The 10 Immutable Laws of Storytelling
by Andy Goodman

1. Stories are about people. Even if your organization:

  • is devoted to saving flora and/or fauna

  • is in the thick of policy change

  • helps other organizations work more effectively

human beings are still driving the action.

Therefore, the protagonist has to be a person. They serve as the audience’s guide through the story. It is essential to provide some physical description when he or she is introduced. This helps your audience form a mental picture—it’s hard to follow what you can’t see. Include characters’ names, as audiences relate better to “Marcus” than “the at-risk youth”. Use a pseudonym to protect your subject’s identity.


2. The people in your story ‘need to want’ something. A story doesn’t begin until the audience knows precisely what the protagonist’s goal is, and has a reason to care whether or not it is attained. Within the first paragraph or two, make sure it’s clear what your hero wants to do, get, or change.

Stories are driven by some kind of desire, so AVOID the passive voice. When you write, “a decision was reached,” the people in your story magically disappear and suddenly the action is forced by an unseen hand. (For more on problems with using the passive voice, see Gonzales, Alberto.)

3. Fix stories in time and space. Audiences don’t require every detail up front, but when the tale, begins, audiences will want to know: Did this happen last week or ten years ago? Are we on a street corner in Boston, a Wal-Mart in Iowa, or somewhere else? Give the audience their bearings quickly, so that they stop wondering about the ‘where’ and ‘when’ and can more readily follow you into the deeper meaning within.

4. Let your characters speak for themselves. Characters who speak to each other lend immediacy and urgency to the piece. Audience members will feel as if they are the proverbial fly-on-the-wall within the scene, hearing in real time what each person has to say. Direct quotes let characters speak in idiosyncratic voices. This lends authenticity to the dialogue. “The name is Bond, James Bond,” is better than “The agent introduced himself, characteristically repeating his surname twice.”

5. Audiences easily get bored. Human beings are hard-wired to love stories, but in an “Age of Too Much Information”, people don’t have time to wait for your story to get interesting. You must make the audience wonder within the first moments, “What happens next?” or “How is this going to turn out?” As the people in your story pursue their goal, they must run into obstacles, surprises, or something that makes the audience sit up and take notice. Otherwise they’ll stand up and walk away.

6. Stories speak the audience’s language. According to national literacy studies, the average American reads at a sixth-grade level. Plain speaking is the order of the day if your ads, posters, and publications are intended for mass consumption. Good storytellers also have a keen ear for the colloquialisms and local slang that quickly establish common ground between the teller and listener.

7. Stories stir up emotions. Human beings are not inclined to think about things they do not care about. So even when you have mountains of hard evidence on your side, your audience needs to feel something before they will even glance at your numbers. Stories stir the emotions: not to be manipulative, not simply for melodramatic effect, but to break through the white noise of information that inundates us every day. Stories deliver the message: “this is worth your attention”.

8. Stories show, they don’t tell: Your audience will intellectually understand the sentence: “When the nurse visited the family at home, she was met with hostility and guardedness.” But when you write, “When they all sat down for the first time in the living room, the family members wouldn’t look her in the eye,” your audience will see a picture, feel the hostility, and become more involved with the story.

9. Stories have at least one “moment of truth.” The best stories show us something about how we should treat ourselves, other people, and the world around us. Since the first forms of humankind gathered around the first fires, stories have been containers of truth. Your audience will instinctively look within your story for this kind of insight.

10. Stories have clear meaning. When the final line is spoken, your audience should know exactly why they took this journey with you. In the end, the most important rule of all may be: If your audience cannot answer the question, “What was that story about?” it won’t matter how diligently you followed any other rules.

For a printable PDF of “The 10 Immutable Laws of Storytelling,” please download it here.