The Story so Far

Once Upon a Time there was a college grad- or Anthony as he was more commonly called- choosing his courses for his first semester of graduate school. At the urging (very minor) from two of his student workers, Anthony decided to take Storytelling as his third course for the summer semester. “It sounds really interesting,” one said while the other noted “I want to take that!” And after a previous “storytelling” experience in which Anthony felt his skills were severely lacking, this seemed like the perfect way to jump into things.

Due to the structure of the summer courses, it would actually be his first course at the great institute of Syracuse, which led Anthony to be nervous and wondering if he would be able to handle it. In the weeks leading up to the beginning of the course, he found that there were pre-course assignments or quests if you will. The first quest had Anthony thinking that maybe he wasn't quite ready yet, maybe he should have waited longer until he began his master’s program or maybe he shouldn't have taken that year off. But once Anthony began the assignment he realized that he just needed to let his brain reawaken into education mode and he developed a successful plan for the final project, as was the quest set upon him.

During the first week of class, Anthony quickly realized that he could do this. He was an inherent storyteller, telling stories every day. Whether it be telling his supervisor his strange dream from the night before, or explaining to his friends the awful customers he had to deal with that day, Anthony knew how to tell a story. Sure he realized that more often than not his stories were not that interesting, but it was the way he was telling the stories that made them so. His second quest was just as successful as the first, and although Anthony was tough on himself, he knew what to work on going forward through the course.

From here on out Anthony resolved to work on his vocal abilities (in particular to his pitch). Knowing when to work the right emphasis in would only increase the interest others might have in his storytelling abilities. He also knew he must work on showing and not telling when it comes to the more creative stories he tells others. No one wants to be told how to feel, but rather led to make their own conclusions about how they would feel in the character’s shoes.

Keeping these goals in mind, Anthony set out to continue his adventure, vowing that everyone would live happily ever after at the end of this journey. 

My Very First Podcast

This week for class we were asked to record a podcast telling a story. We had the option of telling a folktale, family story, or personal story. My initial reaction was to record myself telling a folktale, but I no from personal experience that I cannot do a good Big Bad Wolf impersonation. Thus I have decided to record a podcast telling the story about my first meeting with Taylor Williams AKA Agent Best Friend.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Feel free to share how you met your best friends. I have many more tales of my adventures with Taylor, and maybe I will share some more of them with you all sometime soon.

Musings on Ganley's White Paper

In Barbara Ganley’s White Paper the main topic of the relationship between storytelling and communities is explored in a variety of examples. One part which particularly stood out to me was where she writes, “In this hurry-up era, stories are both more natural and more difficult to wrest from the blur of life…It takes slowing people down enough to listen” (24), which stands out because of just how applicable it is in my own post-grad life. Now that I am no longer in an academic/school environment 24/7, I find the rapid pace of “real life” to be nonstop.

How many times while in the company of others does one find his or herself at a loss for words trying to keep the other person’s attention? Or even the opposite, where one struggles to pay attention to a story being told? It is my sincere and firm belief that our brains have been hardwired to run quicker than our attention spans. More and more children each year are being diagnosed with ADHD, but what if this is just because the pace of societal interactions does not allow us to focus on one thing at a time? In my daily interactions I frequently struggle to concentrate on the task at hand. Without my internal clock and dialogue slowing me down to take each step one at a time, I find that I and those around me try to do too much at once.

Storytelling in today’s world works in much the same way, with people either frequently interrupting one another’s’ stories or being unable to pay attention and recount all that has been said. Taking the time to be invested in stories is a skill, where before it was an expected trait. So much is continually happening (technology only contributes to this fast pace) which in turn causes our attention spans to be incapable of investment in any one given happening.

I ask my friends what is new in their lives because I do genuinely care and want to hear the latest story they have to share. Yet more often than not it seems that the frequent response is that nothing is new. This too stems from our incapability to focus on one thing. How can we be expected to “wrest from the blur of life” any one story of what is new? Ganley’s article makes it clear that our societal task needs to trend back towards community and storytelling for a common purpose. But first we need to commit to our individual storytelling abilities.

Storytelling Week One- Discussion Post One- Story Structure

Throughout my elementary/secondary education, I learned the traditional story structure of Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Denouement, and Resolution. With every book or play we read we were able to fit the stories to this pattern. In this week’s Topics section two other familiar story structures are drawn out, which similarly fit into the traditional story structure. This initial exploration of story structure appears to set up each story as following a similar pattern, and begs to ask the question if there is a different way for a story to pan out.

Watching the Kurt Vonnegut video on the topic of story shapes seemed to also suggest that stories always end on a happy note. Stories may begin at a different point of fortune for the protagonist (i.e. Cinderella at rock bottom on the ill fortune spectrum), yet in each of his examples the main character reaches happiness and good fortune at the end of the story. Having previously read Vonnegut’s work Slaughterhouse-Five in my senior thesis course and discussing it at great lengths, in know that even within Vonnegut’s own works that stories do not always follow this basic story shape. Not to spoil the ending of the novel for anyone who may not have read it, but the story does not have the traditional happy ending and instead concludes with death.

So does a story need to fall on this Good Fortune -> Ill Fortune/ Beginning -> End scale which Vonnegut has put forth? And to a greater extent does a story have to always start at the beginning and end at the end? Sure there are plenty of novels/stories which begin with one event and then backing up to explain how the character reached this point. But does this sort of story structure differ that greatly from the epitome of one? Are there other ways to tell a story? I know that there are a bunch of unanswered questions in this blog post, but this has always tended to be my way of writing (posing questions and not always answering them).

I personally find that Vonnegut’s first two examples on his story shape spectrum fit the majority of books I have read, and stories I have heard. There always seems to be a happy ending after moments of despair or trial and tribulation. Maybe this is the main way to tell a story, and other ways of structuring it are just that particular author/storyteller’s way of trying to be different.

What do you all think?