Storytelling

Most storytelling advice tells you to start slow: establish the ordinary world, introduce your characters, build context before introducing conflict. The Fichtean Curve says: screw that. Start with a crisis. Then another crisis. And another. And another. Keep escalating until you reach a climax, deliver a brief resolution, and you’re done. No leisurely setup. No patient worldbuilding. No gentle easing the audience into the story. Just: Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Boom. ...

The Princess Bride begins with a grandfather reading a book to his sick grandson. Inside that book is the story of Westley and Buttercup. But that story contains another story—the legend of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Three stories, nested inside each other like Russian dolls. This technique—nested loop narrative—is one of the most elegant ways to add depth, resonance, and meaning to your stories. But it’s also one of the easiest to mess up. ...

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey has dominated storytelling advice for decades. Seventeen stages, archetypal characters, mythological resonance—it’s the blueprint for everything from Star Wars to The Matrix to Harry Potter. But there’s a problem: it’s complicated. Most writers don’t need a 17-step formula. They need something practical, intuitive, and flexible enough to apply to everything from sitcoms to space operas. Enter Dan Harmon’s Story Circle—an eight-step distillation of Campbell’s monomyth that’s simpler to use, easier to teach, and just as powerful. ...

Western storytelling has a formula: introduce a hero, give them a problem, make it worse, then resolve it through struggle. Conflict is everything. Heroes need villains. Protagonists need obstacles. Stories need tension. But what if there’s another way? What if you could tell a compelling story with zero conflict, no antagonist, and no struggle—and still keep your audience completely engaged? Welcome to kishotenketsu (起承転結), the East Asian narrative structure that’s been creating beautiful stories for over a thousand years without relying on conflict at all. ...

Every screenwriting book tells you the same thing: stories have three acts. Act 1: Setup (establish character, world, conflict) Act 2: Confrontation (escalating obstacles, rising stakes) Act 3: Resolution (climax, falling action, denouement) There’s a problem though. Most of your favorite movies don’t actually follow this structure. Or rather, they follow it so loosely that calling it “three acts” is misleading at best and creatively limiting at worst. Let’s be clear: the three-act structure isn’t wrong. But it’s not a rule—it’s a retrospective description, not a prescription. And treating it as gospel might be why your story feels forced. ...

Two headlines compete for your attention: A: “Multifaceted approaches to ameliorating socioeconomic disparities” B: “Why poor people stay poor” Both convey similar ideas. But you clicked on B, didn’t you? Or at least your brain wanted to. This isn’t about intelligence or laziness. It’s about cognitive fluency—one of the most powerful forces determining which stories spread and which die in obscurity. What Is Cognitive Fluency? Cognitive fluency is the subjective ease with which our brains process information. ...

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. ...

You’re watching a movie. A character reaches for a doorknob. Just as their fingers touch the metal, you wince—because you know what they don’t: someone is waiting on the other side with a knife. Or you’re reading a novel. The protagonist is about to make a terrible decision based on incomplete information. Your chest tightens. You want to shout at them, warn them, stop them—even though they’re ink on paper. ...

It’s 2 AM. You tell yourself “just one more episode” for the third time tonight. The show ended on a cliffhanger, and your brain refuses to let you sleep until you know what happens next. Or maybe you’re at work, supposedly focused on a spreadsheet, but part of your brain is still churning over that unfinished novel you put down this morning. Why do unfinished stories occupy so much mental real estate? The answer lies in a phenomenon discovered in a 1920s Berlin restaurant—and it might be the most powerful tool in a storyteller’s arsenal. ...

Have you ever missed your bus stop because you were engrossed in a podcast? Stayed up way too late because you needed to know how the book ends? Felt your heart race during a movie scene even though you knew it wasn’t real? That’s not a character flaw. That’s neuroscience. Stories don’t just entertain us—they hijack our brain chemistry. And understanding how this works can transform you from someone who tells stories to someone who creates irresistible narratives. ...