We need to look first at what story-telling is. I've yet to find a good video or Prezi or interactive piece that captures the central ideas, so we'll have to go back to some basics about the differences between a good story and a bad story.
We all know people who are bad story-tellers (mom?). They start from the very beginning ("I went to the grocery store to buy apples"), they interweave unimportant details ("the golden delicious were on sale for 49 each. I was thinking of baking a pie or maybe a strudel"), and often, when they reach what they think is the climax of the story, it's underwhelming and possibly even unrelated to all of the information that's been told previously ("and when I left, I realized that I had a flat tire").
If we're lucky, we also know people who are great storytellers. They hook you in early ("The kid who slashed my tire was someone I'd made enemies with in high school"), the details they give you matter to the telling of the story ("he had a brother with a stutter who I used to make fun of"), and, when the story finishes, you have made a discovery of some kind, related to what's come before ("I confronted him a week later and he said his brother was over his stutter until he saw me at ShopRite. Just seeing my face made the stutter return"). Or something like that. Good storytellers weave the details and the scenes together to create a whole piece, one that has a sense of completeness; a feeling that without each particular sentence, the story would fall apart.
Here are some examples.
And an excerpt from Louis CK's stand up about the boredom of being a dad.
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