The Story Loop

When you start researching YouTube, you will often hear, “You need to open a loop and then close the loop.” By loop, they mean story loop. You can also call it a “scene” or a segment.

Basically, this is talking about story structure, which is ESSENTIAL for keeping your audience engaged, regardless of whether you are logging, doing a “how to video” or a product review.

If you don’t get this down, it is almost inevitable that your YouTube retention graph will always have a downward curve, and your growth will be significantly slowed.

If there was only one thing you did to improve your channel, getting a firm grasping on the “story loop” would have the biggest impact by far!

This is what all my videos used to look like before I learned the “story loop”.

The Story Loop: Set up, Tension, Resolution

In its most simple form, the story loop is the following:

Set up: Here is this thing we will do.

Tension: This is why we are doing it, how we are doing it, why it matters, how we feel about it, and what the process looks like.

Resolution: We did the thing.

Let’s dive into each step with some examples to help you get a firm grasp on this.

Set up:

A “loop” opens by setting up what will or needs to happen. It can also be a question to which you want an answer.

For example:

1. I came upon a fork in the road. Which way should I go?
2. The wind started blowing harder so now we can sail. We should put up the sails.
3. We arrived at the Island, so now we will anchor.

Tension:

Then there is the tension, which is setting the scene, adding the context, the who, what, when, where how. It’s also your feelings and emotions about what is going on and any stakes there may be.

For example:

1. (context) My maps are offline, so I have to guess. Left goes down, and I know the river is down there, so it may let me follow the river and not get lost. But right stays along the main road, which is what I remember from my planning. (feelings) I feel like the river is the safer option here, but I am worried if I go all the way down, (stakes) I’ll have to come back up these stairs and that would suck.
2. (context) The wind is at 20 knots coming from behind us. (feelings) Unfortunately, I am not feeling confident in my abilities to fly the big spinnaker sail in big winds, so instead I will sail wing on wing. (context) We aren’t in a big hurry either, so I also have the option to reef the sails.
3. (context) Our draft on our boat is 3 meters so we can’t anchor too close to land. We have the wind shifting from Northeast to Northwest overnight so we will need to make sure we are protected from both angles. That leaves us with 3 options for anchoring. (feelings) I am worried about dragging anchor at night, so I want to make sure we have plenty of clearance behind us.

Resolution:

The resolution is the completion of the thing you set out to do. It’s the answer (or conclusion that there is no answer) to the question you posed. It’s the decision you have made based on the context you provided. For example:

1. I will go down to the left and risk the stairs back up if I have to turn around.
2. I put up the sails in wing-on-wing formation with one reef each sail.
3. We will anchor on the Southwest side of the anchorage, so we have plenty of coverage from the wind and also plenty of room to drag anchor.

Then What?

The area I see a lot of my course clients get stuck on is connecting loops together to make an entire episode. Each loop is a scene, and every episode will need multiple scenes. After you have resolved a loop/scene, you start all over again.

Let’s keep using the examples I have given you:

EXAMPLE 1

Set up: I walked down the stairs, and I came upon a river. It was clear there was construction going on and the trail was blocked. Should I follow the river or turn back?

Tension: The stairs were brutal, and I really don’t want to climb back up! The path alongside the river looks pretty clear. I know the river connects to the springs I am going to because I looked at the map before I left.

Resolution: I will follow the river for a bit.

EXAMPLE 2

Set up: The sailing is going really smoothly. I am feeling comfortable with this configuration. I think I will turn off the engine.

Tension: (context) The engine has been so loud for hours now. The cabin smells like diesel. When the engine goes off, everything goes silent. It’s the most peaceful sound of the waves hitting the boat and just gliding around. I am feeling so at peace.

Resolution: The engine is off, and now I am fully relaxed and connected to nature.

EXAMPLE 3

Set up: Now we have an anchor beer.

Tension: (context) An anchor beer is basically the idea that the amount of time it takes you to drink a beer is the amount of time you should watch your anchor to make sure you aren’t dragging or swinging into any obstacles. As we watch our anchor, we see we aren’t swinging too much, and we also aren’t dragging anchor. It’s a little choppy in the water since the wind is hasn’t yet switched to the Northwest.

Resolution: We are comfortable with how we are anchored and will stay where we are.

Overarching Story.

Each story loop should fit into your overarching story, which is one big overarching loop. Sometimes it’s not clear what the overarching loop is until you go through the mini story loops and a natural break off point happens. That’s okay!

For example, I am helping a client with a storyboard for a big sail they did through a canal system. Normally, their stories have 6-8 loops in them.

They left off their last episode just after having sailed into a new significant area, and they have more sailing to do before they get to their final destination. In their new storyboard, they would start out by going through a canal, so they had to locate parts, take down their mast, go through customs, go through the canal, put up their mast, put up their sails, go through a big city, lose their boat slip, and many many more obstacles. These are seemingly random parts that don’t make up an overarching story.

As we went through the storyboard though, it became clear that everything after getting through the canal would be excluded from the episode, and instead, we would focus the episode on “Going through XYZ Canal.” In terms of the story loop, it looks like this:

Set up: We arrived at the canal that we need to go through.

Tension: (context) To go though, we have to take down our mast, which means locating XYZ parts. Then, we have to motor to XYZ location where we will go through customs. We will then go through the canal, put our mast up and be ready for sailing again.

Resolution: We went through the canal.

As you can see, all those tension points in the overarching story will make up each story loop/scene of the entire episode.

Action

A good place to practice story loops is in the recording process, as they will significantly reduce your editing load.

This is not to say that you should edit yourself or be someone else other than you are. This is about identifying how what you are already saying fits within this very very necessary structure. I cannot emphasize enough how important the story loop is to keeping your audience’s attention!

With this knowledge, you are empowered to fill in the gaps either while recording or while doing your voiceovers.