Stories are flight simulators for our brains.
Anger prepares us to fight and fear prepares us to flee.
You've got a good idea, how do you make it stick?
Lots of us have expertise in particular areas. Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That's when the Curse of Knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it's like not to know what we know.
Create a need for closure.
There's no such thing as a passive audience.