The Story Method: Link a List Into One Memorable Story

How chain linking works

1. Write the list in order.
2. Turn each item into a concrete picture.
3. Link the items one pair at a time: item 1 does something to item 2, item 2 does something to item 3, and so on.
4. Run the story once from start to finish in your head.
5. Cover the list and retell the story aloud, checking each item as it arrives.

Each picture does double duty. It is the end of one link and the start of the next, which is why the method needs so little setup. The pictures themselves follow the same rules as in the peg system: give every pair an action and keep the scene specific.

Worked example: twelve items in one story

Say you must learn this list of twelve things in order (a made-up list): ladder, banana, trumpet, igloo, sock, clock, bicycle, lantern, spoon, parrot, mitten, bridge. Here is one story that carries all twelve.

Notice what the story does. Every sentence has an action. One object in each scene is oversized or odd. No sentence adds a new character that is not on the list. Our practical advice is to avoid extra characters, because they make it harder to tell which items are real. Small props, such as the soup, are fine if they stay in the background. To test it, cover the list and retell the story aloud, then count the items you collected.

Keeping the chain strong

The weak point of a chain is that each item leads to the next. If one link fails, you may lose everything after it. These habits reduce that risk.

• Say each link as a short phrase, such as banana plays trumpet.
• Give every link one action and one odd detail.
• Cut a long list into short stories. For the list above, you might build three stories of four items each. That is a practical suggestion, not a tested rule.
• Tie the start of each short story to a spot on a route, as described in the memory palace guide.
• When a link fails, rebuild only that link, then run the story from the start.

Story, pegs or palace: how they differ

These contrasts come from how the methods are built. We found no study in our verified sources that compares them, so treat the last column as practical advice.

Reviewing a story so it stays usable

The story is a cue. Whether it stays usable depends on how you review it. In two experiments with prose passages, repeated testing led to better recall than repeated restudying when the final test came 2 days or 1 week later, although restudying looked better when the final test came after 5 minutes (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006). A policy-oriented review adds that spacing out repeated encounters beats massed repetition, and that tests amplify the benefit (Kang, 2016).

Neither paper tested a story chain, so this is our practical reading. Retell the story from memory instead of rereading it. Retell it again tomorrow and a few days later, and fix any link that broke. Pictures were remembered better than words in laboratory recognition and recall tests (Standing, 1973), which is one reason a story built from pictures is a sensible thing to try, though that study did not test stories either.

You can set this up with one card per story in Practice, where a correct answer moves a card up one of five boxes with waits of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 days. Our schedule is a simple model inspired by the Leitner system, and results vary between people. The broader picture of what mnemonics can and cannot do is in our overview of mnemonics.

Common mistakes

• Adding characters or details that are not on the list. Keep the story to the list items, with at most a small prop or two. Extra figures make it harder to tell which items you are supposed to recall.
• Linking items in a calm, static scene. Give every link an action and an odd detail, such as a banana blowing a trumpet.
• Building one long chain for a long list. Split the list into short stories and anchor each one to a spot or a number.
• Rereading the story instead of retelling it. Cover the list and retell the story aloud from memory. Check the result against the list afterward.

Frequently asked questions

What is the story method?

It is a mnemonic that links the items of a list into one connected story, with each item doing something to the next. It is also called the link method or chain linking.

Is the story method better than a memory palace?

We found no verified study that compares them. The story needs no setup but depends on every link, while a palace takes setup but stores each item in its own spot. Choose by list length and how much time you have.

How many items can one story hold?

There is no tested limit that we can cite. Longer chains have more links that can break, so try short stories first and join them if the first ones hold.

Does the story method work?

We found no verified study that tests it on its own, so we cannot quote a result. Related laboratory work found that pictures were remembered better than words (Standing, 1973). Try it on a small list and test yourself the next day.

Sources

We opened each source below before citing it. See Methodology and Sources for how we check them.

1. Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. Open the source
2. Kang, S. H. K. (2016). Spaced Repetition Promotes Efficient and Effective Learning. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(1), 12-19. Open the source
3. Standing, L. (1973). Learning 10000 pictures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25(2), 207-222. Open the source