Narrative is the ear's native grammar

Sequence is the one structure that survives being heard rather than seen.

A story is a chain of consequences, and a chain is exactly what a linear medium can carry. Each link arrives in order, is held just long enough to connect to the next, and is then released. The listener does not need to retain the whole shape at once, because the shape is being built for them as they go. This is why the oldest forms of teaching were spoken, and why an explanation that has been given the manners of a story stays with people who could not have held the same material as a set of points on a page.

The effect is not decoration. Narrative order does real cognitive work: it supplies the reason each piece of information appears when it does. In a list, the reader has to guess why item four follows item three. In a sequence of events, the answer is built in, because the previous thing caused the next one. That causal spine is what makes spoken explanation feel effortless when it is working, and it is also why a spoken piece that is secretly a list feels so exhausting to sit through, no matter how clearly each item is expressed.

The practical consequence is that material chosen for audio should be material with a natural order. If the pieces genuinely could be taken in any sequence, the ear is being asked to hold an unordered set, which it cannot do. If one thing plainly leads to another, the medium will carry it a long way. The test is simple enough to apply before anything is committed to sound: say the material aloud from memory and see whether the order defends itself, or whether you are simply reciting.