Humans use storytelling for practically everything we do. It is a tool we use to tell other humans what’s happening, to convince, to entertain, to delight, to manipulate. Yet, most of us don’t actually understand how it works on a conscious level. When we try to tell stories our efforts are mostly intuitive.

For some reason, many people think telling stories is easy or at least a lot easier than it actually is. They assume that because they tell simple stories in a functional way on a daily basis that they understand more complex stories and storytelling. It would be like me believing that because I know how to use WordPress to write a blog post, I could easily write the code necessary to create a plug-in for WordPress.

It’s not that stories are a mystery or that storytelling isn’t a skill that can be learned. There are many ways to learn that skill. There are classes, books, videos, and overpriced university programs dedicated to the craft.

The problem is that people are full of ego and don’t know they are ignorant.

How one goes about storytelling might seem obvious…

If you ask most people the simple question, “What makes for a good story,” They couldn’t give you a coherent answer. The best you might get is an example of a book or film but they couldn’t tell you why. They might say, “I know it when I see it.”

Storytelling isn’t mysticism or luck.

It’s hard to do. It takes a lot of time. Most people give up before they learn it because once they see how complex stories are, they give it up the same way they give up learning to play the guitar or learning to draw.

Creating a story is a slow, messy, uncertain process.

Great stories and great storytellers are rare because storytelling is hard.