Editing Telling Stories (section)

=== Structure: Challenge, Choice, Outcome ===
Stories that stick often share similar structural elements: plot, character, and moral. What makes a story a story—rather than a mere recounting of events—is the sequence of challenge, choice, and outcome. A story begins when a character confronts a challenge that demands a choice; that choice yields an outcome. We lean in when a character faces tension, uncertainty, or the unknown.

Our stories are about people. A storyteller engages an audience by helping them identify with the character. The goal is to create empathy so listeners consider their own challenges and choices—and, ideally, feel the outcome of the character’s choices (a “lesson of the heart”), not just understand it intellectually (a “lesson of the head”). The choices in our stories communicate the values held by the characters.