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