How to tell a story

Every story must have a beginning, middle, and end. Tony Loyd uses the acronym SOAR:

• Scene
• Obstacles encountered
• Action taken
• Resolution¹

Storyboard artist Emma Coats outlines a fairytale form as the following: “Once upon a time, there was (blank). Every day, (blank). One day, (blank). Because of that, (blank). Because of that, (blank). Until finally, (blank).”²

Author John Gardner says, “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition … and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.”³

If you’re in the middle of your story, you can tell it as a pitch or a choose-your-own adventure: share where you’ve been, where you find yourself now, and where you may be in the future.⁴

Make sure you know why tell the story.¹ Why create?

Storytelling is effective when:

• You use a hook⁵
• You stay on track¹—even simply writing in chronological order will captivate your audience⁵
• You know your ending, the point you wish to make,¹ who the message is for,⁵ and what central theme or plot point you’re going for⁶
• You embrace conflict and struggle⁶
• You have a clear structure⁶
• You Tell the truth
• You involve the reader/listener,¹ what Ira Glass calls “bait”⁵ (see Also The Reading Process—A Phenomenological Approach)
• You tell it with compassion
• You don’t co-opt someone else’s story (see Is this story only mine to share?)

Fairytales break the rules of modern storytelling conventions, and the form can offer a nice reprieve. Kate Bernheimer says there are four features of fairytales: flatness (particularly flatness of character), abstraction (lack of details), intuitive logic (like dream logic, or surrealism, or magical realism), normalized magic. Lincoln Michel adds two more: open artifice, and a non-setting. Some of these features have some crossover with other genres.⁷

However you tell it, remember Sharing your story is important.