He asked me how I go about learning stories. I replied that I find them, then imagine them, then practice, then research them, then add voices. I mumbled something incoherent. You should be telling stories every day. Reread the story then tell it again.
Many storytellers read the tale aloud to hear the rhythm and flow of the language.
Hold off on adding fancy details and dressings until you can answer this question. After the openers were cut with the saw, the nicks had to be smoothed with coarse, medium, then fine files. Each successive file made the edge cleaner, but it still looked cloudy and scratched until the final step at the polisher. The instructor pointed out an opener which was not taken through all the steps, asking what happens when the filing process is left out. So too, stories must be clear about their main messages before they are polished with fancy details.