HELP - What to do when you suspect you enjoy CREATING stories more than TELLING them?!?!

[Fiona Weir (Flow Fiction)]

Hi folks,

Does anyone else ever feel they enjoy creating/writing/inventing stories more than telling them?! If so, I'd love to hear your experiences ...!

I am slowly coming to suspect that I enjoy creating stories much more than I enjoy telling them! Perhaps I am more writer than performer?! More a story-creator than a story-teller?! The jury is still out, but the evidence is mounting!

When I tell, the experience is less enjoyable than I'd like. I suffer from nerves and poor memory, which I can deal with, but my chosen strategies so far seem somehow unsatisfactory ...

- I can 'read' rather than 'tell', but this can take some of the life out of a story.
- I can use props and other memory-joggers, but then I find I'm focussed on what's going on in my head rather than what's going on in my audience.
- I can stick to groups of young children (whom I find less scary than adults!), but then my adult stories go to waste.
- I can treat story-telling as 'work' and not expect to enjoy it - but this goes against my whole approach to life!

IF YOU KNOW THESE FEELINGS, WHAT DO *YOU* DO?!

Please help - I need new ideas!!

I've thought of finding other people/another person who'd like to tell my original stories, so if you have experience of doing this, I'd especially like to hear from you! Clearly, that person would need to suit my stories, and my stories would need to suit them! And what do you do about fees?! And how does it feel to 'let go' of your story enough to let another person tell it in their style not yours?!

I'LL WELCOME ANY EXPERIENCES YOU'RE WILLING TO SHARE!
Thank you all! =)

[Tom Taylor]

Fiona,

Question: Do you really WANT to tell stories? Could you easily 'let it go,' or do you long to stand confidently before adult audiences and share your stories?

Tom

[Fiona Weir (Flow Fiction)]

Tom, that's a very good question, and it's hard to answer.
I could certainly not easily let it go - creating stories is what I do, who I am. Of course I 'do' other things, but stories are one of the things that make me feel most alive. And often I write stories because they (um, this sounds cheesy) kind of 'call to me'; I could no more avoid writing them than I could avoid picking up a crying baby - it would be the same kind of counter-instinctive discomfort.
However, I am not sure whether I want to tell them. Or whether *I* want to tell them. I certainly want them to be TOLD, but perhaps it's not me who has to do the telling? Just as each listen or reader takes a story and gives it something different - a unique life - perhaps a different teller could give one of my stories a different and (be quiet, noisy Ego!) maybe even better life?
I'm not ducking your question; it's just that it seems to set up a choice between 'Me telling' and 'Me not telling', whereas I feel my dilemma is between 'Me telling' and 'Me writing' ...
Does that make sense?

[Csenge Zalka]

There is no dilemma between "Me telling" and "Me writing". When I started working as a storyteller, i stopped writing. After a couple of months of bliss and telling telling telling I started to really miss writing so I went back to it and now I'm doing both more or less simultaneously. I guess it works the other way around too and you'll just suddenly miss telling...

[Csenge Zalka]

Hi,
I know this feeling! I'm a writer too, although I've never told the stories I write (and never write down the stories I tell, because they are not mine - I tell folktales and myths). Sometimes I feel (and my family keeps telling me) that I'm better at writing than telling, and then I have the same dilemma as you. Things to think about:
- Writing is a form of story-telling too, so you are not bound to tell the stories you write to make them "real"
- You don't need to tell the stories you write, you can choose to tell others (like I do), ones that are better for telling, easier to remember, and more fun to perform (for you!)
- I also noticed that it is a matter of time. Sometimes I only feel like writing and writing, other times I feel like telling and telling. Perhaps you can just stick to writing when you feel like this, and then when you feel like telling a story, go and do so.
- First and foremost: don't worry about it. You don't have to decide between telling and writing, and you don't have to look at telling "as a job". And perhaps later on you'll see things differently. Just do what you enjoy doing ;)
I hope it makes sense...:D
Cheers,
Csenge

[Fiona Weir (Flow Fiction)]

Csenge, I find this very comforting! I do have a bit of a tendency to try to analyse, plan, choose options and 'decide' (maybe cos I'm also a researcher and analyst?) - but I DON'T have to decide between writing and telling, do I?! What a great revelation! Thank you!!
I'll also think more about telling other people's stories ... I haven't done this. Maybe it would be easier, though, if I knew other people were telling mine too?!

[Csenge Zalka]

Well, we can easily help with that ;) You can put some stories up on the net and see who feels like telling them ;)

[Glenda Bonin]

Hi Fiona!

