A software engineer tries to explain their work at a dinner party: “So basically we’re implementing a microservices architecture using containerized deployments with an event-driven messaging pattern…”
The eyes around the table glaze over.
A doctor explains a diagnosis: “You have acute pharyngitis secondary to a streptococcal infection, so we’ll prescribe a beta-lactam antibiotic…”
The patient nods, understanding nothing.
An experienced teacher wonders why students don’t grasp concepts that seem obvious.
They’re all suffering from the same problem: the curse of knowledge.
What Is the Curse of Knowledge?
First described by economists in 1989 and popularized by Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick, the curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that makes it nearly impossible to remember what it’s like not to know something you know.
Once you understand how a car engine works, you can’t unlearn it. You can’t recreate the mindset of someone who has no idea what a carburetor is or why oil matters.
This creates a massive communication gap:
- Experts think in abstractions (concepts, principles, frameworks)
- Novices need concrete examples (stories, analogies, tangible cases)
When an expert tries to teach, they often skip the foundational context that made the knowledge make sense in the first place. They jump straight to the conclusion, forgetting the journey that got them there.
The result? Boring, inaccessible, ineffective stories.
The Tapper and the Listener Experiment
Stanford psychologist Elizabeth Newton ran a brilliant experiment demonstrating the curse of knowledge:
She divided people into two groups:
- Tappers: Chose a well-known song and tapped out the rhythm on a table
- Listeners: Tried to guess the song based only on the tapping
Before the listeners guessed, tappers predicted how often listeners would correctly identify the song. They estimated 50% success rate.
The actual result? 2.5%.
Why the massive gap?
When tappers tapped, they heard the full song in their heads—melody, lyrics, instrumentation. To them, the rhythm made perfect sense. They couldn’t understand how anyone could not hear “Happy Birthday” in those taps.
But listeners heard only an abstract, arhythmic tapping with no context.
This is exactly what happens when experts tell stories.
They’re tapping out a rhythm, hearing a full symphony in their heads, and baffled when the audience only hears noise.
How the Curse Kills Stories
The curse of knowledge manifests in storytelling in several destructive ways:
1. Jargon Overload
Experts swim in specialized vocabulary. Terms that took them years to internalize feel like “normal language.”
The cursed version:
“Our go-to-market strategy leverages a product-led growth model with a freemium funnel optimized for PLG metrics, focusing on reducing CAC while improving LTV through retention cohorts.”
The accessible version:
“We let people use the product for free, then charge them when they love it enough to want more. We track how many free users become paying customers.”
The first version uses 11 pieces of jargon. The expert doesn’t even notice—those terms are how they think. But to an outsider, it’s incomprehensible.
2. Missing Context
Experts forget that the audience doesn’t share their mental framework.
The cursed version:
“Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was revolutionary because it incorporated vocal soloists and a chorus into the final movement.”
The accessible version:
“For centuries, symphonies were purely instrumental—imagine an orchestra concert where no one ever sings. Beethoven shocked everyone by adding singers to the final movement of his 9th Symphony. It would be like if, halfway through a jazz concert, the band suddenly started performing opera.”
The first assumes you know what a symphony is, what a movement is, and why this matters. The second builds the context from scratch.
3. Skipping the Struggle
Experts forget how hard it was to learn something. They compress years of struggle into a single sentence.
The cursed version:
“Just implement a recursive backtracking algorithm—it’s straightforward.”
The accessible version:
“For two weeks, I couldn’t wrap my head around recursion. I kept drawing diagrams of functions calling themselves, trying to trace the logic. Then one day, working through my tenth maze-solving example, something clicked. Now I’m going to show you that same maze example because it’s the one that made it make sense for me.”
The first assumes recursion is “straightforward.” The second acknowledges the learning curve and provides scaffolding.
4. The Abstract Trap
The more expert you become, the more you think in abstract principles. But humans learn through concrete examples.
The cursed version:
“Leadership is about aligning individual motivations with organizational objectives while maintaining authentic relationships.”
The accessible version:
“I once had an engineer who hated meetings. He was brilliant but avoided every planning session. I learned he felt meetings were performative time-wasting. So instead of forcing him to attend, I started sending him written agendas beforehand and asking for written feedback. He engaged deeply when he could think through problems alone. That’s when I realized leadership isn’t making everyone work the same way—it’s finding what makes each person effective.”
Principles are forgettable. Stories stick.
