“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” wrote the iconic journalist-essayist Joan Didion, and her statement is no exaggeration. Sharing stories is an integral component of the human experience, allowing us to better relate to one another and understand the world around us. The form a story takes influences the story itself, how audiences receive it, and its ongoing legacy. Here’s what you need to know about the four main types of storytelling.
1. Oral storytelling
One of the oldest storytelling modes is oral, or the verbal relaying of a story. For a long time, this was ephemeral, as stories would be retold, but never the exact same way twice. Some of our most enduring and well-known texts began in the oral form before they were written down. These include ancient religious scriptures, such as the Bible and Koran; epic poems, such as the “Odyssey” and “Aeneid”; and fables and folktales, like those ascribed to Aesop and collected by the Brothers Grimm.
With the advent of audio recording technology around the turn of the 20th century, oral stories started being captured and disseminated on a new scale. Today, the oral storytelling method is alive and well in media such as podcasts and radio plays.
Programs such as “The Moth,” “This American Life,” and of course, our very own In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast rely explicitly on oral storytelling, with actors, writers, comedians, and everyday people sharing stories just as people have done since the beginning of time. And if you’ve ever gotten home from work and told your partner about your day, you’ve engaged in the time-honored tradition of oral storytelling, as well!
2. Visual storytelling
Visual storytelling is the practice of using images to share a story. This can cover a wide swath of media, from cave paintings all the way to the latest Marvel movie. The best stories use visual profundity to weave narratives that words alone could not sufficiently convey. This was the goal of a medieval sculptor, just as it is the goal of a contemporary Hollywood cinematographer.
As such, visual storytelling’s traditions, techniques, and fundamentals are often carried across mediums and have stood the test of time. If you’re a film director, for example, you might study comic books when deciding how to best choose and sequence your shots; and if you’re a comic book artist, you might look at the work of Renaissance painters to better understand how to best depict light.
3. Written storytelling
With the advent of written language came the beginning of written storytelling. It has seen many iterations and forms, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Stephen King’s horror canon.
Some of the oldest examples of written stories take the form of poetry, such as the oldest surviving love poem, “Istanbul #2461,” and the transcribed version of the “Epic of Gilgamesh.” These continue to be read to this day and have had a lasting influence on our modern conception of story structure and archetypes.
Of course, when most people think of written storytelling, they think of novels. This storytelling mode began to take shape in the 15th century, when the printing press allowed for books to be more widely spread. Although European literary movements such as the Chivalric romance and the Renaissance novella helped shape the medium, the first novel is thought to be Murasaki Shikibu’s “Tale of Genji,” written in Japan in the 11th century.
Today, novels such as George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series “A Song of Ice and Fire” and Zakiya Dalila Harris’ “The Other Black Girl” are often adapted into multimedia projects including films, TV shows, plays, and video games. Written storytelling in these genres takes place when a screenwriter or playwright creates a script, which is then translated into performance.
4. Digital storytelling
Digital storytelling harnesses the power of digital tools to tell stories. The latest method on the scene, it has rapidly become one of the most prominent and can be found everywhere online. Think of vlogs posted to Casey Neistat’s YouTube channel, web series like Issa Rae’s “Awkward Black Girl,” or the plethora of scrollable short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram.
But while digital storytelling may be a new Wild West, it’s heavily indebted to the other, older forms of storytelling. Let’s take a vlog, for example. It often has a primary subject who tells viewers about their day, which is oral storytelling. Footage and images go along with the subject’s spiel, providing visual storytelling. And many vlogs rely on scripts so that the vlogger can organize their thoughts before recording themselves; that’s written storytelling.
As such, digital storytelling is often an amalgamation of many of the storytelling forms that came before it. This conveys an important lesson: No matter what type of storytelling method you’re aiming for, be sure to learn from the universe of storytellers who came before you. Odds are, their stories will have something to tell you.
