8^th May 2024, Rituparna Ghosh

An International Storyteller and a TEDx Speaker

Rituparna has performed at several storytelling festivals across the country & abroad. She has two podcasts called Golpo, Stories from Around the World and What’s in Your Story Bag. 

For a span of five years, Rituparna shared her expertise in Storytelling and Children’s Literature at Delhi University. Additionally, she played a pivotal role in crafting the early years program for Delhi Government Schools, ingeniously integrating English, Hindi, and monthly themes through the medium of stories. More recently, Rituparna collaborated on the development of the Storytelling as Pedagogy Manual for CBSE. Through the platform of Your Story Bag, she has diligently conducted training sessions for numerous teachers and storytellers across India.

Within the corporate and non-profit sectors, Rituparna has spearheaded projects that harness storytelling for diverse purposes, including Training, Company Branding, Change Management, Communication, Fundraising, Marketing, Program Facilitation, and Gender Sensitization.

‘Rituparna believes there is a storyteller in each of us. Children and adults need stories and storytelling skills all of their lives, to make sense of the world and give shape to their ideas.’ – https://www.yourstorybag.com/team/

Let’s Get Inspired

In Conversation with Rituparna Ghosh
– Preeti Juneja

Q. Stories breathe life into ideas. Which is your favorite marketing campaign?

Marketing often intertwines with storytelling, especially during events like Women’s Day or Diwali, where brands invest significantly to evoke a feel-good factor. 

When it comes to marketing, I admire organizations and brands that prioritize storytelling as a sustained strategy. One such brand is the Whole Truth, a food brand that goes beyond selling protein bars and food items. The brand’s core mission is to enlighten consumers about the Whole Truth, to demystify food labels, and to reveal the nutritional content of every item they consume, thereby promoting healthy eating.

I like it because this brand has held on to the raw thread of storytelling—the company’s branding activities, marketing, packaging, and communication in newsletters and social media are all based around storytelling. It is not a one-off campaign; it’s a brand strategy to ensure everything is around storytelling. And for me, that’s the whole idea behind a brand which does marketing, where marketing is not the end of selling a product. They’re also changing the narrative when trying to change how to consume food and the kind of misinformation out there. If you’re looking at storytelling as a way of sharing ideas, this brand is doing a particularly good job of it.

Q. What is the story structure you follow to keep your audience focused and engaging?

I’m fascinated by the question of story structure because there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. It varies depending on your audience – whether they’re children, adults, or individuals you’re encouraging to think critically or creatively. The structure and format you choose depend on the purpose behind your storytelling. So, rather than having a favorite structure, my approach adapts to the specific goals I aim to achieve with my audience.

Q. Content inspiration is everywhere. 
a) Where do you get your source of inspiration for content creation?

My ideas stem from various sources within me, triggered by questions, observations of mistakes, disagreements with others, or reflections on literature. When crafting content for storytelling, I prioritize audience input, allowing their preferences to shape how I present my ideas. For instance, when collaborating with a nonprofit, I focus on communicating their mission, drawing insights from how businesses and organizations engage their audiences to care about their cause or purpose.

Cross-sector and cross-segment analyses of my clients and projects often inspire content dissemination. Even mundane experiences, like telling a multilingual story to children, spark ideas about language usage and audience engagement. I repurpose such experiences to cater to different audiences, understanding that the same incident can offer diverse perspectives.

I thrive on the exchange of ideas and constantly seek inspiration from my work and experiences. Learning from children’s storytelling informs my approach with adults, adapting techniques to suit different contexts, such as teaching or corporate settings. Content creation, to me, encompasses storytelling methods, discussions on the art of storytelling, and tailoring storytelling as a tool to engage diverse audiences. It’s a fluid process, influenced by the audience and the desired outcome of our interaction.

b) “Moment Marketing” is a double-edged sword. What are your views on it?

a) I’m not a big fan of what is commonly referred to as ‘moment marketing ‘, a strategy where brands leverage current events or trends to promote their products or services. Amul is The only brand that does an excellent job of this. Unless you follow the Amul rule book of moment marketing and storytelling or the brand voice they exhibit during such times, no other brand does it anywhere close to what Amul does. On the contrary, brands tend to be insensitive and try to grab landlight or jump onto the trend. 

