On stories, message and social media
Storytelling is the latest buzzword. Every organisation these days has to have a story to tell. Is it a fashionable marketing phrase? Not really. Storytelling is not new. We were always telling each other stories. It's just that we sometimes forget. Thinking that passing dry facts to each other is an effective way to get people moving. But that doesn't work. A story is what people remember about you.
Does every journalistic story, press release, business plan or grant application now have to be a literary masterpiece? Can you no longer get away with always starting with an atmospheric image, falling rain, a crackling fireplace and an obvious bad guy? Should there be a plot in your press release!
Of course not.
Storytelling for practical writers and image-makers is a fresh, different way of thinking. A different perspective on how to get your message across. For that, you need to know what your actual story is.
Do you work at a museum because the municipality happened to have a spare building and wanted to show some old stuff from the attic in a fun way? Do you make theatre because there happened to be a subsidy pot and you had nothing better to do? Are you writing a journalistic report because someone sent a press release and you had to add some images and text?
Even if it were so, there is always a story in it, a story to tell. There is always a core, a spark, a passion, a moment that defines everything that follows. That's where your story is. That's where you impress your reader, listener or viewer.
About the lecturer
For a long time, Wijbrand Schaap began his story on Culture Press with an X-ray image of his shattered leg. It was autumn 2008 and his life was in tatters. Not just that leg, but the entire newspaper world had collapsed. From his - fortunately temporary - wheelchair, the plan for Cultural Press was born. It is now impossible to imagine the Dutch cultural world without it.
'But actually that story started much, much earlier,' he says of it now. 'It started with being read to by my mother. Very old-fashioned, at night before bed. Niels Holgersson's Wonderful Journey, neatly dosed by my mother with a cooking timer because otherwise we would both forget the time. That's where the love for story, for imagination, began. The fact that my father was a journalist and sat above us in his study typing away every night will also have helped, of course.'
Since those evenings with cooking timer, Selma Lagerlöf and the typewriter, Wijbrand Schaap has been constantly looking for new, better ways to tell stories. During his theatre studies as an interviewer and researcher, as a director in student theatre and as a journalist: the new is as important as the news.
- This workshop is for anyone with writing experience who wants to learn to write better: public relations practitioners, journalists, ceos and hobby writers with some experience.
- We will cover the basics of storytelling, inspiration and story building through small assignments and mutual feedback.
- The workshop will last from 13:00 to 17:00 and conclude with drinks.
- Maximum 10 participants.
- Date: 9 May
- Location: De Schuur, Wijde Doelen 8 in Utrecht
Costs:
| Non-members (become a member HERE) | 99.00 € (including VAT) |
| Members Login | 49.00 € (including VAT) |
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