I have found that there is quite difference for me between the original written story and the telling of it. When I first started telling, I had an awful time making a break from what I had written to an easy and comfortable sharing of the tale with an audience. Over the years, I have tried different ways to deal with this difference, and have found that the best way is to tell a story many, many times. When I am able to do this, the story moves from one that is being told to one that is truly shared, person to person. I love it when this happens, and when I compare this oral version with the written one, I find I have made quite a few changes!

Have you thought of working with a peer group? For the past few years, I join four or five of my storytelling friends once a month to share new stories and to polish old ones. Their feedback is priceless for me, and although I feel vulnerable about putting an untested story in front of anyone, this peer process really works!

I'd also like to suggest Kendall Haven's book "Super Simple Storytelling." While his book is primarily for teachers who want to help kids learn the art of storytelling, I find the first part of the book to contain some great hints and ideas about moving a story from the page to the stage. In the last half of this book, Kendall has a bunch of storytelling games to help kids (and others) relax into a storytelling mode. I doubt that you will have need for this part of the book, but do check out the first half if you can.

Best wishes,
Glenda

[Stephen Hollen]

Fiona,
I think that for me writing and telling are both important. I don't think I could give up writing, not sure if I could give up telling, but writing is something I must do to satisfy my soul. I write some ragged verse, stories and just observations on life. I frankly don't care if anyone other than me ever tells my stories. Frankly, I don't give permission often - and never for some of my stories.

You have to love the being on stage to really get the rush of telling, the knowing that you have connected with the audience, that folks are caught up in the moment of your words. You look out and see eyes that look inward and see your story in their heart and mind. That is storytelling. The reality is they both feel good, they both are different and meet different needs in me.

Stephen

[Kim Weitkamp]

Seasons. We humans are always growing and going through seasons. I bet at some point, in the future, you'll enjoy the telling more than the writing. It is the creative ebb and flow of what we do. But it all works together into a glorious culmination of artistry. So...if right now you want to create more than tell, then do it. Write more...tell less. Go with the flow baby. Trust me, the tide will change again.

(I'll bet you 5 bucks it would drive you nuts watching someone else do your stuff. If it doesn't, then you are a writer)

-Peace

[Csenge Zalka]

Amen.
Hahaha, so true :D So I'm not the only one who hates hearing her stories told? (okay, actually I hate hearing them read aloud. I have no problem with hearing them told well :)
Cheers,
Csenge

[Tom Taylor]

Csenge,

I'm with you. If you do my stuff well - make me laugh, or make me think, or make me choke up, etc., as you share it, then I'm your Biggest Fan!!

BUT...

if you don't -

if I'm sitting there wincing, fighting back tears of hurt/anger/rage/revenge/remorse
/embarassment, etc. - well, you get the idea.

So, ok, then - according to Kim this makes me a non-writer, and I'm ok with that. I can't apologize for wanting it done well.

So, an experiment: you record some of my stuff, and I'll record some of yours, and we'll see what we see - whaddya think? (NOTE: I'm not saying that you, or anyone else, HAS to do it the way I do it - as long as it's done well; do it better than I do it, and you automatically become my mentor - no obligation, no money changes hands, but I proclaim you an 'unofficial' mentor!)

Tom T

[Rivka Willick]

Fiona,

You started a great discussion. The question that came up for me as I read all these responses is...why did you start telling?

I was on the flip side of this dilema. As a child I knew I wanted to create stories. I wrote lots of stuff, won contests and recognition, went to college...to be a writer. What else was there? But about that time I started having problems with my writing. Not creating the prose, no that was all in my head before I ever put pen to paper, but as soon as I started writing I'd freeze up. I'd either lose all sense of direction or... more commonly...I'd fall asleep. It got so bad I couldn't write a shopping list without taking a a 10 minute nap. So I backed off. I kept creating story, but usually I told them.

A few years ago my wonderful husband told me I was a teller. "That's what you are so do it." So I am and I do. Everything I write is first composed in my head. This response was completed before I typed your name. Writing and telling are two very different art forms. You can create story by writing them and you can create story by telling them. Writing is solitary and telling is collabrative. I don't think they are always interchangable.

So....to go back to the question on the top. Why did you start telling? I started writing because I thought that was the only (legitamate) way to create story. I tell stories out of joy. I write down stories (and other stuff) for logistical reasons....and since I have given myself permission to never write down a story unless I want to, the writing down of my firmly established oral stories is coming a little easier.

I believe as long as we are willing to keep walking, we will find our paths.

rivka