Social media has created this whole urge to make every story your own. It’s like that boring cousin of yours; no matter what is being told in the room, your cousin will jump in and say, oh, it happened to me also and this is what happened to me so you know that’s what ‘moment marketing’ is like so I’m not very fond of it and sometimes people you know do it very very poorly so that’s not what I like about ‘moment marketing ‘.

Q.  What are qualities of a good storyteller? Share few effective tips and tricks of compelling storytelling?

STORYTELLING is really like a nuclear bomb in your hands. A skilled storyteller wields this power with awareness, sensitivity, and integrity, refraining from manipulation and embracing storytelling’s transformative potential. Each story has the potential to inspire, educate, and change lives, making storytelling a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled storyteller. 

Any storyteller must grasp that storytelling isn’t about self-absorption. Instead, it’s about considering the audience, the listeners, and the target demographic you’re addressing. Secondly, it involves recognizing the story as a medium to convey something meaningful.

A proficient storyteller understands the supremacy of the audience and surrenders to their power, acknowledging that the narrative revolves solely around them. Without an audience, the storyteller ceases to exist. Additionally, understanding the purpose of the story and its intended impact is crucial. 

It’s essential not to manipulate the story with ulterior motives but to allow the audience to interpret and engage with it freely.

Contextualizing the story within the exchange is another vital aspect. Clarifying why a particular story is chosen at a specific moment communicates transparency and invites diverse interpretations. 

Ultimately, storytelling shouldn’t revolve around the storyteller but should serve as an exploration into the potential of storytelling itself. Rather than viewing storytelling as a vehicle for personal glorification, it’s imperative to recognize its profound scientific impact on the audience. 

Today, we don’t know why to look at storytelling as a massive, let’s say, iceberg and where all of us are attracted to it like a moth because we look at it as, oh, you know, it brings a lot of glory to the storyteller, it brings a lot of limelight to the storyteller and storytelling is all about the theatrics of telling a story of how you use woven words to paint a picture or a narrative. But really, storytelling’s greater power is in its scientific aspect, how a story impacts an audience at that particular time or over some time and what it can do.

Q.What career prospects exist for professional storytellers?

It’s a fantastic career if you know who you want to work with. It’s a fantastic career if you know what you want to do with it. It’s a fantastic career if you’re willing to listen to your clients and understand what they want instead of what you can do. 90% of my work has been, has come to me because somebody has said, we are dealing with this.

When the client says, we need to figure out what and how to do it, or we’ve tried X, Y, and Z, but we’re wondering if storytelling can help us do this better – a lot of my work has only germinated from that area of inquiry.

So, to be a good storyteller, you must be a good listener. If you want to build a career around storytelling, you must understand what skills you have, who needs those skills, and how you can use storytelling to solve their problems. So, if you work with this, it’s a fantastic discovery.

Yes, there are workshops, trainings, mentors, and organizations you can work with and learn from. As an organization, we train people in storytelling; whether you want to become a children’s storyteller, you want to be a data storyteller, you want to be a business storyteller, you want to use storytelling for content creation, we do help a lot; we offer a lot of training in that realm. And you want to take it up as a career. In that case, it’s a long and daunting career if you wish to be a performing artist, whether you want to be a trainer or consultant, as long as you surrender to it. 

Not suddenly waking up one day and saying okay, my life’s purpose is to be a storyteller because everybody is a storyteller today. We are here to help you. So that’s how we have shaped our work and our world around stories, and we would love to help anyone who wants to get started in this field.

Q. Can you recall the moment in your life when you decided to pursue storytelling as your profession, and how did it come about?
My journey into storytelling is quite by serendipity. Formerly, I was a television journalist, deeply engaged in my career within a news organization. However, in 2011, when my child was born, the organization opted to hire someone else in my position. This sudden loss of job, identity, and purpose hit me hard.

This is a story that happens to hundreds and thousands of women all across the world, not just in India but across corporate sector and outside it as well.  It was during this tumultuous period that storytelling emerged as my savior. Initially, I began by narrating stories to my infant child. To my surprise, within three months, my child eagerly reached for books as I animatedly made sounds and expressions.

