The Quiet Magic of Storytelling

​Today I sat down to write this blog post, and almost immediately, my brain went quiet. I stared at the blinking cursor, willing an idea to float onto the screen. After five minutes of wishful thinking, I stepped away. Hours later, I tried again, only for the computer to taunt my lack of inspiration by staring blankly back at me. Finally, this evening, I settled onto the couch with the fan pointed at me and decided to dump every random thought floating through my brain into a document.
I regret to inform you that the ideas were few. However, one kept resurfacing. It was an idea that had been nagging at the back of my mind for several days, something I’ve talked about before with family and friends, though not necessarily here on my blog. It’s also something I hold near and dear, not only as an avid reader, but as a part-time extrovert.
Ironically, as I struggled to find the words, I was listening to someone read a short passage aloud. They spoke with a soft Scottish lilt, moving slowly through the words in an almost hushed cadence. The reading lasted only about five minutes, but the way they delivered it made the passage feel like more than words on a page. It made me think about the quiet, subtle power of storytelling.
Storytelling is an art that can easily be overlooked, but it can also be incredibly powerful. It’s never been limited to the words being spoken. Sometimes the truest part of a story is hidden in the pause before them, the tremble beneath them, or the soft swell of music behind them. Whatever the medium, a person’s ability to guide a reader, listener, or viewer through a story can be almost as magical as the story itself.
Earlier this week, I watched a cute miniseries called Seeking Persephone. Those of you who listen to my Billhilly Podcast, or who have spoken to me at any point this week, probably already know that. However, something about the show helped solidify this topic in my mind.
While listening to a commentary podcast featuring the cast, I learned more about several moments in which the camera focuses specifically on the male lead’s hands. When the actor portraying him was asked about that filming choice, he explained why he had chosen to lean into it and what those small movements revealed about the character.
Adam, the male lead, isn’t comfortable interacting with people, much less talking about his feelings. Though he can be harsh and even monstrous toward others, the cast and filmmakers felt it was important to show that his inability to talk about his emotions didn’t mean he lacked them. By focusing on his hands from time to time, they could reveal the turmoil he couldn’t put into words.
Sometimes, that turmoil is shown when he places a blanket over his wife and then hesitates, as though second-guessing whether he should do more to care for her. At another point, he wants to comfort her but can’t find the words, so he gently rubs her arm instead. Later, when he’s finally able to say how he feels, he softly caresses her hand, almost as though he’s using the one language that has always come more naturally to him to communicate the truth of his words.
We see that same attention to detail in other films. One of the most popular examples comes from the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Mr. Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage by offering her his hand, a small but unexpectedly intimate gesture. As he turns and walks away, the camera focuses on that hand as he flexes it slightly. The movement lasts only a moment, but it conveys so much about what the otherwise stoic character is thinking and feeling. Viewers have returned to that tiny gesture for years because it says what he cannot yet bring himself to say aloud.
Each medium has its own language for storytelling. Books allow us to step inside a character’s thoughts. In spoken storytelling, a change in pace, tone, or volume can alter the emotional temperature of a sentence. Film can linger on a hand hovering uncertainly and allow that one small movement to communicate more than an entire speech could. Each language has its place, and each does an incredible amount of work beyond the words themselves.
Maybe that’s why storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest traditions. Before we had television, podcasts, movies, or printed books, people learned the art of telling stories aloud. They preserved history, faith, family, warnings, humor, and identity by passing stories from one person to another. Our tools may have changed over the centuries, but the impulse to share hasn’t. We still gather around voices. We’ve simply replaced some of the firesides with headphones, screens, theaters, and microphones.
That same impulse is what led me to begin my Miss K’s Corner podcast during COVID. At a time when we were isolated, anxious, and separated from our ordinary routines, I reached for one of humanity’s oldest forms of connection. I sat down and read a story aloud. Since I couldn’t gather everyone into the same room, I decided to put my voice somewhere it could still reach them.
The podcast wasn’t only about the books themselves, though I began with The Chronicles of Narnia, and those stories will always hold a special place in my heart. It was also about offering companionship, continuity, and a quiet place for someone else’s mind to rest, especially for my students as they tried to navigate the enormity of that upheaval.
In the years since, I’ve allowed the podcast to take a back seat to other adventures in my life, but I’ve finally returned to it. This belief in storytelling, and in the connection it creates, has helped fuel that decision. The world may not be exactly as it was during COVID, thankfully, but my need for storytelling has never disappeared.
Every day, we’re surrounded by content designed to be consumed quickly, but stories often ask something different of us. They ask us to sit still long enough to notice the hands, hear the breath between sentences, and allow the atmosphere to gather instead of demanding that everything explain itself immediately.
I think that’s why storytelling still matters. It reminds us that not everything meaningful arrives loudly or quickly. Sometimes, understanding a person, a character, or even ourselves requires us to slow down, listen past the words, and notice what the story has been quietly showing us all along.