How To Be A Better Writer – Conversational Storytelling 101

Writing a captivating story that flows well and keeps interest from beginning to end is hard – But that’s only when we write them. If you tell someone a story in person, it’s much easier. And we’ve all got that one friend who can tell a story about anything, and make it entertaining. In today’s article, I’ll cover why that is and how to be a better writer by using conversational storytelling.

Verbal Storytelling Vs Written

For many authors, the act of writing often becomes a barrier to storytelling. We feel the need to “perform” literature, insert descriptions that are sometimes filler, agonize over syntax, and slow the narrative pace to a crawl.

Conversational storytelling, however, works well because it usually has a natural, efficient structure. It’s built around what matters most, trims the unnecessary fat, and it gets to the point because the speaker can see the listener’s engagement level.

This natural, real-time narrative instinct is often strangled the moment we open our word processing software. On one hand, this is, of course, obvious – Talking is easier than writing and the story is often shorter.

However, there are some valuable tips and tricks for learning how to translate that innate, efficient style of verbal storytelling into your manuscript and creating more compelling characters and readable plots.

Why Is Conversational Storytelling Effective?

Humans have been telling stories around campfires and things for millennia but we’ve only been writing them down for a fraction of that time. Our brains are hardwired for oral narratives.

The conversational style works because it prioritizes engagement over precision. When you are telling a story to a friend:

1. The Hook is immediate: You begin with the disruption. “You won’t believe…” creates an immediate need for resolution.
2. The Edit is brutal: You skip the boring parts. If a detail about the color of the sky doesn’t serve the story of the flat tire, you instinctively omit it to keep the momentum.
3. The Focus is emotional: You concentrate on how you felt. Embarrassment, terror, and humor are the emotional hooks that keep an audience listening.

In contrast, traditional writing often feels the need to detail everything, sacrificing pace and emotion in favor of description. This leads to the bloating that makes books feel slow and make our lives hard as writers.

How To Be A Better Writer – 5 Conversational Tips

1. “Write” To A Specific Person

Perhaps the best writing lesson to take away from verbal storytelling is to assume your narrator is speaking directly to a specific person, like when you’re talking. Don’t write into the void. When you do this, it shifts the narrator’s tone from a detached observer to an active participant.

Instead of describing a room, describe the room through the eyes of a narrator who is there. This adds an immediate layer of character development that writing can lack if you’re not conscious. This is something G.R.R.M does well, which I covered in my Fantasy Worldbuilding Like George R.R. Martin article.

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2. Read Your Draft Out Loud

When you tell a story out load, it has a specific rhythm that mimics natural human breath. On the flip side, writing often uses more complex sentences that require more focus to digest.

To find your narrative voice, read your draft out loud. If you find yourself running out of breath, stumbling over phrases, or feeling silly saying a sentence, it may be over written. In other words, if it sounds unnatural when spoken, it will probably read the same way.

3. Embrace The Right Emotions

When we tell stories to friends, we aren’t describing scenes; we are sharing an emotional experience. This where the emotional theme {the core feeling} that drives the narrative, is important.

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This also applies to specific emotions. If a character is embarrassed, that should likely be the focal point of your description. This prioritizes the immediate feeling, making the story feel raw and honest.

Think of a real life story where you were embarrassed. If you were to tell that story, those emotions would be most important. So, in times like this in your writing, don’t get distracted describing things that an embarrassed person wouldn’t even notice, as least without a very good reason.

4. Be More Efficient

It isn’t just the voice that changes when you tell a story, it’s also the structure. Conversational storytellers have an excellent instinct for economy. We don’t tell stories about “the time everything went exactly as expected.”

We tell stories about a disruption or a transformation. In writing terminology, this is the “delta”—the change in state or emotion that occurs within a scene. If your scene doesn’t have a delta, you are “writing” (adding details), not “storytelling” (advancing the narrative).

Everything within a given scene should serve a purpose, just like when we tell a story to a friend. For a deep dive on this, check out my tips on How To Write A Scene, which features the advice of Nancy Lamb.

5. Trim The Fat

This is perhaps the biggest hurdle for writers and is similar to the tip above. In conversation, we edit in real-time. When we talk, we get real-time feedback on our listeners and that helps keep us on track.

Authors, however, can’t see the reader’s face. This leads to anxiety that the reader needs more information. Trust your reader. If a detail, subplot, or line of description does not lead to the immediate “point” or the emotional point of a chapter or scene, you might not need it.

The only caveat being when you “seed” information early that will matter later. This is called Story Seeding and does a lot for your story when done correctly.