Why is linking the peg images into a story better than just recalling the words in a list?

A story enforces order and cause-and-effect, so you can't lose a peg or scramble the sequence — a bare list has no glue.

Isolated words are easy to drop or reorder. A narrative chains each image to the next, so pulling on the first peg drags the rest along in the right order. This is the same principle as a "memory palace," but the Major System hands you the images for free — you don't have to invent a word for each number, you just look it up on your drilled peg list and connect it to the previous scene.

Tip: Make the links interact (the rat runs across the meat) rather than just sit side by side — interaction is what the brain stores.