How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

by Meg Bowles

Storytelling is the best thing about being human. And I believe it can change the world.

You are encouraged to remember texture, detail, sense memory, and what you felt like when the story first took place.

Our stories tell us who we are, who we were, and who we hope to be. They’re how we form our very identity. The stories we carry with us contain our lineage, hopes, dreams, and pain. They tell, too, of our anxieties about ourselves, the world, and our place in it.

What pulls at your heart, makes your blood boil, your belly laugh, your eyes widen, or your brain tick.

A study led by neuroscientist Uri Hasson found that when a person is listening and comprehending a story, their brain activity begins to couple, or align, with the brain of the teller.

For us to honor and celebrate your experience, we, your listeners, need to trust that you honor and celebrate ours.

Thanks to the generosity of storytellers, we listeners are almost always granted the pleasure of simultaneously losing ourselves and finding ourselves in the story.

We’re restored to compassion and possibility and reconnected to our messy, marvelous, exasperating, exalted human community.

The photos and artifacts in your album, real or imagined, will conjure memories of people and places and situations.

Turning points have occurred multiple times during your life, from big obstacles to seemingly mundane choices; these turning points have affected and ultimately changed you.

Look for a place, an object, a friendship, that meant a lot to you. Or the opposite: a place, an object, a friendship that almost destroyed you. Try to focus on just one moment!

Felt an emotion: doubled over with laughter, burst into tears, or lost your cool.

Did something you never thought you’d do.

Tried to be something or someone you aren’t.

Discovered something about yourself, your environment, your family, or the world.

Changed your relationship with someone—for better or worse,...

Had a secret revealed—by you or s...

Stood to gain or lose something that ma...

Made a tough choice for the right (or ...

Found yourself saying, I do! I won’t! Hell no! I dare you. You couldn’t pay me to. It w...

Focus on a time frame—whether it’s an afternoon from your adolescence or the week leading up to your fortieth birthday—and tell us about it in detail.

While personal struggles can be part of a story, they do not make a good story on their own. A rule of thumb is to not let the trauma or the struggle be the story, but rather to make it the context of the story.

Stories happen when expectations meet reality.

Getting off at the wrong stop or exit.

A phone number found in a pocket.

The eyes meeting across...

The last—I swear, the last—shot...

A ...

A...

A pro...

A bet...

A win...

A com...

Your ex at th...

The final...

An unexpected event usually kicks off the journey of a story—and the choices you make along the way lead to a bigger, lasting, overall change in you.

All Moth stories involve some shift in the storyteller’s perspective as a result of something that happened.

When mining for stories, consider moments of change in your own life.

In your quest to find your story, think back to those turning-point moments in your life. Often they start with a decision.

Moth stories are all about agency—where something happens as a direct result of something you did or did not do.

Every good story, I feel certain, hinges on a decision. Sometimes there’ll be lots of decisions in the course of a narrative: backtracks, double-downs, veerings off, choices made by other characters, your replies to those choices. But always, at the story’s core, will be one key decision. In the most powerful stories, your decision will be a tough one.

Think back to that proverbial fork in the road, the path least traveled. You made a decision to act or not—where did that decision take you?

What it really comes down to is vulnerability. There is something comforting when people are willing to share the not-so-pretty sides of themselves.

Why does this story, of all the stories in your life, resonate with you? Why do you care? What about it stuck with you? What effect did it have on you—big or small? By answering these questions, you are beginning to identify the stakes in your story.

Stakes come from moments where you feel you have everything to gain or everything to lose.

Stakes are defined by you, the teller—not your mother, brother, sister, or friend—and are born out of what you want/need/must have/can’t live without OR desperately want to avoid.

Your stakes resonate deeply within you, and part of your job as a storyteller is to make us understand your why.

When working on a story, it is essential to keep asking yourself: What are the stakes? Identify the moments where you felt you had something to gain or lose.

Ask yourself: What did I most want? Who or what was challenging me? A story is more compelling when it is clear what a storyteller wants and why.

Explore how the moment challenged or jeopardized your chance of success, your safety, your innocence, your faith—and what you risked physically and/or emotionally gaining or losing as a result.