There is a persistent myth in language education and creative training that storytelling is a talent - something you either have or gradually develop through exposure to good books and patient teachers. The evidence, both cognitive and pedagogical, points somewhere entirely different. Storytelling is not a fixed competency. It is a system of interoperable skills, and the decisive ones are precisely those that most curricula do not teach, measure, or even name. The skills in q

Luttrell Psalter (marginalia detail) / Unknown artist / c. 1325-1340 Medieval manuscript marginalia often featured obsessively repeated motifs – vines, scrollwork, hybrid creatures – that scribes drew while their minds wandered during repetitive textual labor. These doodles represent the creative output of semantic-saturated minds seeking novelty amid monotonous copying. The playful absurdity of marginal figures (like