence, business-communication, narrative ### 4. Resonate **Author:** Nancy Duarte Duarte applies narrative structure to presentations, using the what-is versus what-could-be contrast and a sparkline diagram to analyse speeches by King, Jobs and others. Gives a repeatable method for shaping a talk around audience change rather than slides. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470632011?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, personal-development, communication ### 5. Into the Woods **Author:** John Yorke Yorke, a veteran BBC drama executive, argues all stories share a five-act shape rooted in change, drawing on Aristotle, Shakespeare, Hollywood and television. Readers gain a unified structural model and an account of why that pattern recurs. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141978104?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, personal-development, communication --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/communication-storytelling