Guide · Best books · 3 min read
The best books on storytelling
These five books cover storytelling from finding your own stories to using them at work: how to spot story-worthy moments, shape them around one change, cut them down, and tell them so people listen. Start with Storyworthy for personal stories, then Made to Stick for why stories persuade.
1.Storyworthy — Matthew Dicks
The most practical book on telling true personal stories, by a schoolteacher who has won The Moth's live storytelling competitions many times. Dicks shows how to find stories in ordinary days, through a daily habit of noting the most story-worthy moment, and how to build each one around a five-second moment of change.
It is written for the stage, so some rules need adapting for a meeting or an interview, but the core habits work anywhere. Read it first if you believe you have no stories.
2.On Writing — Stephen King
Part memoir, part craft manual, from one of the most widely read novelists alive. The advice that transfers best to any storyteller is plain: read a lot, write a lot, write the first draft for yourself and the second for the reader, and cut about a tenth on the way.
It is a book about writing fiction, and some rules are King's own preferences. For anyone who writes or tells stories at work, the habits of drafting freely and cutting hard are worth the read on their own.
3.The Storyteller's Secret — Carmine Gallo
Gallo collects examples of founders, leaders and speakers who use stories to persuade, and draws out what they have in common. The idea most worth keeping is the origin story: a prepared, true account of why you do what you do.
The book admires its subjects without much reservation, and some examples read like case studies in success. Use it as a source of patterns and prompts, then build your own stories with Storyworthy's method.
4.Made to Stick — Chip Heath & Dan Heath
The Heath brothers' study of why some ideas are remembered and others are not, with stories as one of six principles. Their explanation is useful for anyone who has to persuade: a story works like a simulation the listener runs, which is why it moves people where data alone does not.
It is broader than a storytelling book, covering simplicity, surprise and concreteness as well. Read it for the reasons behind the techniques in the rest of this list.
5.Building a StoryBrand — Donald Miller
Miller applies the structure of a story to business messages: the customer is the hero with a problem, and the business is the guide that helps. For anyone telling stories about their work, the shift is valuable: the listener should see themselves in the story, not only the teller.
The book is aimed at marketing and websites, and its framework can feel formulaic when applied to everything. Take the central idea, guide not hero, and use it in pitches and updates.
The honest ending
Read Dicks to find and shape your own stories, King to draft and cut them, Gallo for the stories that matter most at work, the Heaths for why stories persuade, and Miller for making the listener the hero. None of them requires a dramatic life; all of them require noticing and practice. The Tell Better Stories road turns their most useful ideas into twelve daily Stations, each ending with something to do before tomorrow.
Questions people ask
- Which book should I read first?
- Storyworthy, if you think you have no stories. It gives you a daily habit for finding them and a simple way to shape them, which makes the other books easier to use.
- Are these books useful for business presentations?
- Yes. Made to Stick, The Storyteller's Secret and Building a StoryBrand are written with work in mind, and the habits in Storyworthy and On Writing apply to any presentation that opens with a story.