Collocations for story - noun

true
plausible
false, made-up
She told the police a false story about being attacked.

fictional, real-life
untold
published
his first published short story

apocryphal
cock and bull, tall (esp. BrE)
No one would believe such a tall story.

official
The official story was that the singer had broken his arm falling in the shower.

personal
wild
convincing
compelling, dramatic, exciting, fantastic, fascinating, good, great, interesting, intriguing, nice, touching, wonderful
amazing, bizarre, colourful/colorful, crazy (esp. AmE), extraordinary, incredible, outrageous, remarkable, strange
inspirational, inspiring
amusing, entertaining, feel-good, funny
epic
the epic story of a family's escape from war

complex, elaborate
straightforward
awful, horrific, horrifying, nasty, shocking, terrible, tragic
sorry (esp. BrE)
His life was a sorry story of betrayal and rejection.

depressing, heart-rending, moving, poignant, sad
well-known
familiar
the familiar story of a star who turns to drink and drugs

popular
There is one popular story in the town of a man-eating cat that lives in the forest.

life, success
She told them her life story.

coming-of-age, coming-out, rags-to-riches
The movie is the rags-to-riches story of a country girl who becomes a famous singer.

hard-luck, sob (both disapproving)
He was boring people with more of his hard-luck stories.
She gave me some sob story about losing her credit cards.

coherent
The movie lacks a coherent story.

entire, full, whole
I suspected he hadn't told us the whole story.

short
a collection of short stories

original
The screenplay sticks to the original story.

back (usually backstory)
The writers have to create backstories for their characters.

children's
classic
bedtime
adventure, Bible, biblical, crime, detective, fairy (esp. BrE), ghost, horror, love, spy, etc.

collection
a collection of stories by modern writers

hear
read (sb)
My dad sometimes read me a story at bedtime.

write
narrate, recount, relate, retell, tell (sb)
embellish, embroider
believe
The police didn't believe her story.

stick to
We must stick to our story about the accident.

change
At first he denied everything, but then he changed his story and said it was an accident.

share (with sb), swap
We swapped stories about our worst teachers.

spread
publish

circulate, go around, go round (esp. BrE), spread
A story was going around that the factory was in line for closure.

abound
Stories abound of vandalism and looting.

emerge
begin, open, start
The story opens with a man hiding from the police.

progress, unfold
The motives of the hero become clearer as the story unfolds.

end
be called sth, be entitled sth, be titled sth (esp. AmE)
be set in …
The story is set in India in the 1930s.

be based on sth
concern sth, involve sth, revolve around sth
contain sth
illustrate sth
This story illustrates the dangers of living on credit.

teller (usually storyteller)
telling (usually storytelling)
line (usually storyline)
His novels always have the same basic storyline.

according to a/the story
story about
a story about time travel

story of
the story of the Beatles
a story of moral redemption

a fragment of a/the story, a part of a/the story
We had difficulty in piecing together the fragments of her story.

the rest of the story
but that's another story
Many years later I returned to Africa—but that's another story (= I am not going to talk about it now).

(that's) a likely story (ironic)
He said he'd met Madonna. A likely story.

it's a long story
‘How come you only have one shoe on?’ ‘It's a long story.’

sb's half of the story, sb's side of the story
The teacher punished me without listening to my side of the story.

tell a different story
Antidepressants are widely believed to be effective medications. The data, however, tell a different story.

the moral of the story
The moral of this story is that you should never take things for granted.

the story goes (that … ) (= used to describe what people are saying although it may not be correct)
She never saw him again—or so the story goes.

the story of my life
Out of work with no money—that's the story of my life.

to cut a long story short, to make a long story short
Anyway, to cut a long story short (= not to give all the details), we had this argument and I haven't seen him since.

a version of a story
According to Rachel's version of the story, they threw the key in the river.

big, huge (esp. AmE), top
The biggest story of the day was the signing of the peace agreement.
And now back to our top story tonight …

exclusive
breaking (esp. AmE)
We'll have more on this breaking story as developments come in to us.

feature (AmE)
National Geographic ran a feature story on dinosaurs.

main
full
Full story on page 3.

scare
scare stories about the harmful effects of the vaccination

inside
The magazine gives the inside story of life in a rock band.

sensational
lurid, sordid
lurid stories of politicians' sexual adventures

cover, front-page, lead
The magazine chose the peace process as its cover story.

news
political
media, newspaper, wire (esp. AmE)

file, write
More than one correspondent filed a story about the incident.

carry, cover, print, publish, report, run
Every newspaper carried the story.
He's covering the story in Gaza for CNN.

follow
We will continue to follow this story and bring you the latest developments.

break (esp. AmE)
The New York Times broke the story and others picked it up.

break (esp. AmE)
The story broke in January.

story about, story of
the story of his arrest