This unique interaction sparked a profound exploration into the world of storytelling. While children’s storytelling was uncharted territory for me, as a new mother without prior experience, I relied on intuition. Simultaneously, I worked as a freelance writer, crafting content for various organizations to make ends meet. It was 2012-13, a time when corporate communication was evolving, and storytelling emerged as a sought-after skill.

One particular client extended my freelance projects into corporate endeavors, with HCL being my first significant corporate engagement, focusing on employer branding. From that moment, there was no turning back. Each day, I approached my work with a singular purpose: to uncover the transformative potential of storytelling – What can a story do in this world today? What problem can it solve? How can help someone or anyone communicate better, more effectively, with more meaning and purpose? And how can it make the world a better place?

Driven by this purpose, I transitioned from freelancing to founding my own company, Your Story Bag. I aimed to lend a professional veneer to storytelling, emphasizing its importance and efficacy. At the time, comprehensive storytelling services were scarce, and I found myself fortunate to work with diverse clients, including children, schools, individuals, parents, businesses, nonprofits, and corporations.

My approach to storytelling embraces cross-pollination, drawing insights from one context and applying them intuitively elsewhere. These experiments have consistently yielded positive outcomes, for which I feel both fortunate and grateful.

Rapid-Fire:

1. Why storytelling needs to be taught?
   It needs to be taught because there are lots of newbies who come into this world not knowing what to do. They want to become a storyteller because they see other people do it and they want the limelight. If you’re taught by a right mentor, you know how to take the right steps, find your own purpose and voice and not be a clone to somebody. And that’s where a lot of people go wrong. They watch somebody and they try to be that somebody and they lose a lot of time not knowing who they really are as a storyteller. So a good trainer, a good mentor will help you find your real storytelling voice and that’s very important. 
2.  Which social media platform is best suited for storytelling?
   Every format and platform has its own unique storytelling format, offering a world of possibilities for your creative expression. If you’re a wordsmith, if you know your writing can captivate, consider platforms like newsletters, blogs, or LinkedIn. If your voice is your instrument, if you excel in the audio realm, podcasting could be your stage. And if you have a talent for visual storytelling, whether in short or long-form, platforms like YouTube or Instagram could be your gallery.
   
   Remember, storytelling is a versatile skill that can be honed in any format. The same story can be told and retold in countless ways, and if you have the passion and dedication, you can master them all. Your creative journey is limitless, and your potential is boundless.
   
   
3.  What is the most important part of a storytelling strategy?
   Know your audience, what you want them to do, and where you want to take them. If you can pinpoint that, it’s fantastic. At Your Storybag, we have something called the 3C strategy, which is to connect, communicate, and convince. Who do you want to connect with, what do you want to communicate, and what’s that core message that you want to tell them? Don’t bombard the same story with 100,000 messages or 100,000 ideas.
   
   And what do you want to convince them to do? What is that exchange? It builds on from my storytelling, believing that, ultimately, it’s a transaction you’re trying to do at the end of a story. So what do you want to do? So, the most important part is to have a strategy. 
4. What was the idea behind having a “Your Story Bag” community of storytellers?
   When I first embarked on this journey, I found myself stuck in a loop, with no one to share my thoughts with, no one to support me. I yearned to break free from this isolation. I believed that when individuals start from a common point, they naturally gravitate towards one another. That’s why I envisioned creating a community of storytellers—self-sustaining, non-competitive, collaborative, and cooperative—a storytellers’ haven, known as Your Story Bag.

One-Liners:

1. My favorite author is:
   Richard Jha and Pickle Yolk books.
2. A good course to join in storytelling is:
   Your Story Bag  offers a range of storytelling workshops and trainings. If you’re looking for it, don’t look beyond that. 
3. I love what I do because:
   I get to be myself every day and don’t have to pretend to be something else. 
4. I feel inspired most, when:
   My audience comes and talks to me and tells me how a story spoke to them. That’s the only thing that gets me up every day. 

DREAMWEB INDIA IS GRATEFUL TO RITUPARNA GHOSH FOR SPARING HER VALUABLE TIME WITH US FOR THIS INCREDIBLE INTERVIEW. WE WISH HER SUCCESS.