Telling Stories

Storytelling is the “mother” of all communications. Every art form relies on Story to convey meaning. Despite this truth, many communicators only approach storytelling as an adjunct to their speaking and presenting. For this quick article, Sean Buvala is speaking about oral storytelling, not digital storytelling that does not rely or build on a presenter’s public speaking skills. He suggests that mastering oral or traditional storytelling should be at the top of every speaker’s list of priorities.

Here are three foundational reasons that storytelling helps you improve your presentations skills:

1.   Storytelling teaches you to think on your feet. When you learn to be a good storyteller, telling stories to all sizes of audiences from 2 or 2000 people, you must learn to adjust your energy and pace to match the audience reaction. “Reading” or understanding the mood, energy and desires of your audience is a good communication skill at all levels.

2.   Storytelling teaches you to be spontaneous. While you are learning to tell a story, you focus on thinking about your story in an outline form, or episode-by-episode. Good storytellers do not memorize their stories word-for-word and do not use notes or other ways of reading their stories. No matter how you are communicating, it is never a good idea to deliver a canned, memorized speech to anyone. As a storyteller, you learn to rely on your ability to “see” a story as it happens, letting different parts of the story take precedence at different times. You will never tell a story the same way twice just as you should never speak to an audience like any audience before it.

3.   Storytelling helps you to think about the deeper meanings of your content. Almost all stories carry some type of moral or ethical message and understanding. As you adapt personal and world stories to your presentations, you will start thinking deeper about the meaning of your communications. Of course, you may or may not act on those meanings, but you will generally find your presentations more satisfying as you understand their impact on your listeners.

All cultures use storytelling.  Storytelling is a universal language and a core-skill for all presenters.  My best public-speaking tip: seek out learning and coaching in the art of storytelling and work stories into all your presentations.

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Thanks to Sean Buvala,  professional storyteller, the director of Storyteller.net and a nationally recognized storytelling consultant for permission to use this article. Please see his website to learn more about his storytelling techniques for corporate training. You can learn how to tell a story through his Ebook at at www.storytelling101.com

Edie Jarolim told a story about how being a nervous first time dog owner lead her to writing a book for new owners called Am I Boring My Dog. Kim Lowry told about writing and presenting a play about her recovery from a traumatic brain injury.  Jerry Farnsworth was in El Tour de Tucson when he had a heart attack and recovered to tell the story of the insights he had because of the experience.

Silver Linings: The Gratitude Show, stories about things working much better than expected, was the theme at a recent Odyssey Storytelling event.  Seven tellers got up on stage and shared important personal life-changing stories to a very appreciative audience.  Not only did the tellers feel empowered by the experience but the audience was inspired and moved by the stories of loss and triumph.  People were able to identify with the theme, if not the exact circumstances of a story, and offer the teller empathy and understanding.

Diverse themes are chosen for the precise purpose of covering a great range of the human experience.  Sometimes the stories are humorous and sometimes they bring tears to the eye, both are valid ways of expressing a feeling. But the most important element is that people tell their truth as they see it. There’s a real human need to be heard and to be seen exactly as we are with no pretense.  If the audience is a room full of strangers or just one other person, the power of storytelling can transform people’s lives.

I always tell people that public storytelling is not therapy, but it’s therapeutic.

If you want to tell your story on stage, contact me.

In The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling, Annette Simmons tells us  ”There are six types of stories that will serve you well in your efforts to influence others.

1. Who I Am Stories
2. Why I Am Here Stories
3. The Vision Story
4. Teaching Stories
5. Values-in-Action Stories
6. I Know What You Are Thinking Stories “

She sees telling stories as a mini-documentary; a way of getting information across in a powerful and agreeable way.  She says that people don’t want more information, they want to believe in you and your project.  Creating and delivering a story is the path to generating that belief.  She goes on to say:

Basically, a story is a narrative account of an event or events – true or fictional. The difference between giving an example and telling a story is the addition of emotional content and added sensory details in the telling.  . . . Whether the details are factual or not, good stories always have an element of Truth (with a capital “T”) in them.

And it’s this Truth that evokes the kind of listening necessary to motivate, persuade and inspire in a way that factual telling with a PowerPoint presentation just can’t do.  You can’t make someone listen to you but you can entice and fascinate.

