Why stories are better than facts

I have a confession to make: at school I hated mathematics and science. Why? Well that’s simple enough to explain — I just wasn’t any good at them. I could count OK, and just about add up, but anything more than that…well, I was well and truly lost. Please don’t misunderstand me — both subjects are incredibly important and with different teaching methods, I’m sure I might have done better. But the fact is, I didn’t.

Storytelling provokes emotional reactions

No, literature was my thing, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason why I’m so keen to spread the word about the importance of good storytelling. The best stories provoke emotional reactions. As people typically make emotional and not rational decisions, being able to evoke emotions through storytelling is a powerful tool. Yet this truism is easily ignored. Time and again we come across organisations that plug away at facts and statistics when it comes to trying to get a message across.

Storytelling activates a different part of the brain to facts and stats

The late Jerome Brunder, a cognitive psychologist, suggested that messages delivered as stories can be up to 22 times more memorable than just facts standing alone. Research also suggests that audiences retain 65–75 per cent of what a story contains, compared to only 5–10 per cent of the information that’s in a list of statistics. When reading straight data, only the language parts of our brains decode the meaning. But when we read a story, others part of the brain that becomes activated as well. In short, this means it’s far easier for us to remember stories than hard facts.

The lesson? With more and better storytelling, you are increasing audience engagement. Now if only my mathematics and science teachers had known that…

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