Great storytelling is rare and difficult – and it has always been so.  But the challenges are becoming more rather than less formidable.  In our overstimulated age, we are skimmers more and more often, and so those of us who are storytellers have to worry about catching and keeping the attention of our audiences more than ever.  As a result, we shorten our offerings in an effort to pander to the diet of information our audiences are experiencing.  Books are often now 40,000 words where they used to be 65,000 to 75,000 words or longer.  TEDx talks have shrunk from 18 minutes to 8 – or less.  And the most popular Instagram reels are 15 – 30 seconds.  The problem is that the shorter any medium gets, the harder it can become to tell a great story in that format.

Those are the stakes.  How can we storytellers persevere and continue to tell stories people want to consume?

There are three essential elements to great storytelling, and meeting the challenge of enchanting audiences in this era means maxing out on all three.

First, conflict.  Without conflict there is no story.  And that’s where the hard work of great storytelling begins, because the best conflicts are the most uncomfortable, the most hair-raising, and the most painful.  The James Bond movie franchise endured through 25 installments and 60 years at least in part because Bond is almost always pitted against a terrifically wicked villain bent on destroying the world.  Bond is in danger to varying degrees throughout the 2 – 3 hours of the movie, and good never fully triumphs over evil until the last few minutes of the script.  Pity the poor scriptwriter for the rumored 26^th installment who has to come up with a fresh and convincing new way to destroy the world!

Conflict is challenging too in the business context because we want to portray success and happy customers rather than difficulties and frustrated consumers.

The second element of great storytelling is a change in the hero as a result of responding to the conflict.  Luke Skywalker learns about how to wield the Force and commits to the Rebellion in the first installment of Star Wars, Elizabeth Bennett confronts her own flaws and learns to open her heart to love in Pride and Prejudice, and Andy Dufresne endures years of unjust imprisonment to emerge a transformed man in the Shawshank Redemption.

Profound change allows us to take the measure of the story as profound.  Without it, we are left wondering what the point was.

And finally, great storytelling needs focus – that is, a theme, so that the story is about something worthy of our attention.  That first Star Wars installment is about finding out what you might be willing to die for.  Pride and Prejudice is about love, and the Shawshank Redemption is about, well, redemption.  Each of these stories compels our attention because the game is worth the candle, as the old saying has it.  In other words, we care enough about sacrifice, love, and redemption to care what happens to the heroes of stories where those things are at stake.

Great stories need great themes, deep change, and arresting conflict.  Pack all those elements into your shorter format today, and you can be a great storyteller for 2025.