Is this a nasty plot designed to make you do what you don’t want to do? It can be if misused (remember Charlie Manson) but basically I think it just describes the way humans work.  I heard a story on NPR today about how people tend to disclose more personal information online if the website is casual looking and tend to withhold if it’s more formal – Facebook v. Wells Fargo.

We might think that we’re totally rational beings but we are ruled by many other aspects of our psyches.  Understanding how this works gives you the tools to win friends and influence people.

I just found The Experience Project online.  It tells you to Be Yourself, Be Real and to anonymously connect with people just like you.  They claim to have had 3,253,248 stories shared.  The stories are divided into catagories:  experiences, confessions, challenges, dreams or advice.

You can search the site by groups i.e. “I Live in a Sexless Marriage” (7388 members) , “I Like to Read” (8674 members), or “I am a New Member at Experience Project” (8658 members).  I guess it’s reassuring to know that more members read than don’t have sex with their partners.

OK, I confess, I went to the confessions.  It told me I was not alone, and that secrets are best shared with friends.  When I join the network I will have millions of friends.  Some of the categories I perused were love, family, venting, funny and other.   Here’s an example of an other confession:

Vegetarian pain: oh my goodness … I SO want to eat some chicken. It’s not just that I’m hungry right now; I want chicken. I’m not a full-blown vegetarian or vegan so it’s OK if I have it but I’m striving to be as vegetarian & vegan as I possibly can. If I fight this craving, it’s a victory all around.

And a funny story that I didn’t think was so funny:

I made my dog fall on her face:  I have a wiener dog named Pebbles. Well, she was sitting on my lap today and started barking at my german shepherd. So in an attempt to keep Pebbles from getting in a fight with the shepherd, I lifted my leg so she couldn’t jump over it. But instead of preventing her from jumping it made her lose her balance and she fell on her face. She even lost a tooth. I felt so bad that I’m letting her sleep with me tonight.

I Googled anonymous stories and came up with a bunch of other online resources:

A Story to Share collects and shares true stories of heartache and love from all over the world

Stop Our Silence are anonymous testimonies of survivors of sexual violence

America Anonymous is a site for sharing addiction and recovery stories

Stories Told is a place people with eating disorders can share

You can read Coming Out Stories on the All Things Queer Gay and Lesbian Issues website

And the mother of all confessionals, Post Secret, which started with postcards and is now a fancy website with their own song.

It seems that there are ample opportunities to tell stories but I must confess that I’m still most interested in seeing the face of the person telling.

How about you?  Is anonymous better than facing up?

You’re hanging out in your kitchen with a few friends and someone pinches her finger in a nutcracker. Ow! It reminds her of the time when she was three or four and couldn’t resist poking her tiny finger into an even tinier hole in a pole and it got stuck and she had to stand out in the cold with tears freezing on her face until her sister ran for help.

Everyone laughs at the image and some one says, that reminds me of the time . . . and you’re off on an adventure of spontaneous storytelling . A theme has been established and the stories will flow from one tale of pain to another of humiliation, each person’s story triggered by the memories stirred up by the last teller. Even the quieter people who may not be sharing, have their personal recollections running through their heads.

Sometimes the theme is arbitrarily chosen for you, like if you’re in a class or workshop or telling on stage. Once the theme is set, the creative juices can flow around the idea and you are free to exploit your stored memories for an escapade that fits. Sometimes making it fit is part of the creative process.

A number of years ago I produced an Odyssey Storytelling themed Creepy. One person told of working in a hospital and her job was to store body parts that were removed during surgery in refrigerators in the basement. Ugg. Another told of being terrified by a ghostly encounter in a grave yard. Eek. And the man who liked to wear women’s clothing said he was fine with it but other people thought he was creepy. Wow. So many variations, so many imaginative ways to explore one concept.

The theme can be as simple as Masks or Airport Stories. Although it may seem counterintuitive, the narrower the topic is, the easier it is to find something from your life. If I just said, tell me a story, where would you start? If I said, tell me a story from your freshman year in high school; or better yet, tell me about your first day of high school, I’m pretty sure your memory would be jogged to produce something with detail and personal history.

