Why stories work

A story is events that happen to someone and are linked by causes: who, what happened, how it ended. Absorption in a story is called narrative transportation.

The same set of facts

Picture two flyers for one café. The first says: “Opened in 2019. Bread from 6 a.m. Beans roasted on site. View of the river. Fourteen kinds of coffee.” The second says: “In March 2019 the owner lit the oven in the basement for the first time, and the neighbors arrived before the bread had cooled, following the smell.” The second has fewer facts. It’s also the one you’ll probably remember.

A story is events that happen to someone and are linked by causes. It has three things: a person (or a group of people), what happened to them, and how it ended. A list of facts needs none of that: you can shuffle the items and the meaning stays the same. In a story, the order decides everything.

Try it on yourself. The diagram below gives the same six facts as a list and as a scene. Read one version, hide it, and answer the questions from memory.

List Story

• The Quay café opened in 2019.
• The bread is baked from 6 a.m.
• The beans are roasted in the basement of the same building.
• The windows face the river.
• The menu has fourteen kinds of coffee.
• There is a terrace with twenty seats.

Read it once, without hurrying. Then press the button: the text disappears and you’ll be asked three questions.

Hide it and test myself

One person, one time, proves nothing. You already know the questions, for a start. But give the list version to one friend and the scene to another, and ask them both tomorrow. That is usually how the difference shows.

Check yourself: what is the shortest story made of?

A person, an event and an ending, linked by causes. If the items can be shuffled without losing meaning, it’s a list.

What happens to the reader

Psychologists call the state of an engrossed reader narrative transportation: attention, imagination and feelings are busy with the plot, and the world around steps back for a while. You know this yourself: you look up from a book and realize you’ve missed your stop.

Two findings matter for a website. Both are summarized by Melanie Green and Markus Appel in a 2024 review, which is in the sources.

1. Absorbed readers on average argue less with a text. When your head is busy with “what happens next?”, there is less left for “is that even true?”. This is a tendency, not a law: a well-written ad doesn’t always work either.
2. They more readily accept the idea the story carries, and they remember the details better. That holds for invented stories too, which is why a story is not evidence. It only brings the idea closer.

An important rule follows from the second point. A story persuades more strongly than a list, so the author’s responsibility is greater. An invented “client” with a happy ending on an expert’s site is not a technique, it’s deception. We come back to this in the lessons on the case study and on ethics.

Check yourself: why does an absorbed reader argue less?

Their attention is taken up by the plot, so less is left for objections. It’s a tendency, not a guarantee.

Why a story is remembered

Three reasons, which the authors of books on making ideas “sticky” lean on (Chip and Dan Heath, Made to Stick).

• Images. You can picture a person at an oven. You can’t picture “high quality”.
• Causes. An event that follows from another is easier to retell than a set of unconnected items. You’ll repeat almost word for word the chain “the neighbor moved the fence, so she ordered a survey, so the court accepted the plan”.
• Feeling. Surprise, worry and relief keep a memory better than an even list does.

One caution is worth remembering. Articles on storytelling often quote a figure such as “a story is remembered 22 times better than a fact”. Its source is unclear, and there is usually no reliable study behind it. If a number can’t be confirmed, it’s better not to write it on a site or a slide. For your work, the true part is enough: a story is usually remembered better than a bare list.

Check yourself: what do you do with the figure “22 times better”?

Don’t repeat it as a fact: it has no reliable source. “Usually better” is enough.

Where a story is needed and where it gets in the way

People come to a site with different intentions, and a story doesn’t help all of them. The researchers at Nielsen Norman Group showed long ago that visitors skim a page rather than read it through, and expect what they need to turn up quickly. A simple rule follows: a story belongs where a person is deciding whether to trust you, and not where they are carrying out a task.

Part of a site	What the person needs	What fits
Top of a page	to see whether they’re in the right place	one scene or one clear sentence
“About”, “About me”	to decide whether you can be trusted	a short story with facts
Case studies	to see how it works	a story with numbers
Prices, terms	to compare and calculate	a table or a list
Contacts, a form	to call or write	clear labels, no plot
Legal text	to learn their rights	exact wording

A good test before you add a story: “If a person is in a hurry, can they find the answer without reading the story?” If not, the story belongs lower on the page, or on a page of its own.

Check yourself: does a price table need a story?

No. A person looking at prices is comparing and counting. They need numbers and terms, and a plot would only slow them down.

Practice

Your brief has sections and content. Choose a section of the page that has a list: in the check, that is the second section of your brief, and the list in it is made of your items. Right now it looks like an inventory. Write a scene of one to three sentences before it.

• Who. A person from those you’re building the site for. “A landowner”, “a student” or “a neighbor from the waterfront” is enough: you don’t need to invent names, and you must not name real people.
• What happened. What trouble or wish they came with, and what you did.
• How it ended. The result, ideally with a number, a date or a place: “in two weeks”, “in March”, “on the waterfront”.

Don’t write “we’re the best” or “a unique approach”. Show a fact and leave the conclusion to the reader. If a scene is hard to invent, take a real case from your work and remove everything that could identify the person.

What was wrong with 2019

In 2019 sites built with static-page generators were fast and clean, but the “About us” page usually carried a line such as “We are a dynamic, fast-growing company with a team of dedicated professionals”. Such a line can be pasted onto any site and lose nothing, which is the sign of a list of judgments with no scene. Today search engines and readers alike spot text written “for everyone” more easily, since models write it now too. A live scene with a real detail is still the cheapest way to show there are real people behind a site.