The story told slowly may contain a detail the quick listener has never heard.

A story that unfolds at its own pace often carries what the summary drops: the name, the weather, the small aside that turns out to be the point. Listeners who hurry the teller along get the plot and lose the part that actually mattered to them. Slowness is not always inefficiency. Sometimes it is the shape the memory has.

Let the next long story run without steering it toward the ending. Ask about one of the small details rather than the outcome. You will often find out why it is still being told.