10 Free Storytelling Training Courses
We’ve personally selected 10 of the most recommended storytelling training courses to help you create and deliver strong and good stories and positively influence and motivate your team. Some of the topics covered here include the story design model, crafting motivational and persuasive stories, the basics of portrait photography, and tools for digital storytelling. Refer to our list below.
1. Story Design
Build your knowledge about the basics of storytelling and its role in the learning and retaining essential knowledge with this Story Design interactive course by EdApp. This 2-part course is designed in collaboration with Rance Greene from needastory.com, known for his story-based business solutions that aim to inspire, guide, and persuade corporate employees. This storytelling class begins with a brief example of a short but compelling story that will give you a quick overview of how story-based training should be structured and delivered. From there, it will walk you through the general story design and the story design model, alongside some tips on how you can make the content of your story strong and relevant. It also contains an exclusive 2-minute video clip from Greene, which will help you further understand why stories work so well for training, instead of settling with traditional presentations like graphs and charts.
But that’s not all—this microlearning course is also equipped with a series of games and quizzes to make your learning experience more fun and exciting. With EdApp's learning technology, you can fully access this course through a desktop, tablet, and mobile phone. This means that you can also take and complete this course anytime and anywhere for your best convenience.
Cost: Free
Scope: General story design, story design model, what makes stories so great for learning
Created By EdApp
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2. The Art of Storytelling
The Art of Storytelling course is prepared by Dale Carnegie and his team, known for their motivating training and development solutions that are proven to drive improved work performance. This learning course will teach you how to determine your audience, topic, and goal and craft inspirational stories that will inspire your listeners emotionally and impact them positively. It will also guide you to the secret magic formula for opening, delivering, and closing a story, ensuring that your team will be able to easily connect to your message and understand things from your perspective. This course will be delivered in a 2-hour video session, which is ideal for a busy schedule.
Cost: $279 USD
Scope: Define audience, topic, and goal, use the magic formula for crafting stories, plan an opening, message delivery, and closing, identify best practices for presentation
Created by Dale Carnegie
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3. Powerful Tools for Teaching and Learning: Digital Storytelling
This storytelling course by Coursera, a learning platform, is focused on introducing trainers and instructional designers to digital storytelling and its fundamental elements through a series of video tutorials and review examples used by educators across different curriculums. Here, course takers are expected to learn more about the step-by-step process of creating a good digital story, from selecting a theme to writing a simple script and constructing a storyboard, as well as recording an audio narration. It will also guide you on how to assemble your script, images, and narration, including music or video clips if needed, and finally, publish the final version of your digital story. Upon completion, there will be a reflection and evaluation of your work, primarily to determine the challenges faced in creating your digital story and assess your learning progress.
Cost: Free
Scope: Introduction to digital storytelling, steps for creating a digital story: choosing a topic, writing an effective script, creating a storyboard, and recording narration, publishing the final version of digital story
Created by Coursera
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4. Storytelling in the Workplace
In a professional work setting, stories and narratives may take the form of email communications, proposals, briefs, project or product kickoffs, and presentations. In order to successfully and effectively deliver your story or message, it must be structured based on the situation and specific medium you’ll use, and by using the tone and style tailored to your target audience. In this edX course, you’ll learn how to craft your story and narratives correctly, taking into account all the above considerations for maximum audience impact. You’ll also get to know the elements of effective stories, the best practices and writing styles, and how you can apply them in the workplace. This storytelling online course is free, but you can upgrade to their paid plan if you want to avail a shareable certificate upon completion.
Cost: Free with paid certificate
Scope: Crafting stories based on the medium, situation, and target audience; best practices and writing styles; elements of effective stories and how to use them in the workplace
Created by edX
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5. Everyday Business Storytelling
In this world with declined attention spans, even the smartest business people struggle to communicate and deliver their stories and messages, especially when they’re strapped for time. To overcome this challenge, the Presentation Company has put together this informative course, discussing the strategies and techniques for cutting down the metrics of your messages and sharing only the most critical insights. You will also learn how to use a simple, repeatable storytelling framework to convey a story for audiences with competing interests or when your meeting is unexpectedly cut short.
Just a heads-up that this course can be rather costly. But, on the bright side, you will be able to continue your self-paced learning process with its Everyday Business Storytelling book, which contains more tips and strategies for effective storytelling.
