Five Storytelling Techniques to Leverage From Taylor Swift
“This is the song about Jake Gyllenhaal”
“They dated?!”
“Just wait. She’s about to tell you a ten-minute story about it.”
This was the conversation my husband and I had this weekend while watching The Eras Tour. I am a Swiftie who first started listening when taking my niece to her Reputation Concert. My Spotify Wrapped quickly surpassed hers as I loved the stories set to music.
Taylor has said her career success is because of her storytelling. We love songs with stories because they make us feel. Susan Cain said in this TED Talk, the average person plays the “happy songs” on their playlist 175 times. The songs that make us experience beauty, wonder, and transcendence average 800 plays. They tell a story that takes us on a journey of recalling the past and hoping for the future.
Story-based songs are immensely popular. Dan Fogelberg and Same Old Lang Syne, Airborne Toxic Event and Sometime Around Midnight, or even Tracy Chapman’s recent performance of Fast Car with Luke Combs are played on repeat. We feel the words and think of our challenges or heartbreak.
Fear not if you aren’t a Swiftie. This isn’t about Taylor. It’s about five techniques that she and other artists use to tell vivid and memorable stories.
Descriptive Details
Photo album on the counter
Your cheeks were turning red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed
These details in All Too Well (Ten-minute version) tell us that Jake brought Taylor to visit his family. We experience his embarrassment as his family shares photos and talks about his childhood. We picture a young boy’s room with a twin-sized bed and the grainy black-and-white school photo of young Jake in glasses.
Details enable us to experience what is happening. We live in Chronos (chronological time), but we remember in Kairos (moments of meaning). Descriptive details do two things. They help us connect with what is happening and place ourselves in the story. They also connect us to our Kairos as we remember similar experiences we’ve had. Lean into this by incorporating details that show what the characters are experiencing or feeling in the story.
Include Metaphors
Taylor fills You’re Losing Me with metaphors. Throughout the song, a bass drum beats like a heart as a line of the chorus repeats, “My heart won’t start anymore.” Gradually, the drum stops beating to signify the death of the relationship.
Every mornin', I glared at you with storms in my eyes
The air is thick with loss and indecision
Metaphors quickly establish understanding. They help anchor the audience’s understanding. They add context, creativity, and clarity, and can also help shift perspectives.
Compare Opposites
In You’re Losing Me, Taylor describes a relationship that is unraveling and she’s trying to decide if it’s over.
“Remember lookin' at this room, we loved it 'cause of the light
Now, I just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time”
She takes you back to a moment in their relationship where there was hope and happiness in the bright room. Then brings you into the dark room to see her doubt. By including this in the opening of the song, we know this relationship has distance, but we don’t know if it can be saved or how it got there. It captures your attention, and you want to know more.
When comparing opposites the audience will typically connect to one of the items and appreciate the opposite. Compare major plot points or simple phrases for vivid imagery.
Show Don’t Tell
There is a balance between telling the events of a story and showing them. Take this stanza from All Too Well (Ten-minute version):
“You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes
Sipping coffee like you’re on a late-night show
But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come
And he said, “It’s supposed to be fun turning twenty-one.”
After delivering these lyrics, she lets them hang with a pause. This makes your brain catch up and think, “HE STOOD YOU UP ON YOUR 21ST BIRTHDAY?!?”
It would have been easy to say, “You stood me up on my birthday.” But by showing us, we feel what she felt. We inevitably feel protective over young Taylor.
Showing what characters experience and feel draws the audience into the story. Your brain tries to finish the story by picturing what’s being described and imagining how it ended.
Ask yourself “How do we know?” to show plot points and details instead of telling them. We know of Taylor’s sadness because of what her father says and how she watches the door. Instead of listing events and outcomes, describe what we would see, hear, feel, smell, and experience if we were in the story as it unfolds.
Incorporate Flashbacks
The All Too Well (Ten-minute version) begins at the start of their relationship. But it’s told in the present day with flashbacks. It’s a journey of Taylor trying to make sense of what happened through these reflections of the relationship forming and falling apart. The flashbacks help us understand how they fell in love and why she felt heartbroken as their relationship fell apart.
Flashbacks give context and help us learn more about the characters. As events are revealed, characters become more relatable, and we empathize with them. Consider incorporating flashbacks in your stories that offer context to the present-day story. Make it clear that you are flashing back so the audience doesn’t experience confusion.
Putting This Into Action
Don’t expect to incorporate these five elements into your story in the first pass. Get the draft of the story down. Include the four-part Story Structure and layer on events and details. Once all the pieces are accounted for, go back through and include these five concepts.
How can you include details to make the descriptions vivid?
Where can you take an idea or sentence and compare it with something opposite?
When might a metaphor bring more meaning?
What can you rework so you can show and not explicitly tell?
How might you incorporate flashbacks for additional context?
Next time you are communicating or telling a story, leverage these five techniques. They’ll take you from singing “It's me, Hi, I'm the problem, it's me” to be a memorable communicator asked to tell stories on repeat.
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