A Leap of Faith by Dixie Walljasper

I’ve decided to take a leap of faith this semester and not write stories out but rather to compose only orally.  For me that was a scary transition because I can’t be sure that the story flows, or I might forget a really good line.  This hasn’t been a sudden transition. It’s evolved over the past few years as I’ve been studying storytelling.  I began outlining and memorizing stories and gradually rewriting and editing down to keywords in order to keep the order of the story in my head and being able to cue myself.  This helped me to keep the flow of the story because I knew what came next on the outline.  I did find, however, that it was sometimes difficult if I forgot the next word on the outline. I would have to pause and rethink and catch up with the outline in my head.

I progressed to putting storyboard prompts in the outline using stick figures in creating a series of scenes.  It was much like working with power points slides, and it encouraged me to abbreviate words and let the story flow through the little stick characters.  I found it to be very helpful and I still do some of it today if I have story that I’m trying to work up.  As I worked with storyboarding I began to try and get away from the outline and just make it a series of pictures.  Other students that I was working with described a movie playing in their head and you just watch the movie and tell the story. 

I found that storyboarding was very helpful to me because it encouraged me to visualize the setting and the characters and build pictures of them in my mind. I did a series of mouse deer stories from Malaysia.  I have in my head a picture of what tropical forests look like, but I really didn’t know what the Malaysian forest looked like.  I googled Malaysia and read about the flora and fauna and began to build a better picture of the setting.  Google also had pictures of a mouse deer and I crafted a little cartoon mouse deer.  The process of storyboarding and cartooning the stories was very valuable to me in building scenes in my head.  Sometimes I did side reading on of the history a particular place.  For example, I did side reading on kelp in the cosmetics industry as I was doing the selkie stories.

Last year after hearing Antonio Rocha discuss the use of dialogue I decided to start trying to move more dialogue into my storytelling.  Again, the visualization of characters what they might be like, looking at their motivation was helpful in building the dialogue between characters.  Each of these steps has been helpful to me in building a picture of the story and the characters in my imagination and fleshed out the people that inhabit the stories.  This semester I’m taking the Creating and Telling Personal Stories class, and the people and places in the stories are familiar to me and already exist in my head in the memories that I will be working with.  So, I think I’ll take a leap and try only crafting orally – no outline, no storyboards – just the movie playing in my head.  Wish me luck!

Comments

[Myranette Robinson]

It's always interesting to see how others craft their stories. I don't use a storyboard, because even if I use stick figures, I get frustrated if the picture does not come out like I think it should. Now you'll have to share how the technique that you are trying works for you!

[Dee Dee]

I like your suggestion of adding more dialogue. I will try that in my next story.

[Marilee Lasch]

I am more of a visual person, so I agree story boarding is so helpful in trying to remember the story.

[Nirit Simon]

Your blog post inspired me to try crafting a story without writing anything down. I did my third story this way, and it went just fine. Thanks for the idea!

[Nirit Simon]

P.S.
I did use post it notes just to put the parts in the right order.

[K Sheffield]

I think it’s great that you’re experimenting with different ways of crafting your stories.
In teaching I learned that some of s learn best through seeing, some through hearing, and some through movement and touching. You mentioned storyboarding and outlining, both visual. I wonder how we can use hearing and movement and touching to help us remember our tales.