Cost: $749 USD
Scope: How to cut down messages and share only the most critical insights, science-backed storytelling framework to effectively convey a story
Created by The Presentation Company
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6. Storytelling for Leaders: How to Craft Stories That Matter
Skillshare’s interactive course on Storytelling for Leaders: How to Craft Stories consists of a series of short videos hosted by the founder of SYPartners, Keith Yamashita. He draws on his decades of experience to teach leaders and alike how to craft compelling and engaging stories that matter to storytellers. Here, you will be guided on the different forms of storytelling used by most leaders, the components of a great story plus the archetypes involved, as well as the processes for developing and refining a story. His strategy is based on a proven structure he’s used for helping Fortune 100 companies tell their brand stories. Aside from the video lessons, there will be a hands-on class project that will help you apply your learnings into action. This creates a blended-learning environment for the learners.
Cost: Free
Scope: Shaping and drafting stories that matter, types of stories, components of a great story and archetypes
Created by SkillShare
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7. Storytelling to Engage and Motivate
Pluralsight’s Storytelling to Engage and Motivate course will expand your communication skills and round out your ability to identify, develop, and deliver engaging stories in professional contexts. It contains a total of 5 short video lessons covering major topics such as elements of an effective story, steps to developing a story, persuasive storytelling in action, and ongoing storytelling strategies. You will also learn how to structure your narratives based on your target audience and message purpose and deliver them based on your existing skills as a communicator. This course will be led by Alan Ackmann, a rhetoric and professional writing professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.
Cost: $159 USD per year (subscription basis)
Scope: Introduction to storytelling and persuasion, what makes an effective story, steps to developing a story, persuasive storytelling in action
Created by Pluralsight
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8. Storytelling Through Portrait Photography
Portrait photography is also an effective way to deliver a story and convey your message to your learners. Masterclass' course on Storytelling through Portrait Photography is spearheaded by renowned photographer Tyler Mitchell, sharing his personal techniques and process for creating eye-catching portraits. Expect a total of 11 short video lessons that will take you around an hour and a half to finish. In this course, you will understand how to use your images to tell a motivational story—even if all you have is your phone. You will also learn the basics of lighting and composition, methods for selecting and processing images, and also tips for choosing colors, props, and locations to help you express your story better. Most of the topics discussed in this course are based on Tyler’s personal and professional experience as a successful photographer in his generation.
Cost: $15 USD/month (subscription basis)
Scope: How to tell stories with photography, the basics of lighting and composition, selecting and editing images, directing photos, and choosing colors, props, and locations
Created by MasterClass
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9. Storytelling for Impact
This storytelling training course by Philanthropy University is geared towards influencing speakers into writing and delivering memorable stories that will grab people’s attention and positively impact them. It comes with tools, best practices, and a step-by-step framework for crafting narratives and translating facts into emotions, ensuring that your story will evoke emotional responses and encourage listeners to move and act for greater action. This course will also guide you on choosing the best medium for your story, whether it's written, spoken, video, or audio. All course participants are eligible for a Certificate of Achievement, but you must achieve at least 50% on your quizzes and assignments to qualify.
Cost: Free
Scope: Crafting stories that will evoke emotions and move people to act, choosing the best story medium for your narrative
Created by Philanthropy University
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10. Storytelling for Social Change
In this course by FutureLearn, a Learning Management System (LMS), you will discover the secrets of storytelling from the experts and how you can apply them to writing and delivering stories that will not only inspire your employees but also drive them to make real change. You will also learn the simple rules of crafting stories by using visual elements and choosing characters that your audience can emotionally connect with, improving the impact of your message. Apart from a series of lectures, this course also uses peer feedback, quizzes, and personal reflection to further improve your storytelling techniques and build your confidence in becoming a better storyteller.
Cost: Free for 7 weeks; Upgrade to $59 USD for unlimited access
Scope: The secrets of storytelling from expert performers and artists, simple rules of story craft, power of visual storytelling
Created by FutureLearn
Explore the courseBring life to your corporate training with storytelling training
These days, training managers and L&D leaders are turning to interactive storytelling to bring life to their training programs. Because let’s face it, traditional training sessions with long modules and static PowerPoints aren’t working anymore. Storytelling, on the other hand, piques the interest of learners, resulting in higher participation and retention rate. As it entertains them into a relatable scenario, employees easily remember a message or lesson and effectively apply their acquired skills and knowledge in their work context. A strong company story can also trigger emotions and motivate them to work even harder and perform better. Planning to spice up your training with storytelling? While it’s not exactly rocket science, storytelling can be learned through training and exercises. Taking the right storytelling training courses will improve your communication and influencing skills and bring great impact to your story-based training initiatives.