The Chocolate Cake: How to Become a Better Storyteller With One Step
The other day, I was searching for a chocolate cake recipe. As I scrolled online, one caught my eye. In the preview in search, I could see 4967 people rated it five stars with over 16,000 comments. The photo looked so rich and decadent that I could practically smell the cocoa, butter, and vanilla through the screen. I started wiggling in my chair, doing a happy dance in anticipation of how good the cake would taste.
Then I clicked on the recipe.
A wall of text filled the screen, but no recipe. The author was making a very extensive case for why this was the best chocolate cake recipe in existence. Before I could get past the first sentence, a pop-up notified me about the website’s cookies. I closed it and started scrolling again, only to be stopped by another pop-up asking me to sign up for a newsletter. Closing out that window, I skimmed paragraphs raving about people devouring the cake and how easy it was to make. Still no recipe.
The more I scrolled, the less enthusiasm I felt. I had come to the website for one reason: to get ingredients and instructions. Not to read a personal essay about the time the author baked the cake for her sister-in-law’s admin’s birthday. Even the descriptions were bland: “My friends said the cake tasted good.”
After twenty seconds of scrolling, the recipe finally began to appear. But before I could read it, another pop-up interrupted me—this time, a video of a different recipe. As I closed out of the video, the page refreshed, sending me back to the top.
I gave up and closed the window. It wasn’t worth the frustration.
Online recipes have become a bit of a joke for their overwhelming ratio of irrelevant essays to actual recipes–often with the same complaints. “Why do I have to scroll through pages of someone’s irrelevant rambling to get to the recipe? Why can’t they lead with the ingredients? I just want a recipe, not a journal entry!”
It’s almost as if the people posting the recipes don’t care about those trying to use them. Instead, they are optimized for search engines to drive page views. But when frustrated readers leave, that approach becomes pointless.
This is exactly what happens when we ramble in our communications and stories. We get caught up in what we want to share rather than what the audience needs or prefers.
They wait for the point as we meander through a lack of structure, irrelevant details, and random tangents. These distract from the message, like the random pop-ups on websites that are obstacles between the audience and the information they seek. When that becomes too frustrating, they give up and stop listening.
But we don't have to burden our audiences.
I regularly emphasize that stories should start with the audience and not your ideas (examples here and here). If you don’t make the story meaningful and relevant to them, they won’t connect or engage. It’s also important to structure a story to prevent rambling and make it easier to follow (examples here and here).
Today, I want to share a simple technique to improve your storytelling and make it more memorable: flipping your sentences so the object becomes the subject.
For example, we often default to narrating events in our stories:
Rose heard police sirens.
Domingo saw a plane overhead.
Cooper felt a sharp pain.
I walked into the kitchen and smelled rotting bananas
These sentences list actions but lack context and descriptors that engage the senses. It’s like someone describing their drive to the store: “I turned right on Main, a left on Barnes, and made a U-turn onto Bleecker.” These details are transactional—forgettable within moments.
To make your stories more vivid, flip the syntax. Take the object in the sentence, like police sirens, and make it the subject. It becomes: Police sirens wailed and echoed through the streets as Rose covered her ears.
Domingo saw a plane overhead.
Becomes
A plane streaked across the sky, leaving a trail of vapor.
Cooper felt a sharp pain.
Becomes
A piercing pain rippled across Cooper’s back as he winced.
I walked into the kitchen and smelled rotting bananas.
Becomes
Brown bananas lay rotting on the counter.
Notice the difference? The revised sentences are more vivid and memorable, making you an active participant in the story as you picture, feel, or even smell the details. This technique also adds variety by reducing repetitive sentence openings with “He, She” or “I.”
Don’t make your audience struggle to find your message. Be clear about what you want them to experience, structure your story to avoid rambling, and flip some objects to subjects for a more immersive effect. When you do, your words will linger, just like a rich and velvety chocolate cake that melts in your mouth.
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When you are ready, here are three ways we can work together:
Telling Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire
Storytelling with Data: From Insights to Impact
Storytelling Workshops (Great for intact teams or career milestone levels)