It doesn’t have to be funny or mean or embarrassing. By sharing your story, I get to know a little more about you. And in turn I learn a little more about myself.

Check your facts and then recheck them again. Didn’t someone say that?  Anyway, it’s my new mantra when it comes to reporting events.

My apologies to anyone who went to the UA bookstore the day before yesterday looking for the Random Obsessions book tour. It had been on my calendar for a few months and I was excited about it so I announced it on this blog. But, when I got there I found out that the author had canceled. I see now that I should have made, and will in the future, a simple phone call to confirm.

What about checking the facts in a personal story? If you’re telling a story about when you were spending the night at your aunt Jenny’s house and was awakened in the middle of the night to the fire alarm and had to climb out the window into the waiting arms of a fire fighter and that was the first time you met your significant other, do you have to accurately report if it was 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.? Or if the room was at the back or side of the house?

Obviously certain facts are essential to the telling and others are insignificant and can be approximated to complete the story. Have you ever heard someone tell a story and hear them engage in a memory fight with themselves in the middle of it – “it was in 1967 – no, it was ‘68 – oh no, I remember that I was wearing my blue nightgown and I got that nightgown for my 16th birthday so it must have been 67 – or maybe it was a different nightgown . . .” We’ve all heard this (and probably done it!) and it really interrupts the flow of the story. And, unless the date is crucial to the story, i.e. if it was tied to a historical event, who cares exactly which year it was (except, perhaps, your significant other).

Sometimes the need to be precise inhibits us in telling our personal stories when the most important thing is to share the emotional impact of the story. I’m not advocating passing off fiction as fact, I’m suggesting that the meaning should take over as the most important thing rather than the color of the nightgown. Supply lots of details so that the listener can visualize the scene and, if you can’t readily remember, make your nightgown blue so that you can move along in the story line.

I’ve found that telling a “true” story is relative.  My memory of a an event from childhood can be very different than my sister’s remembrance.  We each saw it from our unique point of view and who’s to say which one of us has the truest story.

I think that fiction is making it all up BUT facts + a little enhancement is a good story.

What do you think?  Is embellishing a story OK?  When is embellishment straying from the truth?  Would our personal stories be totally flat if we didn’t add the zest of imagination?

The next few days are are packed full of story and spoken word happenings for people of all ages and sensibilities.

1. Author Nick Belardes has devoted his life to poking around the peculiar and perplexing.  He’ll be sharing strange stories, random obsessions and bizarre trivia at the Random Obsessions Book Tour on Wednesday, September 23 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the UA Student Union Bookstore, 1209 E. University Blvd., Call 621-2814 for more information.

2. Refugees’ amazing stories of hardship, courage and hope come to life using music, song, dance and live performance via the talents of the Stories that Soar! professional acting troupe on Saturday, September 26, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Catalina High School Auditorium, 3645 E. Pima.

This free community event hosted by Chairman Richard Elias is open to the public.  The stories start at 6 p.m. and a public forum to discuss issues and share ideas  follows at 7. Food provided by the refugee community will be offered during the intermission.

3. Poetry Joeys, a Saturday morning reading and activity group for children ages four through ten will meet this Saturday, September 26 at 10 a.m. at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 East Helen Street (At Vine Avenue).

Two experienced teaching artists divide children into age-appropriate groups and inspire them to develop their flexibility with language. Participants in each session read and write poems and enjoy creative movement activities that spark the imagination. Poetry Joeys meets in the Children’s Corner of the library.

4.  Edge 17: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers, curated by Melissa Buckheit will be featuring three poets on Thursday, September 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Casa Libre en la Solana, 228 N. 4th Avenue.  There’s a suggested donation of $5.

Stephanie Balzer is executive director of VOICES Community Stories Past and Present, Inc., a Tucson nonprofit that mentors youth in the documentary arts and publishes their work.

Rafael Otto writes fiction (long, short and flash), poetry, spoken word, and lyrics.

Orlando White is originally from Tólikan, Arizona. He holds a BFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Brown University.

According to the Casa Libre website, you can join White for a workshop, Let Err Poetry, focusing on “reexamining and rewriting the English alphabet from an imaginative perspective of one’s own ethnic and/or social sensibilities”.  The workshop is on Saturday, September 26 from 10 to 1 and costs $50.  Contact Casa Libre to register.

