Tell Me Something Good

Organizing Stories by Rhonda Brewer

We all spend so much time working on our stories.  We all have our own process that includes some variation of the following..  A story must be chosen (or it chooses us); multiple versions must be researched;  an organizer has to be created; the story needs to be crafted; multiple dry runs to family and friends are required; and then, finally, it is ready for the official telling. Although this is a lot of work, for most storytellers, it is a labor of love. 

The story becomes part of us-a treasure to be occasionally brought out, dusted off and retold.  Treasure hunting is fun-deciphering a map, looking for clues, digging through stuff until, finally, we find the treasure. However, most storytellers want to spend their time crafting and telling stories-not looking for them!

It is important to create some sort of organizational system that allows us to very quickly find our stories.  In our early storytelling classes, we were required to create a repertoire of our stories. I religiously completed this assignment and even added story ideas I have yet to craft.  I was very thorough. 

Although I saw the need to provide specific information on each story, I quickly realized what I really needed was a way to quickly access the storyboard and audio recording for each story.  This led me to create my own system. As part of my process, I create a storyboard for each story-usually using the Five P approach.  Limiting myself to eight squares I draw the story.  Because drawing is not my gift, the drawings are very simple-stick figures and preschool-inspired trees. However, I always color my storyboards. I find the more color I use, the clearer and more detailed the story becomes in my head.  Finally, I take a picture of the storyboard. Then I use a recording app on my phone to record the story.  I play it over and over until I have learned it. Often, I make multiple recordings because I need to add details or rearrange some events. But I only save the latest recording.

Currently I create a folder for each class I take and then create a sub-folder for each story.   The picture of the storyboard and audio recording are saved in the sub folder. For example, I have a folder called STO 295. Inside is a sub-folder called The Mexican Fisherman. Inside the sub-folder is the picture of the Mexican Fisherman storyboard and the audio recording.  This allows me to search for the story by class and title.  As I find opportunities to tell publicly, I will modify the labeling system to include the venue, organization, and date.

Considering the amount of time and love we give our stories, it is important to keep them safe and accessible.  I hope my method encourages you to create the system that makes the most sense to you.

Practicum by Mindy Tarquini

prac·ti·cum

/ˈpraktəkəm/

noun

NORTH AMERICAN

noun: practicum; plural noun: practicums

1. a practical section of a course of study.

Practicum, from the Latin practicus is a practical training or application of a skill learned over time. I went to school to become an ultrasound technologist, with plenty of practice and learning on my fellow students, but the real test of my incipient abilities was when I was thrown into the world to ‘practice’ those skills on live patients. My practicum was closely supervised. To the best of my knowledge, nothing I did hurt or killed anyone.

Phew.

Now I’m doing a practicum for my storytelling skills. Fifteen hours of telling in the community is required. Not fifteen tellings, fifteen HOURS. That means I could spend days researching and crafting and practicing for a six minute story, and I can list SIX minutes on my tally.

Six minutes.

I took ten years to write the first novel I got published. Note the difference. Not my first novel. The first novel I got published. That first published novel was the fourth novel I’d written. Six years, two more published novels, and a variety of smaller works, later, crafting a written story has become second nature.

Crafting a story for telling, rather than reading, is a little different. For one thing, I don’t get 80,000 words to tell my story. If I’m lucky, I get eight minutes. Those eight minutes have to demonstrate every turning I craft into my 80,000 words. I have six minutes to tell a story for The Storyline Slam at Changing Hands. I did the math. That gives me 5.5 seconds to hit every one of the sixty-four turnings I consider essential to a complete and cohesive storyline. Five point five seconds.

Nobody told me telling stories would involve so much math.

Though I am working on my last class and my last semester for the South Mountain Storytelling Institute’s certificate program, I won’t be walking with my fellow storytellers this May. I’m not extroverted nor organized enough to craft and tell fifteen hours at various venues outside of my classroom in one semester. So I’ll be working on this the rest of the year, through the summer during my writer-in-residency at Tempe Public Library, and on into the autumn and winter.

The Storyline Slam is my first time telling on a live stage since the pandemic’s start. And a hundred lifetimes ahead of the shaky, terror-stricken mess-of-a-teller who stood up in my first class and told a story in front of my fellow students for the first time.

Wish me luck.

(That first story was titled The Old Woman Who Wanted to Cheat Death. The story involved chicken feathers. The story I’ve crafted for The Storyline Slam involves weed.)

Onward.

Mindy Tarquini is the author of three award-winning and critically acclaimed novels that feature fables, foibles, fairytales, pandemics, past lives & lost loves. Find Mindy and her stories at www.MindyTarquini.com

Saturday Morning - Blog by Diana Dinshaw

Have you ever had a morning where your mind is fully awake and your body is saying, “I am not ready to get up”?

