How to tell a good story
The engine of a story is change, not drama. Learn the one-sentence test, where to start, and why ordinary moments beat dramatic events.
Pick the moment something shifted inside you — that, not the dramatic events around it, is what makes a story land. Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy) calls this inner change the one non-negotiable ingredient; an eventful tale with no internal shift is just a report. Open far from where you land, and trim the rest.
Why drama is the wrong target
Most people hunt for the impressive story — the accident, the promotion, the trip to the edge of the world. Dicks’s argument in Storyworthy is that this is exactly backwards. A dramatic event where nothing changed in you produces no story worth telling. An ordinary morning where you briefly reconsidered something you had believed for decades is a story that can hold an audience still.
The reason audiences lean in is not spectacle — it’s recognition. They are listening for the moment the narrator becomes them: uncertain, surprised, changed. That moment of irreversible inner shift is the whole mechanism. Everything else — the setting, the plot, the stakes — is scaffolding to get you to that five-second instant.
Lisa Cron (Wired for Story) frames it as the difference between the external goal and the internal goal. Your character may be trying to catch a flight; the story is about what belief they’re forced to abandon in the process. Strip out the external event and the story collapses into plot summary. Strip out the internal change and it collapses into mere incident.
This is the unhedged stance: an ordinary moment where something shifted beats a dramatic event where nothing did, every time. Once you accept this, you stop waiting for impressive material and start noticing the moments of small change that pass through every day.
Where to start, how to end
Most stories begin too early. Speakers set up context — the year, the city, the backstory — because it feels honest to show their work. The audience doesn’t need any of it yet; they can’t care about context before they care about the narrator. Dicks recommends starting as late as possible: the scene that contrasts most sharply with where the story ends.
If the story ends with grief, begin somewhere bright. If it ends with clarity, begin in confusion. This is not a trick — it’s how emotional movement works. The gap between where you started and where you landed is the distance the story travels, and the audience feels that distance in their body if you let them.
For endings: show, don’t explain. The weakest endings announce their meaning out loud — “and that’s when I realised what mattered.” Stronger endings drop the audience into the concrete moment of change and stop. Dicks specifically advises ending on the moment itself, not the lesson that followed. Trust that a well-built scene delivers its own meaning; narrating that meaning is redundant and usually deflating.
For the delivery mechanics — how to land a story in front of a crowd rather than just in conversation — our piece on persuasive public speaking covers presence, pacing, and what to do with your hands.
The practical toolkit: one sentence, present tense, sharp details
Before you tell any story, run it through three checks.
One-sentence test. State the story in one sentence: what changed, and in whom. Not the plot — the inner shift. If your sentence describes only external events (“the time I missed my flight”), you haven’t found the story yet. When the sentence names a change in the narrator (“the moment I realised I’d been performing competence rather than feeling it”), you’re ready. Cron calls the internal goal the load-bearing structure; without it, the outer plot is just noise.
Present tense for the live scenes. Dicks recommends dropping into present tense once you’re inside the action. “It was 2018, and I had just started a new job” sets the frame; “I walk into the office and she hands me a box” puts the listener in the room. The tense shift signals: the story is happening now. Listeners stop observing and start inhabiting.
Concrete details, not summaries. Annette Simmons (The Story Factor) argues that vivid, specific details — the smell of the room, the exact phrase someone used, the object sitting on the table — are what anchor a story in memory. Summaries evaporate. “We had a difficult conversation” is forgotten within minutes; “she set down her fork and didn’t pick it up again” stays. Cut vague descriptors and replace them with the specific sensory thing. If removing a detail doesn’t weaken the scene, it shouldn’t be there.
If you want to go further with this — specifically how the same story can work differently in written form versus in person — our guide on how to make your message stick covers the cognitive mechanics behind message retention.
References
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Reference Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
Dicks, M. (2018).
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Reference Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence
Cron, L. (2012).
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Reference The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion through the Art of Storytelling
Simmons, A. (2001).
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Reference Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling
Dolan, G. (2017).
FAQ
What makes a story compelling versus just an anecdote?
