How to Tell a Great Story
Essential tips from Ira Glass on storytelling
We were sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee.
“You’ve got to have a thesis,” said my dad’s friend from the States, Thomas. “To write a compelling essay, you need a thesis, and then you support that with three arguments.”
Three days earlier, I asked Thomas — as an English native speaker — to help me out with my college essays.
I didn’t know then his advice was wrong on so many levels.
Storytelling is everywhere. Whether you write a book, record a podcast, make a presentation, or create a Medium post, the ability to tell a story, and to grab a person’s attention is critical. Yet, so many people don’t know how to write and tell a story in an engaging manner.
Why We Tell Stories
The ability to tell stories is a human superpower. In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari argues that the ability to gossip (or tell stories) is what made humans the dominant species on the planet.
In the War of Art, Steven Pressfield argues that each story has a three-act structure: Act 1 (Setup), Act 2 (Conflict), Act 3 (Resolution). The key to writing a good story is to start at the end and work backward.
