I’ve been freelance writing long enough to remember when researching an article meant opening a ridiculous number of browser tabs. It took digging through search results, hunting for the right study, emailing sources, and occasionally staring at your screen wondering if the information even existed.
Over the years, I’ve written about technology, business productivity, personal finance, landscaping, and many other topics I knew nothing about when I started the assignment. It’s part of being a freelance writer. You learn how to acquire knowledge on the fly. It teaches you how to find information. You also learn how to separate a useful source from a useless one. And, as a history major, I was used to this. In fact, I actually like doing research.
Eventually, you learn something even more important: having the facts isn’t the same as having something to say.
That’s why a line from Mohammed Rahim’s LinkedIn piece about the skills that matter in the age of AI caught my eye: “In the age of AI, the most valuable skills may be the most human ones.”
I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice for content creators at the moment. In today’s world, facts are extremely cheap. However, stories haven’t.
I Used to Spend More Time Finding Information
In the beginning, researching was one of the most time-consuming parts of my job. I searched for statistics if I needed them. When I needed an expert, I found one. When I needed background information, I read…a lot.
And I still do. However, the economics of information have completely changed.
Using AI, I can now explain a complicated subject, summarize a report, identify potential angles, or organize my research in a fraction of the time. That’s incredibly helpful. But it also creates a problem.
If I can do all of that in minutes, so can almost everyone else.
- There’s no longer a research advantage.
- It becomes less valuable to be able to write 1,000 words.
- Even clean, grammatically correct prose becomes the baseline.
So what’s left? It’s the ability to know what matters and make others care.
According to Rahim, AI can summarize, research, and draft quickly, but humans must still turn information into something meaningful that builds trust and motivates people. That’s what storytelling is all about.
Readers Don’t Remember the Research
It’s easy to spend hours researching something that only takes up two sentences. Maybe you read a dozen sources, find five statistics, interview someone, and discover a fascinating piece of history-and then use maybe 10% of it.
In the past, I thought the goal was to include as much useful information as possible. My mind has changed. You’re not trying to show readers how much research you did. Instead, we want them to keep reading by giving them a reason to do so.
Take a look at how these two approaches differ:
- Information: “Small businesses are struggling with rising costs, labor shortages, and increasing competition.” (That’s technically fine, but it doesn’t make people curious.)
- Story: A business owner stares at payroll numbers on a Friday afternoon, trying to determine which expenses can be cut without cutting people.
It’s the same basic subject. But it’s a totally different experience. One gives me information, while the other gives me a person. And people make information interesting.
The Best Stories Start With a Question
I rarely start my articles with a statistic. In the beginning, they ask a question:
- Why are people doing this?
- Why did this company fail?
- Why are smart people making this mistake?
- What happens when conventional advice stops working?
- What does this trend actually look like in someone’s life?
As a result of those questions, you’re compelled to seek out a story rather than just collecting facts. In the real world, readers don’t experience the world as a spreadsheet – they experience it through their decisions, problems, surprises, frustrations, ambitions, failures, and successes. That’s what content should reflect.
AI Makes Storytelling More Important, Not Less
When looking at AI, it’s easy to think, “Well, if AI can write, what’s the point of writers?”
That’s not the right question. A better question would be: What should writers be doing now that machines can handle more of the mechanical work?
The answer for me is more thinking, interviewing, observing, questioning, and connecting seemingly unrelated ideas, such as;
- Industry trends. AI can tell me if an industry is changing. But I’d like to know how the person working on that change feels on a Tuesday morning.
- Entrepreneurship. Reports can be summarized by AI. However, it would be great to speak with the founder who ignored the advice, made the mistake, and learned something no report could ever teach.
- Psychology. It’s possible for AI to explain procrastination. An even better article, though, is hiding inside the story of someone who has been putting off an important decision for three years.
Raw materials are the facts. What you build with them is the story.
Your Experience Is an Advantage AI Can’t Manufacture
It’s your experiences that make you an expert. It’s not because they make you an expert on everything, but because they give you a different perspective. Here are a few examples to explain what I mean.
- The interviewer. When a writer has spent years interviewing entrepreneurs, he or she hears a sentence differently than when they are encountering it for the first time.
- The financial writer. If you’ve talked to people about retirement, you know it’s not just about percentages and account balances.
- The tech writer. When a creator has watched several waves of hype come and go, he or she naturally asks different questions about the next “revolutionary” product.
What you notice changes with experience, and what you notice determines what you write. Make sure you don’t sound like a machine. Sound more like you.
The Details Are Where the Story Lives
Making a larger idea real requires finding the small details:
- Instead of telling me someone is stressed about money, tell me they’re checking their bank balance before ordering takeout.
- Instead of telling me an entrepreneur is burned out, tell me they haven’t taken a weekend off in six months.
- Instead of saying a company lost its culture, tell me what changed when employees stopped talking to each other after meetings.
These details aren’t included in a research report. By observing, talking, and asking more questions after an obvious question has been answered, they can be found. It’s what readers remember.
Facts Give Credibility. Stories Give Connection.
There’s no substitute for facts. Content must be researched, accurate, and backed up by credible sources. Unless you do that, you’re simply telling a story. There’s a difference.
Facts provide the foundation, but rarely create an emotional connection by themselves. As AI automates routine tasks, critical thinking, creativity, communication, empathy, judgment, and curiosity become increasingly important. The art of storytelling lies at the intersection of all of them:
- Curiosity to find the story.
- Judgment to know which details matter.
- Empathy to understand the reader.
- Creativity to make the idea interesting.
- Communication makes someone care.
Start Asking Different Questions
As I work on a piece now, I still ask about the research, the data, and the evidence. But I also ask:
- What’s the story?
- Who experienced this, and what was at stake?
- What surprised them, what went wrong, and what did they learn?
- What would I understand differently if I were in their shoes?
We’re entering an era of extraordinary access to information. As such, data alone won’t make you stand out. Perspective, experience, curiosity, and the ability to see the human side of abstract issues will make all the difference.
The reason people don’t read is that they want more information. When they read, they look for understanding, feeling, seeing themselves in something, or discovering new things. And some people just want to hear a good story every now and then.
So give them the facts, but just don’t stop there. Tell me the story.