How to Build a Cult... Your Brand Needs a Story
Many music artists struggle because their content feels random. Individual posts might be strong, and some may even perform well, but together they don’t build toward a larger story.
The artists who exist in the top 1% understand their story deeply. They know how to use storytelling to connect every piece of content back to a bigger narrative, and they understand the role their brand plays in building their brand’s world.
When it comes to their content, most music artists assume great storytelling comes from pure creativity or years of experience, but underneath the surface, the stories humans truly respond to often follow surprisingly simple formulas. It’s not as hard as you think. And in the end all “branding” and “content” are is storytelling…
There are millions of stories in different forms out there… movies, books, songs, TV shows, brands, myths, and legends in the world. But according to author Christopher Booker, who spent 30 years of his life researching all kinds of stories (Biblical, Mythological, Shakespeare, Hollywood) almost all of them can be traced back to just seven basic plot structures.
Completely different characters. Different stories. Different aesthetics. Different settings. But underneath all of that, we as a human species keep telling the same stories over and over again.
These structures have survived for centuries because they’re built around human desires that don’t really change: overcoming fear, finding love, escaping oppression, becoming someone new, losing everything, or finding your way home.
And when it comes to branding your music project these stories matter a lot more than you might think. And when applied to your brand can drastically change how people understand you and you story.
But how can you tie ancient human stories into your music branding and even deeper how will that effect exactly what kind of content to post?
Without knowing about or using the simple story formulas most artists think about content in isolated pieces. The creative is often in silo’s. A music video tells one story. An EP tells another. A photoshoot has it’s own vibe. A tour has a theme. Social content becomes whatever needs to be posted that week. Not cohesive. No real story being told. And often this is why it falls flat.
But the strongest artist brands have a larger story sitting inside all of those individual pieces.
You can think of it as the plot of the project. What is this artist ultimately fighting for? What are they trying to become? What world are they trying to escape? What do they keep chasing? What transformation are we watching happen in real time?
In the end your brand is a movie, or ongoing TV show your audience is watching… So understanding these seven plots can help you create a clearer emotional structure around your music, visuals, content, eras, releases, and overall identity.
Now, a quick note on how these plots should actually be used…
You don’t need to choose just one. In fact, many of the best stories have multiple plots happening at the same time. As a general rule, though, we try not to use more than three. Once you get beyond that, the story can start to feel muddy and harder for the audience to follow.
And even when you’re combining multiple plots, there should still be one clear DOMINANT story sitting at the heart of the project. Think of the others as supporting plots that add depth, tension, and dimension to the main one.
So think of it as percentages 80% Overcoming The Monster 20% The Quest. And you can audit your content quarterly to make sure you are staying with your dominant storyline.
So let’s get into the Seven Plots…
PLOT 1 — OVERCOMING THE MONSTER
Overcoming the Monster is one of the oldest story structures in human history. At its center is a protagonist or hero who must confront a powerful force threatening them, their community, or the world around them. The “monster” might literally be a creature, but more often it represents something much larger: evil, corruption, fear, oppression, or an enemy that initially seems impossible to defeat.
These stories usually begin by establishing just how powerful the monster is. The protagonist is often weaker, inexperienced, outnumbered, or completely unprepared for what they are facing. As the story progresses, the threat becomes greater and the hero is forced to develop the courage, skill, allies, or knowledge necessary to fight back. The tension comes from the enormous gap between the hero and the thing standing in their way.
Eventually there is a confrontation. The protagonist enters the monster’s territory, faces the thing they have feared, and either destroys it or breaks its power. The external victory often represents an internal one as well: the character has become someone capable of defeating what once terrified them.
Examples: Star Wars, Jaws, Alien, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Stranger Things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer… Almost EVERY MARVEL MOVIE.
The bigger the monster, the bigger the hero can become.
PLOT 2 — RAGS TO RICHES
Rags to Riches is the story of transformation through upward movement. A character begins overlooked, powerless, poor, inexperienced, underestimated, or trapped in an ordinary existence. Through circumstance, talent, opportunity, perseverance, or sometimes pure luck, they are given access to a world that previously seemed impossible for them to enter.
But the story is rarely as simple as someone becoming successful. The character usually experiences an initial rise followed by complications. New status brings new responsibilities, enemies, temptations, or insecurities. Sometimes the protagonist gains everything they thought they wanted only to lose it again. This fall tests whether they have actually changed internally or merely changed their external circumstances.
The eventual victory comes when the protagonist becomes capable of truly inhabiting their new life. Wealth in these stories often represents something broader than money. It might mean confidence, belonging, recognition, love, power, purpose, or finally understanding one’s own worth. The emotional power comes from contrast: we remember where the character started, so we understand exactly how far they have traveled.
Examples: Cinderella, Rocky, The Pursuit of Happyness, Slumdog Millionaire, The Queen’s Gambit, Ted Lasso.
The audience has to understand where you started to understand how far you’ve come.
PLOT 3 — VOYAGE AND RETURN
Voyage and Return begins when a character leaves the ordinary world and enters somewhere unfamiliar.
Unlike The Quest, the protagonist is not necessarily trying to reach a particular destination or obtain a specific prize. The strange world is the story. The character has crossed into a place where the normal rules of their life no longer apply, and both the protagonist and the audience must learn how this new reality works.
At first, this world can feel exciting, magical, seductive, or full of possibility. Eventually, however, its dangers begin to reveal themselves. What seemed fascinating becomes confusing or threatening. The protagonist must survive the strange environment, understand its rules, and eventually find a way back to the world they came from.
But returning home does not simply reset everything. The most important part of Voyage and Return is that the character comes back changed. Dorothy returns to Kansas differently than she left it. Alice wakes from Wonderland carrying the experience with her. The external journey into another world becomes an internal journey toward greater understanding.
