As humans, we’ve been telling each other stories for so long that we tend to think in them. We use stories to understand the world and share information. Stories underpin all our narratives, whether they’re about dragons, people or government policy. This means people respond strongly to certain characteristics of stories.

Stories make sense. Events have meaning and happen for a reason.

Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Events happen in a meaningful order, usually chronological.

People focus on facts that support the narrative and ignore those that don’t. Use these ideas to make your writing easier to read and more engaging.

Tell the story

To tell an effective story, you must understand its primary message – the point of the story. Once you know that, you know the overall goal of your writing.

Work out what structure will lead your reader to the goal.

Here’s a good pattern to follow. Start your document with a brief summary of the most important information. Then go on to explain the information in more detail. The summary helps readers decide if they need to read the detail.

A common structure that works well for the detail is:

• the beginning state or thing we want to change
• one or more events needed to transform it
• the end state where we have the desired outcome.

Follow the flow

Once you have your structure, stick to it. Make sure you tell the story in order and that each paragraph flows into the next. If you forget to include something, go back and put it where it belongs in the structure.

A good technique is to read your writing aloud or use the ‘read aloud’ function in writing software. This usually shows whether you have a clear flow from beginning to end or are jumping backwards and forwards.

Definition

In its broadest sense, a narrative is a story that describes and connects a series of things (such as people, events, experiences and concepts). The story can be in any medium and engage any of our senses.

Style Manual pages

• Hierarchical structure
• Inverted pyramid structure
• Narrative structure
• Sequential structure