Storytelling often begins with a life closely observed, and might relate experiences known or understood by ordinary people or the storyteller might weave a tale of fantastical happenings. As in storytelling of old, there is a ritual for beginning—the “once upon a time” or “a long, long time ago” when the world was full of wonders. The opening of a story is a moment of change and it signals the listener that we are entering into dreamtime, or a place where anything, including magic, might happen.
As when storytelling was an oral tradition, pay attention to the role of your listener, your active participant in the story. The listener’s or reader’s mind is the canvas on which the story is painted. Understand the parts of storytelling such as how themes connect the parts of a story and use a style that includes vivid word pictures and pleasing sounds and rhythms. Find moments where you can draw readers close into a moment for the dramatic appeal and always, always make your listeners or readers worry about the outcome.
But mostly remember that you’re a storyteller foremost.
Remember that storytelling is a need for connection and understanding so deep even whales partake. It is a fundamental communication like lullabies. In stories we try to understand the human heart.
So tell stories because you love Charles Dickens or Mark Twain or Jane Austen or Edgar Alan Poe or Margaret Atwood. Tell stories because you cannot hum the tunes of your heart and lullabies are not always appropriate and you’re not yet able to dance a tale.
Tell stories because silence affords only so much comfort. Tell stories because it is the opposite of war. Tell stories because your cat doesn’t understand English and your dog has a limited vocabulary. Tell stories because you don’t own a movie camera. Tell stories because it’s the only way you know to contain whimsy. Tell stories because you remember the way things used to be. Tell stories because you cannot know the future. Tell a story because you can only stare off into space so long before you need to talk about the ideas that alight, struggling toward some kind of meaning. Tell a story because your heart has been broken or because you’ve wept for joy. Tell stories because childhood was such a huge place. Tell stories because you have stood at a river’s bank, an ocean shore, a quiet lake at dawn. Tell stories because you’ll never again experience your first kiss or taste of champagne. Tell stories because you love casting metaphors. Tell stories because you’ll likely never get a chance to name a species in Latin. Tell stories because the particular slant of light slipping in the window right now will soon disappear. Tell stories because in real life you’ll rarely hear “Encore!” or enough whispered endearments.
Tell stories because they are like a match to kindling on a winter night.Tell stories remembering that a reader wants to be swept away into a world far from his own. As you settle back, about to begin imagine that the moon has taken up residence in your heart. Imagine your reader as hungry for meaning and intricacy and searing truth. Or imagine your reader in a windowless place small as a prison. He wants mischief, humor, and a deeply emphatic understanding of humankind.Tell stories like he or she is a tired traveler arriving at your door at dusk, needing a place near the fire, the solace of a story. The rain is drumming on the roof and the shadows are violet and black. “Come in,” you say reaching for the teapot or brandy. “I’ve got a story for you.”
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