Why Storytelling is Like a Tree (Stick to the Point!)

Few things test my patience like listening to a meandering story that wanders from tangent to tangent without ever getting to the point. Learning to focus your story on the essentials may be the hardest part of storytelling, which is why I compare storytelling to a tree.

That means when you’re telling a story, you want to move pretty much in a straight line — like you’re following a tree trunk from the base to the top. Any time spent out on the branches (or, God help us, the twigs) is a tang...