When it comes to social media in 2024, short-form video is king. So much so that creators are perfecting a new kind of storytelling designed to fit into a three-minute limit. And, with viewers’ attention spans getting shorter and shorter, learning how to tell stories in as little time as possible is an important skill. This micro-storytelling makes content memorable and shareable and can be easily adapted to fit any niche or genre you create in.
That’s why, in today’s article, we’re diving into micro-storytelling. We’ll go over the fundamentals of a micro-story, how to impact your audience emotionally, and more!
The Fundamentals 📝
Micro-storytelling is a form of storytelling designed to be short, concise…well, micro! It’s supposed to be brief and impactful, usually made for short-form video and social media platforms. The key aspects of micro-storytelling are:
Conciseness ✅
Micro-stories range anywhere from a few seconds to a minute – maybe two or three. It distills stories down to the most essential elements to share a complete and engaging story quickly.
Focused Narrative ✅
The stories usually center around a single idea or moment. There’s not a lot of time to interweave topics or ideas, and the audience has to be able to grasp the message without a lot of background information or competing narratives. A good micro-story just follows one story at a time, making the most use of the audience’s attention.
Plot Structure ✅
Even though it’s short, your micro-story has to have a plot. All stories need a plot but it’s essential to making your micro-stories work. We’ll go over those specific details a little later.
(Ideally) Character Development ✅
You’ll mostly need character archetypes and small mannerisms for micro-stories; enough differences for us to be able to tell your characters apart. But if you want to create a series out of your micro-story, think about how the characters will grow and build over time.
(Ideally) Emotional Engagement ✅
Micro-stories aim to elicit some kind of emotional response from the audience. Most of them will hope for laughter or excitement, but some micro-stories want to tug at our heart strings. ASPCA commercials are the perfect example of a micro-story meant to evoke a very emotional response.
Structuring Your Plot ⏲️
The most important part of a micro-story is the plot. You’ve got to have a concise and engaging plot if you want your audience to be interested. Some of us are naturally good story tellers and don’t have to think about it! But for those of us that can be a little verbose, we recommend an abridged version of the classic three-act structure. We’ll use a one minute timeframe for easy explanation.
Setup 🛠️
Within the first ten seconds, introduce your main characters and the setting. Establish the situation and the roles they’re about to play quickly and hook the audience.
Conflict 💥
Most of the video will be the central conflict or problem, the driving force of the plot. Going back to the ASPCA commercial, this is the part of the video showing you the cute dogs and sad cats, encouraging you to donate.
Resolution ✨
The last twenty seconds (or less) will be resolving the conflict. This should be an end to the conflict or, if you want to make a series, an introduction to the next problem. You can resolve conflict through a twist, a joke, or a heartfelt moment.
You can adjust this to fit your video or skit, but this structure will give you a solid base to build from. And once you have your base, you can start adding in some elements to make your videos even more enticing.
Emotional Impact 🤩
Developing emotion in a micro-story can be difficult. How can you make the audience feel something in less than a minute? The answer is your script! You don’t have to rely so much on your acting skills, music, or editing: for micro-stories, it comes down to how well and how quickly you can get across the dialogue. Or, if you’re not planning to say anything, the scene’s action itself.
They don’t have to be perfectly, artistically crafted. You don’t need a BA in Theatre to get people emotionally invested in your story. The main thing you need is strong characters, relatable situations, and concise language.
Strong Characters 🥰
You don’t have to have to build amazing, complex, complicated characters to create strong characters. You just need a few solid archetypes. The caring mother, the rebellious teenager, the super nice waitress, the rude customer, etc. The key to characters in a micro-story is making them simple and easy to understand. Give us a few details that we can all picture or relate to. Archetypes and stereotypes (so long as they aren’t hurtful) will go a long way here.
Relatable Situations 🤬
The easiest way to elicit an emotional response from your audience is to make them empathize with your characters. That means either creating relatable situations or bringing up relatable emotions. Your audience will be able to recognize and empathize with these emotions immediately, even if they haven’t gone through them exactly as they appear in your micro-story.
Take, for example, the nice waitress and rude customer example above. Your micro-story could be about the sweet waitress dealing with a rude diner who constantly has complaints or crazy requests for them. Your audience may not know that exact feeling or have first-hand experience in this situation, but they’ll understand the increasing frustration and fear of the waitress. They’ll probably empathize with the bystander who finally snaps and tells the rude customer to shut up!
Even if the micro-story isn’t super relatable, play on emotions that your viewers will no doubt understand.
Concise Language 🤓
With micro-stories, you have to keep your language short and to the point. You need to use as few words as possible to explain how the character feels or thinks. You can still have them describe or list something if necessary, but you want to keep everything bare-bones. Every line should push the conflict forward or reveal something new about the characters and/or situation. This helps the audience dive into the story, keeps them engaged, and keeps the focus on the relatable emotion or situation. You don’t have to be Shakespeare or write the most perfect script ever. It just needs to be easy for your audience to follow.
Crafting Your Script ✍️
Since you’re working with quite a few constraints, we recommend taking a moment to develop a rough script before you start filming. You don’t have to plan out everything you’re going to say or do, but having an idea of what you’re saying or doing will be immensely helpful. Going back to our waitress example, your script can look like this:
“Hello, welcome to the restaurant! My name is–”
“Where’s the bread?”
“I can get that. What about something to drink?”
“No, we need our bread first.”
Since the dialogue is the main focus and you’re dealing with just two characters, this is more than enough for you to go off of. But, if you want to be more granular, that’s fine! This could look like:
Shot One: Waitress walks up to table. “Hello, welcome to the restaurant! My name is–”
Shot Two: Rude customer interrupts herS.”Where’s the bread?”
Shot Three: Waitress is taken aback. “I can get that. What about something to drink?”
Shot Four: Rude lady scoffs, rolls her eyes. “No, we need our bread first.”
Jotting down a quick script will not only keep you on track but make filming so much easier. You can still be flexible and let your creativity flow, all while hitting the most important beats for your micro-story.
Your Caption 💬
Don’t forget the caption and hashtags when creating your video! You want these to be engaging and eye-catching, too. A tried and true method is to have a question relating to the video in the caption. “Can you believe she said that?!” What would you have done?” Similarly, you can have a simple caption that makes the viewers wonder what’s going to happen. “She was insane!” “That is just like Judy. 🤦”
Some creators will keep it extra simple and just use “Part One” or “Part Two” in the caption. If you’ll be making more in this specific series, this is a great caption! It keeps people coming back for more.
Closing 🎀
While we’ve taken a narrative approach to micro-storytelling, it can be used for any kind of video you create. Whether you’re doing a tutorial, a storytime, or even a little clog, you can use these elements to make your videos more exciting and engaging. With a hook, relatable conflict, and a satisfying ending, how could anyone go wrong?
To learn more about storytelling, check out our storyboarding article! Read our mini series analysis for extra tips on making your short content exciting.