Storytelling and the primal need

Publishing industry veteran Jomar Reyes shares his insight on the draw of a well-told story.

By: Jomar Reyes

For the first in our Best Practice Update™ seminar series – all about developing a compelling corporate newsletter – I was recently asked to give a presentation on the ingredients essential to successful publishing. As I gathered all of the details for my topic, a basic – but often overlooked – bit publishing wisdom kept returning to me: for a publication to compel its audience, it must appeal to the desire of the reader. As humans we all have a primal need for knowledge, and knowledge through well-crafted storytelling is what will always resonate best with any audience – be it for a corporate newsletter or a news stand magazine.

Looking back 32,000 years ago, when the oldest-known cave paintings were created, we see that the earliest need to communicate was not just satisfied with gesture and sound. Without a verbal or written record, the pictures are proof of the primal desire for humans to tell and be told stories. Often focused on the hunt, spirituality or other necessities, these paintings celebrated, entertained and taught others tribal members of their communal successes and journeys. They communicated a story of their existence together – in a way, the very first documented news cycle.

Fast forward to the 1400s, where Gutenberg refined the printing process with a machine that marked the beginning of mass print production. Now, “story” was more efficiently transportable on paper and it was replicated on a much larger scale than ever before. Thus began the publishing industry where, as books, papers and pamphlets were more readily available, knowledge became a hand-held commodity.

At the turn of this millennium, the digital age started the biggest revolution since Gutenberg’s press. While paper-based publishing had turned into a multibillion dollar industry, surviving the onslaughts of film, radio and television, it seems that the Internet has brought it to its knees. Advertising revenue and ‘eyeballs’ are migrating to services like Google and a new generation of online publishing networks. With Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, the storytelling process seems to have come metaphorically full circle, with people once again hearing news from friends and family before they get to the mainstream media outlets.

The primal need for knowledge has always been a core part of our DNA, be it 32,000 years ago or in today’s digital age. Because of that thirst to “know” – that element in us that is every bit the eager listener as it is the teller – we must continually ask ourselves if we are meeting the needs of our intended audience when we craft our stories. The preferred type of media will absolutely change, but our desire to be informed, inspired and entertained is non-negotiable; there will always be a market for stories – as long as we tell them well.