good storytelling has very little to do with having the most extraordinary life in the room. plenty of people have lived through remarkable things and still tell them badly. others can describe a family dinner, a missed train or the nostalgic atmosphere of a childhood bedroom and somehow make the listener feel that something important has just been revealed. the difference usually lies in selection. a storyteller knows which detail deserves to survive and which part of reality can be safely left outside the frame.
this is why the best stories often feel smaller than the subject they are carrying.
joan didion could write about california, marriage or grief through an image so precise that the larger argument arrived almost by accident.
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