Paper Title: What makes a good story? An empirical analysis of the factors that constitute “good” storytelling in the context of science communication

Author(s) and Year: Peter Fischer and Barbara Thies  (2026) 

Journal: Journal of Science Communication (open access)

TL;DR: The study tested whether two popular storytelling ingredients, vivid imagery and the main character’s inner world, improve perceived story quality and topic interest. They found no significant effect for either ingredient, alone or combined. What worked was transportation, the feeling of being immersed in a story. Perceived story quality strongly predicted transportation, and transportation strongly predicted topic interest.

Why I chose this paper: As an early-career science communicator, I was drawn to this paper because I want to learn how to make scientific writing engaging through storytelling. What I found interesting is that while vivid imagery and the main character’s motivations and emotions have subtle benefits, it is the feeling of immersion—getting the reader immersed in the story—that sparks interest in science.

Let’s be honest: science is competing for attention against content engineered to trigger quick, strong emotional responses. If you work in science communication, you have heard a thousand times that storytelling is essential to keep readers hooked. So you build narratives, introduce characters, set the scene. Sometimes it works beautifully. Other times, it falls flat. You may wonder why. 

A new study from Fischer and Thies (2026) offers insights. Their findings challenge the assumption that storytelling elements, such as vivid imagery and characters’ emotions and motivations, are essential to an effective story, increase audience interest in a topic, and point to a different pathway to engagement. .

The Background

There are mixed results on the advantages of storytelling. An extensive body of data shows that stories can be more engaging and persuasive than non-narrative formats. However, many researchers have reported otherwise. In fact, some discovered that non-narrative content worked better. 

To understand these inconsistencies, in 2016, Braddock and Dillard analysed the combined results of multiple studies on storytelling to examine several factors that might explain the different results. These include whether the story was fictional, which medium was used (e.g., video or text), how the research was designed, and more. None reliably accounted for why stories worked sometimes and not others. They called for further exploration to identify which narrative elements (ingredients) determine an effective story. 

This study answers that call. It focuses on two narrative elements (ingredients) that are theoretically well-grounded, though with limited real-world data, and, for decades, have been viewed as effective for engaging the audience and boosting how they evaluate story quality. These are the use of vivid imagery and an in-depth description of the main character’s emotions and motivations. The authors call this “narrative depth.”

Specifically, the study asks: 

• Do these ingredients alone or together improve the perceived story quality?
• Do they influence transportation, a psychological phenomenon described by Green and Brock—founders of the Narrative Transportation Theory widely used in science communication—as the “feeling of being lost in the world of a narrative, of being completely immersed in a story and leaving the real world behind”?
• Do they shape audience curiosity and motivation to learn more about science?
• How do narrative depth, perceived story quality, transportation, and topic interest relate to each other? In other words, does one have a direct positive effect on the other? 

The Methods

The authors used ChatGPT to create two basic stories based on 5 scientific facts: one about Jean the neuroscientist, one about Jean the astronomer. From these, they created 14 variations: some with vivid imagery, some with Jean’s inner emotions and motivations, some with both, some with neither. They also swapped Jean for a male main character in half of the versions to control for gender. 

To ensure accuracy, stylistic consistency and narrative flow, the authors fact-checked and refined every story. 

Each German participant (n=570) read just one of these 16 stories, then completed questionnaires measuring:

• Perceived story quality: how much they liked the story;
• Transportation: how absorbed they felt in the story (e.g., whether they wanted to know more about what happened to Jean); and
• Topic interest: whether the story increased their interest in the scientific topic.

Participant characteristics (such as topic familiarity, educational qualification, age, and gender), story characteristics (such as the main character’s gender and whether it matched the participant’s gender), were examined to determine whether they influenced the outcomes.

The Results

Specific Narrative Elements Had Limited Impact

Surprisingly, adding “narrative depth” elements, such as vivid sensory imagery or detailed main characters’ emotions and motivations, did not significantly increase people’s ratings of the stories above those of the basic story. This challenges the common assumption and suggests that simply adding these ingredients is not a guaranteed “recipe” for success.

Transportation is a Key Mediator

When participants perceived a story as higher quality, they were more likely to be immersed in it, which was associated with increased interest in the scientific topic. In this way, transportation acts like a crucial bridge between story quality and participants’ increased interest in science. This suggests that the immersive experience created by a story may play a more central role in fostering interest in science than simply including specific narrative elements such as vivid imagery or character emotions. 

Who is Reading Matters Significantly

The author’s curiosity led to a discovery: Storytelling might be particularly effective for certain groups. Women and individuals with a university degree reported significantly higher levels of transportation and topic interest than their counterparts. Additionally, prior familiarity with the topic was associated with higher story evaluations, greater engagement and greater interest in the topic. Age did not influence how participants evaluated, engaged, or were interested in the story.

What this means for science communicators and researchers 

Storytelling is a powerful tool for audience engagement and fostering interest in science, with transportation having emerged as the key psychological mechanism underlying these effects. However, as the authors note, “there is no straightforward recipe for crafting an effective story […]. Storytelling remains an art, not a formula.” Nevertheless, this study provides valuable insights that practitioners can use to improve engagement and offers researchers recommendations for a way forward.

 Insights for Science Communicators

• Prioritise immersion: the feeling of being lost in a story, “transportation”, is key to fostering interest in science. When crafting your next story, pause and ask whether your reader will be immersed;
• Tailor your approach: customize narrative strategies to your context and audience – no one-size-fits-all; and
• Consider participants’ characteristics: storytelling may be particularly effective for engaging women and more educated audiences.

Recommendations for Researchers

• Explore other narrative structures: identify narrative components that shape engagement, including a character’s struggle or primary goal;
• Keep searching for potent factors: vivid imagery and the main character’s motivations and emotions did not improve the perceived story quality. Future research should explore factors that do;
• Test with lower-educated audiences: explore whether storytelling is effective for audiences with lower levels of education;

• Extend beyond science: determine whether these findings hold across non-scientific disciplines; and
• Establish causation: the current study shows associations between perceived story quality, transportation and topic interest, not causation. Future research should experimentally manipulate perceived story quality and transportation to prove causal effects.

This study is not arguing against the use of vivid imagery or a main character’s emotions in storytelling. Instead, it points toward a more holistic approach. There is more to be known. It is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, and its effects depend on the audience and communication goals. For now, storytelling in science communication remains an evolving practice, requiring ongoing research, refining, and adaptation. 

Alt text for featured image: Cut-out letters making up the word storytelling pinned to a cork board.

Written by Abigail Ayodele Agbaze

Edited by Zoë Chernova, Héctor L. Torres Vera, and Mykyta ‘Nik’ Kliapets

Featured image credit: Elena Mozhvilo from Unsplash (under Unsplash License).