Why This Matters for Storytellers
Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, the curse of knowledge is your enemy:
For Fiction Writers
The curse makes you:
- Info-dump: You know your world intimately, so you dump paragraphs of backstory, history, and worldbuilding, forgetting that readers don’t yet care
- Underexplain character motivations: “Obviously character X did Y because of their trauma in chapter 3” (which the reader skimmed and forgot)
- Use unclear pronouns: “He walked into the room where he saw him” (you know who’s who; your reader doesn’t)
For Nonfiction Writers
The curse makes you:
- Skip foundational concepts: “As we all know…” (No, we don’t all know)
- Over-rely on abstractions: Lists of principles instead of illustrative examples
- Use insider language: Acronyms and jargon that feel natural to you but alienate readers
For Presenters
The curse makes you:
- Start too advanced: Assuming baseline knowledge the audience doesn’t have
- Rush through explanations: “This is simple” (for you, not for them)
- Forget to motivate: Explaining what something is without explaining why it matters
Breaking the Curse
You can’t fully escape the curse of knowledge—once you know something, you can’t unknow it. But you can develop strategies to work around it:
1. Find Your Confused Past Self
Before explaining anything, ask: “What did I believe before I learned this? What confused me? What examples made it click?”
Your past self is your best proxy for your current audience.
Example: If you’re teaching Git to beginners, remember when you first encountered merge conflicts and thought you’d broken everything. Start there. Tell that story. Your past confusion is their current state.
2. Test on a Naive Reader
Find someone who doesn’t know your subject and have them read your draft. Don’t explain anything first. Just watch where they get confused.
Their confusion is data. Every “huh?” is a place where your expertise blinded you.
3. Use Analogies and Metaphors
Analogies bridge the gap between what the audience knows and what you’re teaching.
Example:
- “A firewall is like a bouncer at a club—it checks every request and only lets in the ones that meet certain criteria.”
- “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” (overused but effective)
- “Git branches are like parallel universes for your code”
The key: use analogies from domains your audience already understands.
4. Lead with the Concrete, Follow with the Abstract
Don’t start with theory—start with a specific example, then extract the principle.
Cursed order:
- Explain the theory of narrative tension
- Show examples from literature
Effective order:
- Tell the story of how Jaws kept the shark hidden for most of the film
- Explain the principle: “Showing less can create more tension”
- Connect it to the broader theory of narrative suspense
Humans learn from specific to general, not the reverse.
5. Embrace Redundancy
Experts hate repeating themselves—it feels inefficient. But repetition is crucial for learning.
Repeat your key points:
- In the introduction
- In the body (with examples)
- In the conclusion
Say it three different ways:
- Tell them what you’re going to tell them
- Tell them
- Tell them what you told them
This feels redundant to you (you already know it). It feels clarifying to your audience (they’re learning it).
6. Use the “Grandma Test”
Before finalizing any explanation, ask: “Could I explain this to my grandmother/a curious 10-year-old/someone from a completely different field?”
If not, you’re still cursed. Simplify.
The Best Storytellers Remember Being Lost
The most effective communicators aren’t always the most knowledgeable—they’re the ones who remember what it felt like not to know.
- Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who could explain quantum mechanics using everyday analogies
- Carl Sagan made cosmology accessible by grounding abstract concepts in human-scale metaphors (“a pale blue dot”)
- Ira Glass turned audio storytelling into an art by obsessing over what keeps listeners confused vs. engaged
They weren’t dumbing things down—they were building scaffolding so others could climb up.
The Paradox
Here’s the irony: the more you know, the worse you typically are at explaining it.
But the more you remember about learning it, the better you become.
The best storytellers maintain a dual consciousness:
- Expert knowledge: Understanding the subject deeply
- Beginner empathy: Remembering what it felt like not to understand
This is why great teachers often say: “My students teach me how to teach.”
They’re not being humble. They’re recognizing that watching someone struggle to understand reveals where the curse has blinded them.
Practical Takeaway
Before your next presentation, article, or story, do this:
- Write down three things you found confusing when you first learned this topic
- Identify five pieces of jargon you use without thinking—then define or replace them
- Find one person who knows nothing about your subject and pitch them your idea in 60 seconds
If you can make it clear to them, you’ve broken the curse.
If you can’t, you’re still tapping out a rhythm only you can hear.
Next in the series: Cognitive Fluency - Why simple stories spread and complex ones don’t.