Who’s telling the story?
Is it a family member?
Brand?
Someone Familiar or a Stranger?
Do they have a good reputation for storytelling?
How’s the production quality?
Will I be wasting my time?
What’s their motive and should I be skeptical?
What if we flip those questions so your audience is asking those questions about you and your story?

It’s the Desire, Conflict, and Result (DCR).
At the heart of drama is conflict.
Drama is good, but you don’t want to over do it.
You don’t want to add drama for drama’s sake.
If the obstacle/conflict isn’t helping a story or character progress then you probably don’t need it (see example below).
Finally, make the drama relatable. The more relatable the easier for the audience to immerse in and trust the storyteller.
If you’re continually adding to the drama (building tension and stakes) for too long without any relief the audience will get tired.

How much is too much?

That’s why this is art, not science. That’s why you ask for feedback on your story from people who will be honest with you.

Example: If the story is about a kid who wants to learn how to ride a bike despite the difficulty then you probably wouldn’t need to tell or show the kid falling off their bike 100 times. The audience will get that it’s hard and that she is struggling after 3-4 falls and they’ll get that she’s determined every time she gets back up. You can definitely show more, but you should consider shortening the amount of time you dedicate to each subsequent failure (check out the two videos below to see what I mean). Is there anything else you can do to re-enforce the difficulty other than just showing them fail? Maybe:
Having the kid give up would re-enforce the degree of difficulty.
A friend or family member coming along and encouraging the kid to keep trying would also demonstrate the value of achieving the desire.
Hearing the negative voices of the people saying they can’t do it.
Then having the kid slowly lift her heavy bike and succeed at riding would be enjoyable payoff for the kid and the audience. But, if you were to then add to the story that after a few seconds of riding the chain falls off and she falls off and then she gets on and rides again but the tires go flat, and then she gets on and the back wheel falls off. Wait. What’s the point here? Are we just throwing in obstacles without an end goal?

Check out the video examples below where the storytellers demonstrate the right amount of drama to keep the audience engaged and add value to the story.

A character doesn’t have to be exactly like your audience to be relatable. They don’t even have to be the same species (A Bug’s Life) or human (WALL-E). They just need to have “flaws” or conflicts that are relatable. Do they experience emotions the audience can relate to?
For example: Misunderstood. Jealousy. Selfish. Lonely. Trust issues. Controlling. Unmotivated. Negative self-image. Obsessed with money.
What are some conflicts or “flaws” you can think of?

Just as the name suggests, in a good story you are drawn in and enveloped by a new world.
Whether it's a friend telling you about what happened to them at the store (someone took the last Twix right out of their hand) or you’re reading a novel and you’re crying because your favorite character, the phat squirrel, just died (why did they have to die?!).

That’s immersion.
 

It can be hard to describe how to immerse your audience so flip it around instead. What might cause your audience to disengage?
Are the characters unrelatable so you can’t really connect with them and their struggles?
The drama is over-the-top unbelievable.
The story is too complicated to grasp for the audience to settle in and enjoy the ride?
Are you promoting your own personal agenda?
Are there holes in your story or out-of-context elements that would make an audience member say “What?”
Oral storytellers have to be extremely sensitive to this because if your audience member is spending their time thinking about what you just said rather than what you are saying now then they’ll miss more things and get lost and disengage even more.
 

“Keep things in context that matter and keep things that don't matter out.” - Brandon Sanderson

Guide them but don’t dump all the facts and leave them to figure it out for themselves.

You want them to keep asking what’s next, what’s gonna happen, but this isn’t the game of Clue where they need a spreadsheet to keep track of information and characters.

Is there too much noise?

Do you need to put more emphasis on certain key people, things, events?

LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE: If you have to sit with your audience and explain what is happening and why, then simplicity might be one of your problems.

Let them interpret the meaning of the story rather than stating an explicit message or moral.

This is where the term “on the nose” applies. You, the storyteller, are basically directly telling the audience what’s up rather than letting them come to the conclusion.

Which of the following is more “on the nose”?

Example 1: We see a girl and a boy in a hat standing in a McDonald’s restaurant facing each other. She yells, “I’m breaking up with you!” And storms away. In the next scene the boy is sitting on a park bench and tells a friend “I am so sad and heartbroken about Amber breaking up with me.”

Example 2: We see a girl and a boy standing in a McDonald’s restaurant facing each other. The boy reaches out to touch her cheek and she swats his hand away, dumps her drink in his face, and storms off. In the next scene the boy is sprawled across a park bench disheveled, motionless, and hat crumpled on the ground. A friend is standing over him saying “Come on. She was a brat anyway.” The boy says nothing.

A good story allows the audience to come to their own conclusions which makes them feel more attached to the story because something has resonated with them that they found on their own rather than being told what should resonate with them.

This is about the familiarity of the overall story and/or its characters. This is different from the relatability of the characters.

Another term for it is: Trope. 

“In storytelling, a trope is a recognizable and recurring element, theme, or pattern that is commonly used in narratives. It can be a character type, a plot device, a setting, or even a specific situation. Tropes are often used to convey meaning, evoke emotions, or build familiarity with the audience.” - HelpfulProfessor.com

Example tropes: Rags to riches. Reluctant hero. Love triangle. The Quest. The chosen one. 

Familiarity isn’t bad. A lot of people have a hard time with change. It can be stressful and uncomfortable. 

Familiar doesn’t mean the exact same.

Blake Snyder, author of Saves the Cat, said he had a studio exec tell him “Give me the same thing… only different”. It meant… something familiar enough to understand but with a new, fresh, and ironic twist. 

Blake later wrote he actually believes the saying should be “Give me the same thing, but better.”