How to be great at storytelling

Good storytelling doesn’t just apply to fiction; it applies to our everyday life. Whenever I’m chatting with friends, advocating for a project, or explaining our vision and mission, I’m telling stories.

The more those stories resonate with the people I’m talking to, the more successful I will be at achieving my goals—whether that’s deeper connections with friends, approval for my project, or having employees work towards our company direction.

So, how can I be better at it?

Below is my collection of tips that have stuck with me. I’d love to hear what works well for you: send me a note via the form in the bottom right!

”Therefore” & “but,” no “and then”

I saw this 2-minute excerpt from the creators of South Park talking about storytelling. The TL;DR that’s stuck with me forever is:

If the words ‘and then’ belong between the beats [of your outline], you’ve got something pretty boring.

What should happen between every beat is either the word ‘therefore’ or the word ‘but.‘

Prepare the beats of your stories

Julian wrote in his storytelling guide:

Hooks require premeditation. Neil deGrasse Tyson told author David Perell that nearly 100% of the stories and analogies he shares in interviews are first written down.

But:

The storyteller’s craft is therefore in making that prep work invisible. This is important: You never want to memorize your words. You only memorize key points

This connects with the first tip: prepare your beats to make sure the red thread of the story is solid (‘therefore’ & ‘but’, no ‘and then’) but don’t prepare the specific words.

Hook-and-drag

From Julian’s storytelling guide again:

In contrast, bad speakers who bore me lack narrative hooks—like you’d find at the beginning of a book or a film. A hook raises a question without immediately providing the answer. For example, “It was the worst date of my entire life.” Listeners wonder, “Why?”

You’re not going to tell them for a while.

[…] When [the best storytellers] finally get to the nail-biting answers, they then drag out the telling.