Why I Hate Using Facts When Telling A Story
I’m beginning to think that facts are pretty useless when telling a story. And I know every journalist, nonprofit, scientist, and academic is going to come after me on this one. But I’ve been actively encouraging my clients not to use facts in their stories, especially if they hope to get their audience to take a specific action.
A few years ago, I was helping a client build several versions of a story for a Kickstarter campaign. This client was adamant that we include hard facts in the piece so that people understood just how important their cause was. As a young storyteller, I knew that this version of their story wasn’t as strong. But I struggled to explain exactly why they shouldn’t lead the piece with a fact. Now, I know exactly what I’d tell them.
In storytelling, my primary goal is to move people to action. When someone loses themselves in a story, I have a real opportunity to change their behavior. When we travel into a story, we can begin to think, believe, and act as the main character of that story. To say we relate to them is not quite right. If narrative transportation does its job, then we actually become them for a few moments in time. And if you are very engaged in a story, you can even begin to believe that this story is part of your own memories.
The first rule of narrative transportation is that our audience MUST leave their world and travel into the world of the character. They need to relate to that character as a person, feel empathy with them, and be able to visualize the situation that that character finds themself in. Guess what happens if there’s fact in the beginning or middle of a story? We boot our audience out of the world of our character and send them back into their own world where they need to analyze and think about those facts.
I know this might seem counter-intuitive, but let me give the fact lovers out there a couple of facts on why you shouldn’t use facts in your story:
One would think that shocking numbers or facts would inspire people to take action, but Professor Deborah Small of Wharton University conducted a study where she found that the opposite is actually true. Statistics can blunt the emotional response and cause people to think in a manner that is more calculated and uncaring. In other words, when we think rationally, we often feel helpless about a terrible situation and lose our motivation to take action.
Remember that stories actually does the opposite by releasing oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin is the neurochemical responsible for empathy and narrative transportation. Paul Zak pioneered the behavioral study of oxytocin and has proven that when the brain synthesizes oxytocin, people are more trustworthy, generous, charitable, and compassionate. What they learned is that oxytocin makes us more sensitive to social cues around us. In many situations, social cues motivate us to engage to help others, particularly if the other person seems to need our help.
Paul Slovic, professor and psychologist at the University of Oregon, calls our ability as humans to ignore terrible events physic numbing. He says that while numbers in tragedies or disasters, like the COVID-19 pandemic, could be mind-boggling, they don’t trigger empathy as much as individual stories do. In some cases, Slovic said, these high numbers could even stoke apathy.
For those of us who are storytellers but not in Hollywood or fiction, it’s important to note that I’m not saying that we just expand on the truth just to tell a great story. Let’s use basic ethical guidelines here. Instead, I’m saying you don’t have to bombard your audience with mind-numbing (difficult to visualize) facts to get them to care. Save those facts for other places. Use them on your website, your social media, or for grant funding. If you HAVE to use a fact in your films put it towards the end of your piece after your audience has already “traveled” with the main character of your story. If you’re really attached to a fact, I’d recommend testing two versions of the story with your target audience to see which one they relate to more. My money’s on the factless version.
I believe we see more engagement and impact when we choose a relatable human to share our mission or vision and beautiful images and video to show the amazing work you’re doing in the world. Remember the best stories don’t necessarily inform, they entertain. They inspire. They leave you wondering what will happen next. They make you want to do something! That’s the magic of a good story.
If you have a great story that doesn’t use facts, one that you think would be better if it didn’t, or one that has facts but still made an impact. Sent me a link via email or comment on Instagram and I’d love to have a further conversation about it!