Looking for a fun thing to do with your kids and grandkids?  Take them to Story Theatre,  a show built around some of the Grimm’s Brothers tales and Aesop’s fables, created by Paul Sills, founder of the Second City Improv Group in Chicago.

Each year The School of Theatre Arts’, program etc… (educational theatre company) presents a play for children in the fall. This entirely student directed, acted & designed production performs first on campus and then tours to area schools.

According to Laura A. McCammon, faculty mentor and founder of etc…, “the director of this show, Kelena Jones, also believes in the relationship of story to community and the relationship of story to literacy skills in children.  She has chosen ‘Henny Penny’, ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’, ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’, ‘Two Crows’ and ‘The Golden Goose’.  These stories have (been) slightly modernized.”

You can catch these shows at 10:00 am and 7:00 pm on Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25 and at 1:30 on Saturday September 26 in the Marroney Theatre, 1025 N Olive Rd, Bldg #3 on the UA campus.  Tickets are $5 and can be reserved by calling the Fine Arts Box Office  at 621-1162.  Tickets can also be purchased at the door.

I was visiting my daughter and her family in a Chicago suburb last week.  Tuesday morning, after the long holiday weekend, was a school day and after the hectic rush to get everyone’s lunch into the right backpack and all the shoes were found, the leash was snapped on the dog’s collar and we all took a walk to the school bus stop.

We only had about a block to walk and we joined the other mothers and their children waiting on the corner.  It was early and the kids goofed around throwing rocks and the dog got tangled up in everyone’s feet.  There was plenty of time to hear the news – Mary went to the hospital last night at 7 and by 5 a.m. her baby girl was born.  A very detailed account of the birth followed, I won’t share that info here.

In the middle of the telling, Mary’s mother, the proud new grandmother, came out of her house a half a block away with the new baby’s sister who got to stay home from school for the occasion.  We heard the story again, but this time from insiders.

The bus stop women were excited to meet me because my daughter had told them I was coming to visit.  They were too polite to ask but I know they wanted to hear my reaction to staying with my 6 grandchildren (they’re great).

After the bus took the kids away, we had to leave to take the two little ones to kindergarten and when we drove past the corner about ten minutes later, the women were still on the corner. I was puzzled about why they were still there and then the significance of this morning ritual of sharing stories hit me.

The school bus stop is the suburban equivalent of the town square.  A gathering place, a community resource, a source of information and a place for connections.  Any place that people meet on a regular basis and get to know each other is fertile ground for storytelling.  It’s an essential element in creating and preserving community.

Who are your community of storytellers?

“After all, (storytelling is) basically just confession and everyone seems to be confessing the most intimate details of their lives on social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The private is now public”, wrote Anthony King in a New York Times article.

Well, I’ve gone and done it – I’m on Facebook both personally and professionally and I just joined Twitter. I’m member of a storytelling networker group and Tucson Networking Association.  I’m not sure if it’s good or bad but I’m getting very linked in (but, I haven’t joined Linkedin yet – should I?).

This morning on Facebook I found out why we need government-run, universal, socialized, health insurance and read about HoCo Fest ‘09: Arizona’s Solar Music Festival.  I know that there are no brownies in the cafeteria and that a friend has a house on Cape Cod for sale.  I can ask for referrals to a plumber or compare my friends list of friends with my list of friends.

Social media is mysterious and fascinating.  Last night I joined about 20 people at Julie Ray’s Intro to Twitter workshop at the Himmel Park Library and the questions ran the gamut from how do I get signed up (and why) to what’s a tweep (twitter peeps).  The group was very diverse, and I’m finding out, so is the Twitter community.

There’s a fear that we’ll lose something once we get plugged in; that our human interactions will go down as our tech know-how goes up.  In Not So Fast , an article in The Wall Street Journal, author John Freeman argues that “sending and receiving at breakneck speed can make life queasy” and offers “a manifesto for slow communication”.  My response is that technology isn’t the problem, the people that abuse it are.  For example, cell phone are a terrific convenience but the people who text and drive are stupid and dangerous.

Do you Tweet?  How many Facebook friends do you have?  What it boils down to is that it’s all about telling our stories, 140 characters at a time.