Just Thinking

[Bruce Walker]

What Storytelling is and is not

First of all storytelling is not stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy is a quick set-up and punch line with an anticipation of a laugh. Storytelling may have elements of comedy, but its purpose is to develop a plot line and have interaction with characters developed to a conclusion. The comedy is not the reason for the story.

Storytelling is not a narrative, a recitation of some thing memorized. Storytelling is the remembering and telling of a particular thing that is shaped and formed by the artist differently each time it is told. The art is the ability to interact with a particular audience and make the story memorable for that one performance.

Storytelling is not list making of events. List making is what you would hear in a lecture on history where the facts are presented one after the other. Storytelling has within it lists and facts but are woven into the story to enhance it and not be a separate part of it.

Storytelling is the touching of emotions from teller to listener and back to the teller and all that are hearing the story.

Storytelling is not a theatrical presentation, though it may have elements of theatre in it: affectation of other voices, props or costumes, but ultimately it is the story that overshadows all else. If the props, costumes and theatrical gestures are the center, then it has moved from becoming a story and being a one-person theatrical show, ala James Whitmore “doing” Will Rogers, instead of someone telling the “story” of Will Rogers.

A well performed story, has the teller as the artist that is weaving an art piece as the audience watches and listens. Just my thinking on the subject.

[Layne Gneiting]

Hi Bruce,

Excellent sentiments. It seems so many attempt to be stand-up comics, or draw attention to themselves instead of to the tale itself. I've often said storytelling is simultaneously the easiest thing in the world and the most difficult. Everyone has a tale to tell, but telling well is a wild animal not easily tamed.

Perhaps put another way, the storyteller's job is to "get out of the way" of the story so the teller disappears. Story reigns.

Thanks for posting, Bruce.

Cheers,
Layne

[Pam Holcomb]

Bruce:

I've always liked the saying, "Storytelling is the dance between the teller and the listener." Without that personal connection, it falls short.

Pam

[Bruce Walker]

Your poem says it in another way! I agree!!

God Bless,
Bruce

[K. Sean Buvala]

Yes, agreed. Connection is what makes storytelling.

[Bruce Walker]

Sean is right, a story is a narrative, but storytelling is more than just relating the story, it is the human connection in the telling that elevates storytelling to an art form.

[K. Sean Buvala]

Storytelling is the telling of a narrative. That is, to be a story, we need a beginning -a middle- and an end. Otherwise, what we speak is an anecdote.

[Millie Jackson]

This is great, Bruce.