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Storytelling
🏁 Begin With the Ending
Start with the final line, then invent the story that could possibly lead to it.
What you need
A strange ending line.
How to play
- Choose or invent a final sentence.
- Work backward: what must have happened just before it?
- Build a beginning that makes the ending satisfying.
- Tell the full story in normal order.
See one in action
Ending: “And that is why no one in our family is allowed to buy a llama again.”
Work backward: Why did the family have a llama? What went wrong? What event would make a permanent family rule feel justified?
Then tell the story from the beginning so the final line feels earned rather than random.
Work backward: Why did the family have a llama? What went wrong? What event would make a permanent family rule feel justified?
Then tell the story from the beginning so the final line feels earned rather than random.
10 ideas to try
Choose any one of these prompts and use the activity steps above:
- “And that is why we never order pizza from that place anymore.”
- “Nobody ever found out where the goat came from.”
- “From that day on, the elevator had a name.”
- “That was the last time I volunteered to organize anything.”
- “The neighbors still talk about the inflatable dinosaur.”
- “We eventually returned the penguin to its owner.”
- “That is how my grandmother became the town’s unofficial detective.”
- “The cake survived, but the table did not.”
- “By sunrise, everyone in the hotel knew my name.”
- “And somehow, the goldfish won the argument.”
Make it harder / funnier
Someone else writes the ending so you cannot prepare for it.
Why it helps
Develops planning, story structure, foreshadowing, and logical connections.
Ready to use this skill?
Try it in Public Speaking →Take the activity into a full SpeakCoachLab practice session.