The Secret to Storytelling Success
Sep 03, 2026
Learning storytelling is like learning to swim or speak a new language.
What is the secret to storytelling success?
This is one of those questions I like to ask on my courses and workshops.
Common answers include good eye contact, charisma, positive body language, passion and articulation.
All of these matter. But they all focus on the performance – the visible part.
What you don't see is the work behind the scenes.
Storytelling is an invisible craft. It requires attention to detail and an awareness of devices that allow us to guide the listener through a narrative.
The good news is that we can all develop our storytelling abilities. It's just like learning to swim or speak a new language.
The secret to storytelling success is simple: it's practice.
Three storytelling techniques
With that in mind, here are three common pieces of feedback I give on my courses and workshops.
1. Set up the action
Stories are like houses: they need foundations. In storytelling, that foundation is the set-up.
Think about your listener and ask yourself, ‘What information do they need in order to follow the story as smoothly as possible?’
This can come through trial and error.
For example, one of my stories titled Giraffe One, Humans Nil is about a family feeding a giraffe at the zoo – or rather, what can happen when it goes wrong.
The first time I tried the story, I noticed that my listening partner was distracted and said: 'But you're not allowed to feed animals at the zoo.'
Of course, this is usually the case. But as we can see from this Saint Louis Zoo webpage, giraffes are sometimes different.
The next time I told the story, I took a moment to establish this detail by building the fact into the set-up.
2. Let your listener visualise early
The more abstract the information, the more likely it is that you will lose your listener's attention.
Be kind – let your listener visualise a location, situation or scene as early as possible.
For example, here is how I continue the giraffe story:
π¦ Picture the scene.
Three visitors at a zoo.
Mum, dad and their boy — he looks around seven or eight years old.
They are standing with their backs to us.
In front of them, there’s a fence.
And on the other side of the fence, facing us but looking down at the humans, is a giraffe.
A hungry giraffe — hoping for a snack.
The boy is in the middle.
His dad is on his left.
His mum is on his right.
He’s holding some sort of large green leaf with a long, thick stalk.
We don’t know exactly what it is.
But whatever it is, it’s exactly the sort of thing you like — if you are a giraffe.
3. Identify key details
Notice how much attention I give to the phrase 'a large green leaf with a long thick stalk'.
That detail is central to the plot, so drawing attention to it plants a seed for an important connection later.
I also 'hedge' – admitting I don't know the exact plant type. This signals to the listener that they don't need to know it either. They just need to visualise the leaf.
Key details like this are generally the ones we have to emphasise when we tell the story – and there are different devices for doing that.
If you teach with stories, this is the sort of preparation that makes the difference. The full lesson plan gives you the story script, teaching notes and demo video so you can try it with your own students.
It is included with Video & Story – the LessonStream mini course (see below).
Video & Story
If you would like to explore the ideas in this post, the LessonStream mini course – Video & Story – is the perfect place to start.
The course includes the full Giraffe One, Humans Nil lesson plan with notes, script and demo video.
Thank you for reading!
Jamie
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