When I was little, my parents used to tell us stories about the “old country” and their adventures as children. These stories were so well told that we kids could easily imagine the adventures our parents experienced and how the country side may have even looked. My parents learned story telling from their parents, and in sharing these wonderful stories with us were teaching us an old folk skill known as narrative story telling.
Narrative or creative storytelling is an art form that uses language, sound, and movement to tell a story in a way that brings the stories to life. Unlike reading from a book, story telling is almost a live performance in which the story teller adjusts the tone of his voice, changes his movements or even parts of the story in reaction to how his audience reacts to what is being said. Teaching yourself the art of story telling begins with a good story and some practice.
My Dad was a master of story telling and used pauses, movement and eye gestures to keep our attention riveted to the story being told. He’d start out his stories slowly with a bit of a teaser, along the lines of “Did I ever tell you about the time that me and my brother Gerrit found a dud bomb in the back yard?” and then lead us merrily along until the huge finale in which we learned the bomb was casually tossed in a fire pit near the chicken coop, only to explode and blow up their entire flock of chickens….”Ja, it rained feathers for about a week,” he’d finish up with a twinkle in his eyes. “Was the story true? Did it really happen?” we’d always ask breathlessly.
This formula of telling the story in the first person, building up the suspense and then ending the story with a moral, or well crafted point to the story, is the basic pattern of story telling.
How to find a good story
So where do you find a story worth telling? Stores from your own childhood are usually a great place to start. The best stories are ones with a bit of a twist or a surprise ending that can be used to build up the suspense. Kids aren’t interested in hearing generic tales about the “old days” but love hearing personal stories about the wild and wacky things that happened at school or in the neighborhood to you and your childhood friends. Embellishment is OK, since creative story telling is more of a form of entertainment rather than telling a factual history of your life.
Stories can also be drawn from such classic children stories as Aesop’s Fables, 1001 Arabian Nights, and Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories for children. For adults, the library is filled with all sorts of anthologies which run the range from science fiction to western folk tales, mystery, and compendiums of Urban Folklore.
After finding a story or two that is workable and feels right to you, it can be adapted and retold with your own unique spin.
How to tell a great story
Once you’ve selected a repertoire of great stories, the next step is to put yourself inside the story. A skilled story teller gives the impression of having first hand knowledge of the events that are about to unfold and uses acting tools to bring the story alive.
Voice changes and gestures, movements, eye rolling and eyebrow lifting, shrugs, and pantomimes are central to bringing the story to life. After all, creative story telling is a live performance and these acting tools are essential to making the story seem “real” to your family audience. If you don’t have your family’s attention, then it’s time to ramp up the acting and throw in some funny voices and funny faces. If the story still looks like it might be heading nowhere, then it’s time to switch stories to one with more appeal.
There’s a knack to successful narrative or creative story telling that only comes with lots of practice. However, with a well crafted story, funny expressions and plenty of hand gestures, you are well on your way to becoming adept at this old fashioned skill.