Well that is the kind of morning I had this past Saturday and after I had made all kinds of lists in my mind while I lay in bed very still, I realized that I did not have a story to run through in my head. It’s like the feeling you get the morning after final exams. Don’t get me wrong. While I love crafting and telling stories it was a relief to have a break.

Most mornings I will wake up and have a part of a story that I am working on, running through my head. It may be a part that I am not happy with and am still working out. Or it may be a part that I have crafted and really like the choice of words and want to make sure I remember to say it just that way. Sometimes it is seeing if there is a repetition that can be structured. And sometimes it may be more than one story depending on what events are coming up. But on Saturday morning when I woke up there was nothing.

I had ideas for two stories but had not started my story cycle yet. When I work on a story it starts with the thought, “I want to tell this story” and most times at that initial stage I don’t know the “why”. But over the years I have learned that if a story wants to be told I need to listen and start preparing for it. 

Research: My process for folktales, myth/legends and fact-based stories starts with research. Are there other versions of the story? What details do I want to include in my version? For fact-based stories the research is more intense and time consuming. Personal stories don’t need the traditional way of doing research but research may be needed to support or give context to a detail in the story. Growing up when I was told the story of how I was named the information given was that I got really sick a few days after I was born and had to be taken to the hospital. I asked a friend of mine, who is a pediatrician, what the “really sick” may have looked like given the circumstances of my birth so I could add that detail in my story.

Craft and Learn: For me these two steps go hand in hand. Once I have a fair amount of material I start crating the story. Depending on the type of story I will use a story structure that fits. I will confess that the String of Pearls structure is my favorite structure to use for personal stories. As I am crafting it I start learning the story organically. I like to storyboard the story drawing each scene on a separate piece of paper. This helps me to change the order of events, if I need to, as I am crafting the story. I also learn the story by saying parts of it to myself on my walk. Especially the parts I am struggling with and more often than not I will find the word/phrase or what to move in the story before I get home.  This is a never-ending process and could be a loop in itself.

Tell: Finally, it is time to tell the story to an audience. But this is not the end of the process. Based on the feedback and questions the process starts again with doing the research to find the answer to the question(s), seeing where that would best fit into the story, learning the piece and then retelling the story.

And the cycle starts again.

So now you can understand why I was relieved when my mind was blank and there wasn’t a story running through my head while I lay in bed Saturday morning!

From Storytelling to Healing by Roxanne de la Rosa

I still have so much to learn about myself as a storyteller but through the experiences I’ve had, storytelling has felt very freeing for me. It has become an outlet for me to express myself and who I am as a person in a way that I never could before. Telling stories onstage is a feeling like no other. I recently told a story for Storytellers Project and I was so engrossed in my story that I lost track of time. It was truly a feeling I had not felt before; it felt like the story flowed out of me and it was as if the story deepened within me.

I rehearsed my story in front of an Arizona Republic coach before telling at the Storytellers Project and I received feedback on my story. My story was about how I struggled to accept myself and my struggle to speak Spanish growing up. I wasn’t sure if the feedback would improve my story, but I wanted to try it. The reaction I received at my next rehearsal when I integrated the suggestions by the coach were met with smiles and laughter. I was very pleasantly surprised, and I felt so much gratitude for the feedback. While receiving feedback from the coach he shared a personal story about his struggle to speak Spanish as well and he gave me an idea. I was able to incorporate it into my story which helped make my story even more meaningful. I feel that there is an exchange of energy when we tell and share stories even when we are just rehearsing them. Storytelling makes me feel connected to the people around me in a way that is truly unique.

Another aspect of being able to produce Storytellers Project is that I have the opportunity to help coach people through telling their own stories. A couple of the tellers were so nervous, and I was able to help and provide reassurance and guidance while coaching them. This felt immensely rewarding to be able to give back and seeing the reaction from the audience after hearing the tellers was an indescribable feeling of joy for me. I realized that I love coaching and helping tellers bring their stories to life. It feels just as good to help someone with their story as it does to tell.

Through sharing and telling stories I feel it can be used to chip away at some of the preconceived ideas and stereotypes we may each carry within us. As a budding journalist, storytelling is a way to add another layer of meaning into my work. I know the skills I have gained in Storytelling courses will only help me become a better listener and journalist. Storytelling can be used as a tool to break down barriers and misconceptions we may think about others without even recognizing them. Structuring and connecting the dots of my life to share my stories has healed me and helped me process some of the challenges I have faced in my life. Storytelling has become my therapy.