Structuring Your Story: The Power Of Order

How the order of your story changes the impact

My name is Merit Visser, and I’m a songwriting and storytelling enthusiast. I break down lyrics and analyse aspects of language to discover storytelling tools. In this article, I reflect on the structure of stories and illustrate this with some easy exercises.

Just like songs have structures, that create a certain attention span, stories have structures too, that you can toy around with once you are aware of it.

The order of a story or song is important: timing and flow have a great influence on the impact of what you want to convey. That impact has to do with expectations and surprise.

Let’s bring this into practice immediately and see what happens to the attention span if you play around with the order in this small, very simplified story.

You make me tea on moments I need it.
I’ve been so busy at work lately.
This is why I love you.
Tea helps me relax when I am stressed.

Ready? Let’s go.

EXAMPLE 1.

This is why I love you.
You make me tea on moments I need it.
I’ve been so busy at work lately.
Tea helps me relax when I am stressed.

In this example, the clue is revealed right away. The message is clear and upfront: I love you, and now you know that, I’m going to tell you why. As a listener, you know what kind of information to expect from the start. The outcome isn’t stressed as much as the road towards it; this might be a good order if you want to explain something clearly.

EXAMPLE 2.

I’ve been so busy at work lately.
Tea helps me relax when I am stressed.
This is why I love you.
You make me tea on moments I need it.

This order actually provides us with a story within a story. The first two lines tell us: there’s a problem (I feel stressed), but I’ve got a solution (tea!). This small story functions as an empowering example of what the clue really is: you get me through tough times. It’s a repetition of the same message, but the clue wouldn’t have been as strong without the example.

EXAMPLE 3.

Tea helps me relax when I’m stressed.
I’ve been so busy at work lately.
You make me tea on moments I need it.
This is why I love you.

When listening to this example, we’re not aware it’s a love story until halfway through or even the very end. The dynamics of this story change drastically; we start off with a rather neutral beginning, then go down a negative slide, before climbing up again by introducing a twist that leads to a positive ending. This order creates an element of surprise and focusses on the unexpected outcome, which is good if you want to shine a different light on the topic or on yourself as a speaker (or artist).

So, if you want to try this for yourself: here’s a small exercise. What happens to the attention span when you toy around with the structure of the following mini story? Try and make a couple of versions.

There’s always a soft breeze where I live.
I don’t feel like I belong here.
In this city the air feels heavy.
I can’t wait to go home.

And then — what happens to your own story (or song!) if you swap around the order of the sections? What do you want to emphasize and when does the flow of the story support this in the best way?

Have fun and good luck!