Examples: The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Spirited Away, Jurassic Park, Lost, The Chronicles of Narnia.
Sometimes you have to leave your world before you can understand it.
PLOT 4 — THE QUEST
The Quest begins with a destination.
A protagonist, usually joined by companions, sets out to obtain something, reach somewhere, rescue someone, destroy something, or accomplish a seemingly impossible objective. From the beginning, the audience understands what success looks like. The question driving the story becomes simple: Will they make it?
The journey is rarely straightforward. The characters encounter obstacles, enemies, distractions, tests, false victories, and moments where continuing seems impossible. Members of the group may disappear, betray one another, sacrifice themselves, or reveal abilities the audience didn’t know they possessed. Each obstacle forces the protagonist to become increasingly worthy of reaching the destination.
What makes Quest stories particularly powerful is that the destination organizes everything around it. Events that would otherwise feel unrelated become meaningful because they either move the characters closer to their goal or push them farther away. And although the characters are chasing an external objective, the journey usually changes them internally. By the time they reach the thing they were searching for, they are no longer the same people who began looking for it.
Examples: The Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Finding Nemo, One Piece, The Mandalorian, The Odyssey, The Goonies.
Give a story a destination and every obstacle suddenly has meaning.
PLOT 5 — COMEDY
When Christopher Booker talks about Comedy, he means something much broader than simply a story that makes people laugh.
Comedy is fundamentally a story about disorder becoming order. Characters begin separated by misunderstandings, conflicting desires, mistaken identities, secrets, rivalries, social barriers, or circumstances keeping the right people apart. The story becomes increasingly complicated as these problems overlap and characters repeatedly misunderstand what is actually happening.
This is why comedies often contain large casts whose individual storylines eventually collide. Someone loves the wrong person. Someone is pretending to be someone else. Information is hidden. Characters make decisions based on assumptions the audience knows are incorrect. The fun comes from watching the knot become tighter and tighter until it seems almost impossible to untangle.
Then comes revelation. Secrets are exposed, misunderstandings are resolved, false identities disappear, relationships realign, and the fragmented world reconnects. Traditionally, many comedies even end with some form of union, celebration, marriage, friendship, or community. The deeper emotional promise of Comedy is not simply laughter. It is reconciliation.
Examples: Mean Girls, Happy Gilmore, The Hangover, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Seinfeld, The Office, Schitt’s Creek.
Comedy begins with people disconnected and ends when the world comes back together.
PLOT 6 — REBIRTH
Rebirth is a story about someone becoming alive again.
The protagonist begins trapped in some form of emotional, psychological, spiritual, or literal darkness. They may be selfish, bitter, isolated, corrupted, numb, cynical, cruel, or simply living a life disconnected from who they could become. Unlike Rags to Riches, the transformation is not primarily about gaining status. It is about recovering something that has been lost inside the character.
Often another person or event enters their life and begins disrupting the old version of them. At first the protagonist resists. Their existing identity has become comfortable, even when it is destructive. Gradually, however, cracks begin forming. They experience moments that force them to reconsider what they believe, how they behave, and what kind of person they want to be.
Eventually there is a symbolic death of the old self. Something must be surrendered before something new can emerge. The character sees themselves clearly, makes a different choice, and reenters the world transformed.
That is why Rebirth stories can feel incredibly emotional: we are watching someone receive another chance.
Examples: A Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast, Hook, Groundhog Day, Jerry Maguire, Liar Liar, The Shawshank Redemption
Reinvention becomes a story when something has to die for the new version to exist.
PLOT 7 — TRAGEDY
Tragedy is the story of a character moving toward destruction.
The protagonist is often talented, charismatic, powerful, ambitious, or capable of extraordinary things. But somewhere within them is a flaw, obsession, desire, or weakness they cannot control. Pride, greed, revenge, jealousy, ambition, insecurity, addiction, or hunger for power gradually begins influencing their decisions.
At first, that flaw may actually help them succeed. Their obsession makes them work harder. Their ambition makes them rise faster. Their ruthlessness eliminates obstacles. This is what makes tragedy so compelling: the very quality responsible for the protagonist’s ascent eventually becomes responsible for their collapse.
As the story progresses, they cross lines they previously would not have crossed. Relationships disappear. Consequences accumulate. Opportunities to turn back appear, but the protagonist repeatedly chooses to continue. By the final act, the audience can often see exactly where the story is heading even while desperately hoping the character might escape it.
The ending becomes both horrifying and inevitable. The protagonist is destroyed by the forces they helped unleash.
Examples: Scarface, The Godfather, Black Swan, Breaking Bad, Succession, Better Call Saul.
In tragedy, the character’s greatest strength often becomes the weapon that destroys them.
So once you know the dominant plot of your project, content gets much easier because you’re no longer inventing random ideas from scratch. You’re looking for moments that reinforce the larger story. If your plot is about transformation, show the process of transforming. If it’s about overcoming the monster, show the challenge, the setbacks, and the fight. If it’s a quest, show the pursuit, the milestones, and the distance still left to go. etc...
Now this doesn't means not every piece of content needs to be a huge storytelling moment. A photo, studio clip, tour recap, caption, interview, music video, or behind-the-scenes post can all become part of the same narrative if they are framed through the same plot. Its about using the plot as a filter or a lens the content runs thru. The content can change if it needs to while the underlying story stays consistent. That consistency is what starts making separate posts feel like chapters instead of disconnected pieces.
So when you’re sitting there wondering what the f*ck to post, stop asking yourself for another content idea. Ask what is happening in the story right now and what kind of “on brand” content could express. Find your formats, but where possible run them thru your plot.
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