5 Powerful Insights from a Master Storyteller
“Story emerges from human minds as naturally as breath emerges from between human lips.”
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Will Storr, the brilliant mind behind The Science of Storytelling and his newly published A Story Is A Deal.
As an award-winning journalist, bestselling author and public speaker, Will has spent decades researching why some stories captivate us while others leave us cold.
If you've ever wondered why some narratives grip you from the start while others fall flat, Will has the answers behind what makes stories work. And the secret is more than just having a good plot.
Here are five storytelling gems I took away from our conversation:
1. Storytelling is a contract between the storyteller and the audience
Will explained that every story begins with an implicit promise: "Give me your attention, and I'll give you a meaningful experience." It's essentially a transaction.
When you begin telling a story (whether in a book, presentation, or casual conversation), you commit to delivering something valuable in exchange for the audience's time and mental energy.
"The moment someone begins listening to your story, they're investing in you," Will told me. "If you don't deliver on that promise by providing emotional payoff, resolution, or genuine insight, you break the deal, and the audience tunes out or feels cheated."
This principle applies whether you're crafting a sales pitch, writing website copy, or sharing an anecdote at a networking event. Your audience is constantly evaluating whether their attention investment is paying off.
2. Characters need flaws, and they need to grow
Perfect characters are boring.
Will emphasise how compelling stories emerge from flawed characters facing challenges that force them to evolve. "The story is the struggle," he said emphatically. "It's not about where the character starts; it's about how they change."
Think about your favourite stories: Harry Potter begins as an insecure boy under the stairs who becomes a powerful wizard. And Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol starts as a miserly and cold-hearted individual but transforms into a generous and caring person.
These characters captivate us because their journeys involve overcoming internal limitations as much as external obstacles.
3. Conflict is everything
Will reminded me that tension pulls us in and keeps us engaged. "Our brains are wired to pay attention to problems," he explained. "From an evolutionary standpoint, problems signal potential danger or opportunity. That's why we become so invested in seeing how conflicts resolve."
Whether it's a personal struggle, a business challenge, or an epic battle with an evil enemy, conflict creates the narrative tension that compels us to keep turning the page or binge-watching late into the night.
It’s a trick you can apply to marketing a product or service by highlighting the obstacles, pain points, or tensions your product or service helps resolve. The conflict setup makes your solution more compelling.
4. Stories are about belief systems
This insight genuinely surprised me. Will explained that at the heart of every powerful story is a belief system, what the characters believe about themselves and the world and how those beliefs are challenged or transformed through experience.
"The best stories don't just change circumstances; they change the character's view of the world," he said. "That's what makes a story resonate long after it's over."
Consider how Neo's entire understanding of reality is turned upside down in The Matrix. It’s a similar story when Truman Burbank in The Truman Show discovers his whole life is a television program, forcing him to question everything he thought was real.
These belief transformations are what make stories stick with us.
5. Emotion trumps logic
Data and facts have their place, but stories move us primarily because they make us feel something. Will shared that the best storytellers engage the audience's emotions first, creating an experience that opens them to new information or perspectives.
"The brain processes emotional information differently than logical information," Will explained. "Emotion creates memory and motivation in ways that pure data simply cannot."
If you're not making your audience feel something (curiosity, hope, frustration, or relief), you're not telling a story; you're just delivering information. The emotional component is what transforms information into a meaningful narrative.
Putting It Into Practice
Will's insights have fundamentally changed how I approach storytelling, whether writing this blog, crafting a presentation, or even sharing updates on LinkedIn. I've started paying much more attention to the emotional journey I'm creating and whether I'm fulfilling my end of the "story deal."
If you're interested in exploring storytelling more deeply, I highly recommend The Science of Storytelling and A Story Is A Deal. They offer theoretical and practical frameworks for creating narratives that resonate psychologically.
Keen to hear more?
You can listen to my entire conversation with Will Storr on Spotify or watch the video interview on YouTube, where we explore these concepts in greater depth.
If you found this interesting, you’d enjoy our highly rated and popular Storytelling course, which was created in collaboration with Cannes Lions and industry experts. So don’t delay; enrol today.
