Whose Story Are You Really Telling While Writing a Story

When we tell stories—whether it’s in writing, on film, through design, or on stage—we tend to focus on crafting an experience for the audience. But here’s the thing: we’re not always clear on whose story we’re telling. And that’s not a trivial detail—it’s the axis around which everything else turns.

As storytelling experts, we already know about perspective, voice, tone. But if you step back and really look, there’s a deeper question beneath all of that: are you telling your own story? The subject’s? The audience’s? Or some strange blend?

If you don’t answer that question intentionally, it will get answered by accident—and that’s where things often go sideways. Misalignment here leads to manipulative narratives, lost authenticity, or flat experiences that don’t land.

In this post, I want to dig into this idea—not in an academic way, but practically. Because if we can hold this question with more precision, we’ll tell sharper, more resonant stories. Let’s go.

The three stories inside every story

Every story we tell is actually sitting at the intersection of at least three forces: the author’s story, the subject’s story, and the audience’s story. The trick is that these forces are often in tension. Knowing when and how to lean into each one is a key advanced technique.

The author’s story

This is the most obvious one. It’s the storyteller’s voice, values, and worldview infusing the narrative.

Even when we try to be objective or invisible, we’re not. Choices of what to include, how to frame it, what metaphors we reach for—all of that is authorial fingerprint.

Take Werner Herzog, for instance. When you watch Grizzly Man, you’re not just seeing Timothy Treadwell’s tragic story; you’re seeing Herzog’s view of the indifference of nature and the hubris of man. The story is shaped by Herzog’s philosophical lens at every turn.

And that’s not a bad thing—as long as you’re aware you’re doing it. Problems arise when storytellers think they’re telling “just the facts,” but their worldview is warping the frame invisibly.

The subject’s story

When we tell stories about other people, places, or events, there’s an ethical layer: are we respecting the subject’s agency and perspective?

Toni Morrison was a master of centering the subject’s story. In Beloved, the enslaved characters are not observed from an outsider’s gaze; they speak from the inside of their own experience. Morrison deliberately refused to cater to the “white gaze,” preserving the subject’s voice as primary.

Many documentaries, memoirs, and even journalism fail here. They appropriate the subject’s pain or triumph and turn it into the author’s moral lesson or the audience’s catharsis. That’s theft, not storytelling.

If you’re telling someone else’s story—fictional or real—ask: are you creating space for their perspective, or bending it to your agenda? If you don’t make that choice consciously, you’ll almost always default to the latter.

The audience’s story

Here’s the slippery one. Once the story leaves your hands, the audience completes it. Their background, emotions, cultural context—all of that will shape what they hear.

Smart storytellers don’t ignore this—they design for it.

Look at Hayao Miyazaki’s films. He deliberately leaves moral questions open and narrative threads unresolved so that each viewer brings their own meaning. Spirited Away isn’t a tidy fable; it’s a space where audience imagination thrives. By leaving gaps, Miyazaki cedes some control to the audience—and that’s why his stories resonate across cultures and ages.

But you can go too far. If you lean so heavily into audience projection that your story lacks its own spine, it becomes mush. The key is knowing when to lead and when to leave space.

The dynamic tension

Most powerful stories balance all three forces—but not equally. Great storytellers choose their center:

In Beloved, Morrison centers the subject.
In Grizzly Man, Herzog centers the author.
In Spirited Away, Miyazaki centers the audience.

Problems happen when you’re unclear about which center you’re using, or when you inadvertently betray one for the sake of another (think of documentaries that say they center their subject but are clearly chasing audience outrage clicks).

If you start asking yourself “Whose story am I telling right now?”, it’s amazing how much more intentional your narrative choices will become.

How to intentionally shape whose story you’re telling

By now, you know that every story carries at least three layers: the author’s, the subject’s, and the audience’s. The question is—how do you actually work with that dynamic on the ground, when you’re elbows-deep in the story?

Here’s the honest truth: most expert storytellers I know (myself included) don’t think about this enough when we’re structuring, drafting, or revising. We think about plot, voice, tone, pacing—but this deeper alignment often comes as an afterthought. It should come early and consciously.

So I want to offer a set of practical techniques that I’ve used, borrowed, or learned from others over the years. These aren’t “rules”—storytelling doesn’t work like that—but they’re tools. Tools for clarity, alignment, and ethical precision.

Intent mapping

Before you write a word, map whose story you’re primarily telling.

Sounds simple, but very few people actually do this. We often assume that the answer is “obvious”—but it’s not. Is this your personal perspective on an event? Are you trying to faithfully convey the subject’s experience? Are you crafting an emotional journey designed for the audience’s growth?

Write it down in one sentence. I’ve found this alone forces a level of clarity that will ripple through every other decision.

For example:

I am telling this refugee family’s story in a way that centers their experience and agency—not as a vessel for my politics or the audience’s emotions.
I am telling a personal reflection on grief; it’s my story, and I’m inviting the audience to witness, not to project or co-own it.
I am creating an interactive story where the audience’s interpretation is deliberately primary.

You can mix and blend—but you should choose the center.

Voice and distance calibration

Once you know whose story you’re telling, match the narrative voice and distance accordingly.

