Great Thinkers: It All Starts With a Good Story

Introduction

Storytelling is an essential skill that applies to every aspect of our lives. Trying to nail a job interview? You’re telling the hiring team a story about who you are and why you’ll be the right fit. Trying to advertise a product or idea? You’re telling potential customers a story about why they should buy it. Want to be funny and charismatic on a date or with friends? Telling a great story can be just the right way to do it.

In this article, we’ll explore what some great thinkers have to say about the purpose of storytelling, the main elements of a good story, and how to make a story interesting.

Aristotle: Stories Imitate Life

Storytelling is as old as humanity. So to start off, we’ll explore why humans tell stories. What do we get out of them?

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, storytelling is a form of imitation. He argues that imitation comes naturally to humans, as we’re social animals and learn by imitating those around us. People tell stories that imitate real people, objects, and events. Audiences then recognize what’s being imitated and take pleasure in understanding it.

In Poetics, Aristotle is particularly concerned with tragic storytelling, which helps audiences understand suffering. Tragic storytelling is also purifying, according to Aristotle: The audience feels fear and pity for the characters who suffer, which “purifies” them of these emotions in a safe environment.

Though ancient, Aristotle’s ideas about storytelling resonate today. Think of how relieving it can feel to have a nice, long cry. Tragedy allows you to experience this without having to go through any real hardship. This may explain why modern audiences are drawn to emotional dramas like Grey’s Anatomy, which deliver emotional highs and lows through fictional crises, heartbreaks, and near-death experiences.

It also explains why other modern forms of storytelling—like TED Talks and marketing campaigns—often rely on emotional arcs and personal struggles. As Chris Anderson explains in TED Talks, a compelling TED Talk doesn’t just present data; it tells a story of failure, resilience, or transformation that moves the audience. Similarly, Kindra Hall explains in Stories That Stick that effective marketing uses emotional stories to forge a deeper connection with consumers. Just as stories did in Aristotle’s time, these modern stories resonate with audiences because they explore something meaningful about the human condition—our fears, hopes, and capacity for change. In this way, today’s emotional storytelling continues the ancient tradition of using narrative not just to entertain, but to connect and transform.

McKee: Good Stories Are Meaningful

If you want to use stories to connect with or even transform an audience, you need to tell a good story. In Story, screenwriter Robert McKee explains the basic elements of a good story and why they’re effective.

Echoing Aristotle, McKee argues that good stories are meaningful because they contain elements that remind us of our own lives. This connection makes us feel understood and can even change the way we think about life or act. For example, say a character reminds you of a difficult coworker. Later in the story, you learn that the character acts this way because of an insecurity. This could make you view your coworker differently and treat them more compassionately.

McKee explains that being true to life isn’t the same as being realistic, as there are plenty of fantastical stories that people connect with on an emotional level. Even abstract and surreal stories can convey ideas or feelings that an audience relates to, like fear of the unknown or the humor in absurdity. For example, Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis is about a man’s transformation into an insect. Readers aren’t likely to have had a comparable real-life experience, but the story is meaningful because it conveys feelings of isolation and despair.

Three elements make a story meaningful, according to McKee:

1. A relatable protagonist: These help the audience feel what the characters are feeling, providing them with the emotional connection that makes a story meaningful.
2. A plot with twists and turns: This keeps the audience engaged as they wonder what’s going to happen next.
3. Characters who change in a significant way: This gives the events in your story more emotional weight, helping them convey truths about life.

King: Find Your Story As You Go

Now that we’ve covered what makes a story good, let’s discuss how to put a story together.

In On Writing, Stephen King argues that you shouldn’t plan out your entire story before you create it. He says pre-planning makes your story feel more artificial because our lives don’t perfectly follow an existing plan. Life is unpredictable, and writing a story without fully knowing where it will lead imitates that feeling. An unplanned story is also more suspenseful, as even the writer doesn’t know where it’ll end up. Your audience can sense that uncertainty, and they’ll be less able to predict what happens next.

King suggests you find a starting point and discover the shape of your story as you go. Come up with some general ideas for characters and situations they might find themselves in, then think through the choices they’d make and how others would respond to them. You’ll naturally make more discoveries about who your characters are and how their story will progress. For example, if you’re trying to create a story for a TV commercial, you could start with an idea of who your ideal customer is and a problem they might face. Then, imagine the feelings they might have and the choices they might make as they try to solve the problem.

What if you already know how the story ends—because, for example, it’s about an event that really happened to you, or because you know the product you’re marketing solves the fictional customer’s problem? You can still benefit from King’s approach by discovering the path to that ending rather than scripting every detail in advance. Stay curious and open as you explore how the ending comes about, and let the emotional arc and turning points emerge naturally.

Cron: Make Your Story Efficient

In addition to defining the general shape of your story, you must also make decisions about which details to include. Details help you keep your audience engaged by providing them with interesting, relevant information about your plot, setting, or characters. However, they can also disrupt that engagement by distracting from the plot and characters of your story.

Publisher and producer Lisa Cron (Wired for Story) says your story should be as efficient as possible. When you include details, make sure they’re relevant to the character, the overall plot, or the key emotions and themes. Because people are capable of focusing on only a few pieces of information at a time, tangential details will either be missed or distract more important parts of your story.

Cron also suggests you keep your details specific. If you’re too vague or abstract, people will struggle to pick up on what’s happening. Using language that evokes specific, concrete images makes your story easier to follow.

For example, say you’re telling a story about the time you won a dance competition. If you describe the kind of dance you were doing in some detail—including what you did well or poorly—your audience can imagine themselves in your shoes, which keeps them engaged and invested in what happens next.

Great Thinkers’ Advice for Creating a Compelling Story

• Aristotle (Poetics): Stories are powerful because they imitate real life, helping us understand some aspect of the human experience. So, focus on telling emotionally engaging stories—this connects you with your audience and inspires transformation.
• Robert McKee (Story): Compelling stories are meaningful, speaking to an experience or emotion we have in our lives. Make your story true to life with a relatable protagonist, an interesting plot, and characters who change in some way.
• Stephen King (On Writing): Pre-planned stories come across as artificial because life is unpredictable. Create the overall shape of your story by starting with a few ideas about your characters; then, discover the rest naturally as you go.
• Lisa Cron (Wired for Story): Only include details that are directly relevant to the characters and plot, so your audience doesn’t get distracted. To help your audience follow along, make sure the details you do include are specific.

What Do You Think?

What true-to-life experience or feeling do you want your story to convey? What’s a good starting point from which to discover your story? What details are essential and how can you convey them?