The difference is **change**. An anecdote reports what happened; a story shows how someone — usually you — was altered by it. **Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy)** puts it plainly: a story without a moment of irreversible inner change is just a series of events. The change doesn't have to be dramatic. A quiet realization at a dinner table can carry a story further than a car crash that left you feeling exactly the same. Ask yourself: what did I believe before this moment that I no longer believe after? That's the story.
Where should a story begin?
As late as possible — and at the **emotional opposite** of where it ends. Dicks calls this the 'five-second moment': identify the precise instant of change, then work backwards to find the scene that emotionally contrasts with it most sharply. If the story ends in grief, begin somewhere light. If it ends in relief, begin in dread. This contrast is what creates movement and makes the resolution feel earned. Most people begin stories too early, laying out context the audience doesn't need yet and can't care about.
How long should a story be in conversation?
**One to two minutes** is the target for almost every social context. **Dolan (Stories for Work)** recommends this ceiling firmly — it's roughly 200–400 spoken words. Most people tell stories that are _twice_ as long as they need to be because they haven't done the work of finding the core. If you can't distill your story to a single sentence — 'the moment I realized I had been wrong about X' — you haven't found the centre yet. Once you have the sentence, the story trims itself.
What is the 'one-sentence test' for a story?
Before you tell a story, try to state it as one sentence: **what changed, and in whom**. Not the plot ('the time I missed my flight') but the inner shift ('the moment I stopped needing other people's approval to feel okay'). **Lisa Cron (Wired for Story)** calls this the internal goal — the outer event is just the delivery mechanism. If your one sentence describes only external events, the story isn't finished yet. When the sentence names a change in the narrator, you're ready.
Should I use present tense when telling a story?
Yes, whenever you're in the live action. **Dicks** specifically recommends present tense for the core scenes because it pulls listeners into the moment rather than positioning them as observers of something that already ended. You can shift back to past tense for setup and framing: 'It was 2019, and I had just...' — then drop into present: 'I open the door and there she is.' The switch signals the audience that the real story is now.
What details should I include — and which should I cut?
Include **concrete, sensory details** that create emotional memory — the specific object, the colour of the light, the phrase someone said verbatim. **Annette Simmons (The Story Factor)** argues that vivid concrete details are what anchor a story in a listener's mind long after the plot is forgotten. Cut any detail that you're including because it happened, rather than because it does work in the story. If removing it doesn't weaken the scene, it shouldn't be there. When in doubt: fewer, sharper details beat more, vaguer ones.
How do I find stories worth telling?
**Dicks** keeps a daily practice he calls 'homework for life': every night, he writes a single sentence about the most story-worthy moment of the day. Not a diary — just one sentence. Over months, a searchable archive of real moments accumulates. Most of us don't lack stories; we haven't catalogued them. Once you start noticing moments of small change as they happen — a conversation that shifted your mind, a choice that surprised you — you'll find you have more than enough material.
How do I end a story well?
**Show** the change; don't explain it. The weakest story endings announce their meaning: 'and that's when I realised family is what matters.' The strongest endings place the audience in a concrete moment and let the shift land without narration. Dicks recommends ending on the very moment of change itself — not the reflection that followed, not the lesson learned, not the tidy summary. If you feel the urge to tell the audience what to think about your ending, cut that urge and trust the scene.
What if the story happened to someone else, not me?
Tell it _through_ your experience of it. You can absolutely tell a story about another person, but the emotional throughline — the **inner change** — needs an owner the audience can inhabit. If a story about your friend's crisis moved you to reconsider something, that reconsideration is the story. **Cron (Wired for Story)** notes that readers and listeners need a clear point of view to emotionally track with — a story without a felt centre leaves them outside, watching. Put yourself inside it, even if you were a bystander.
Is it okay to tell a short, ordinary story — or does it need to be dramatic?
Ordinary is better. This is the central argument of Dicks's **Storyworthy**: a dramatic event where nothing changed in you is far less compelling than an ordinary moment where something did. The bar for a story is not whether anything impressive happened externally — it's whether the narrator was genuinely, irreversibly altered by it. Audiences connect to the human experience of change, not the scale of the external event. Our guide on [using storytelling to build connection](/en/blog/storytelling-to-build-connection) shows how this applies specifically to personal relationships.