If it’s your story: Use close first-person or a strongly marked third-person narrator that reflects your internal world.
If it’s the subject’s story: Minimize authorial intrusions. Use techniques that foreground the subject’s voice—direct quotes, free indirect style, or structure choices that let their perspective lead.
If it’s the audience’s story: Use gaps, ambiguity, and second-person framing where appropriate to invite the audience in.

Watch for leaks—accidental moments where you shift out of alignment. For instance, inserting a clever aside in a subject-centered story can suddenly yank the frame back to the author’s perspective.

Temporal anchoring

How you handle time can subtly shift whose story is being centered.

Linear, lived-time structures often favor the subject’s experience.
Fragmented or looping structures can highlight the author’s interpretation of events.
Interactive or branching structures let the audience co-create the temporal flow.

A great example: The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer) uses reenactment and temporal disjunction to make us confront how perpetrators remember their crimes—forcing the audience into an uncomfortable co-participation rather than offering a neat, subject-centered narrative.

Ethical framing

If you’re telling someone else’s story—especially one involving trauma or marginalization—this is non-negotiable.

Check your metaphors. Are you using language that aligns with the subject’s lived experience, or are you romanticizing, exoticizing, or sanitizing it?
Check your framing. Does the structure of your story reinforce the subject’s agency, or reduce them to an object for audience consumption?
Seek consent and context where possible. This is critical in nonfiction, and in fiction inspired by real experiences.

I’ve seen too many “well-meaning” stories that inadvertently center the author’s moral superiority or the audience’s pity. Don’t be that storyteller.

Narrative gaps

One of the most underused tools in storytelling is the intentional narrative gap—spaces where the storyteller doesn’t fill in meaning, inviting the audience to do the work.

This is a core technique when you want to center the audience’s story. But it has to be done consciously.

In Arrival (Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation of Ted Chiang’s story), much of the emotional and philosophical impact comes from what’s left unsaid—forcing the audience to confront their own interpretations of time, choice, and sacrifice.

Used wisely, narrative gaps can create resonance. Used lazily, they create confusion. Know your intent.

Advanced techniques for layered storytelling

Let’s say you’ve mastered centering one perspective. Now comes the next challenge: what if you want to deliberately blend or shift between perspectives?

This is where expert storytelling really shines—and where a lot of the most compelling, complex narratives live. But it’s tricky territory. Here are a few techniques and considerations that can help.

Metatextual awareness

When the audience becomes aware of the act of storytelling itself, you can play with layered perspectives in fascinating ways.

Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York is a brilliant example. The story is about a playwright building a play about his own life, which contains another play, and so on—forcing the audience to question what is real, whose perspective they’re in, and what authorship even means.

Metatextual techniques include:

Breaking the fourth wall.
Self-referential dialogue.
Visible shifts in style or medium.

But beware: these tools can easily veer into self-indulgence. Use them in service of your narrative purpose, not just to show off.

Blending perspectives

Sometimes the richest stories deliberately balance multiple centers—author, subject, and audience—without clearly privileging one.

Consider the podcast Heavyweight (Jonathan Goldstein). Many episodes feature Goldstein’s quirky, self-aware narration (author), deep dives into individual life stories (subject), and open-ended emotional beats that invite audience reflection and empathy (audience).

The craft lies in calibrating how much weight to give each layer at different points. This requires close attention to pacing, voice, and structural rhythm.

Shifting centers intentionally

Even more advanced: shifting the narrative center within the story to achieve a particular emotional or thematic effect.

A well-known example is Schindler’s List. Early scenes center Oskar Schindler (author’s framing + subject), but as the film progresses, the center of empathy and focus gradually shifts to the Jewish survivors (subject), and finally, through moments of direct address, to the audience (audience)—asking them to carry the story forward.

To do this well:

Plan your shifts at the structural level—not just moment to moment.
Signal transitions clearly through changes in voice, focalization, or visual framing.
Honor each center fully when it’s foregrounded; don’t dilute them through hedging or ambiguity.

Risks of ambiguity

Not every story benefits from this kind of layered or shifting approach.

If your subject’s story is marginalized or vulnerable, too much authorial or audience-centric play can feel exploitative.
If your story requires strong emotional identification, too much metatextual distancing can flatten impact.
If your audience is likely to misinterpret ambiguity in harmful ways, be careful what gaps you leave.

In short: know your responsibility as a storyteller. Play with layers, but don’t abdicate ethical clarity.

Why this matters

At the highest levels of our craft, this isn’t just a technical game—it’s about power.

Who gets to tell whose story?
Whose voice is amplified?
Whose experience is centered, and whose is used as a tool for someone else’s narrative?

As expert storytellers, we have the skills—and therefore the responsibility—to navigate these questions with care. Holding this dynamic consciously, and teaching it to others, is one of the most powerful things we can do in our field.

Before You Leave…

If there’s one thing I hope you take from this, it’s the power of asking: whose story am I telling?

Not once, but constantly—throughout the entire creative process.
Not just as an abstract concept, but as a practical guide for every narrative choice.

The more you tune your ear to this question, the more intentional and resonant your storytelling will become. And in a world flooded with noise, that kind of clarity is a rare and valuable thing.

Go tell great stories—and tell them with eyes wide open.