The Luscious Green Grass in Beth Horner's Garden: Storytelling Is Too A Competition!

We may have done future professional storyteller's a disservice by shouting 'everyone can be a storyteller'!  Not because everyone doesn't have a story to tell, they do, but because not every one of them is going to be able to hang out a shingle, and become a professional storyteller.

It takes time to establish yourself in this field.

It can take years to build up a reputation so that you can work enough to support yourself, your spouse, your children and your pets.

Then there is the work itself, which can be quite grueling at times.

Then, and this is the part we don't talk about much at all, there is all of the competition.

Yes, there is competition in the storytelling world, but it takes on a different aspect than in other art forms.

For starters, you are not competing for the same parts.  Unlike theatre where there are only seven parts, and the director makes the decisions based on what they see in their heads, the field is much more open and the players can take on many different aspects.

There are hundreds of festivals all across the country, and they are all looking for tellers.  Chances are there is one out there for you if you go looking.



It isn't like Broadway where there are only a few big theaters, and you are trying to sell out every seat in the house, and make money for your backers or they will close you down.

Heck, you can tell stories to tiny audiences for years and years and years.  Nobody is going to come and announce that because you can't draw more than fifty people at t a time, you are no longer going to be allowed to tell stories.  We aren't competing for audiences.


It isn't like we have a Grammy award equivalent where storytellers are awarded best story, best folktale, best personal tale, best...you get my drift.


Authors put out books, and then their works are pitted against each other for awards all over the country.

Incidentally, Congratulations are in order for Bil Lepp whose book, The King Of Little Things,  just won a Pen award.

Storytellers don't really have that either.  Well, you can apply for a Storytelling World Award, but they give out way more than just one.  Your work is evaluated on the merits of its worth, not on whether or not it is better than someone else's work.

So, where does this competition come from then?

Go get a mirror.  You see that person?  That person is your competition.

Work to be better than the person you are looking at in that glass.

When I put a new story together I am not trying to figure out how to be:

funnier than Bil Lepp
more soulful than Carmen Deedy
folksier than Donald Davis
more tuneful than Diane Ferlatte
more socially aware than Michael McCarty

I grapple with the tale, my style of telling, my understanding of the story, and how much I like the material; not what any other teller in the world might be doing in that moment.

I ask some simple questions.

1.  What does this story need from me in order to be successful?
2.  What does the audience need from this story in order for this to be successful?
3.  What does the audience need from me in order for this story to be successful?
4.  What does this story need from the audience in order to be successful?
5.  What do I need from the audience in order for this story to be successful?

I answer those questions, and I've got a story I can tell.

Will it be 'better' than someone else's?  Not why I tell that story.  I picked the tale, I tell the tale, I stand behind the tale, and I've got to love the tale.  If I don't love it, I shouldn't be telling it regardless of whether or not I think it is a 'good' telling.  That's just my opinion of course, do whatever you like.


I was having dinner with the incomparable Beth Horner the other night after the Wake County Storytelling Festival.  Beth has been a dear friend of mine for over twenty years.  She is also one of my early mentors in the field.  I always love seeing her.

Beth started telling me about what some other storyteller was up to, and I got that wistful look on my face.

I said, "I wish my career was that exciting."

Beth looked at me, picked up a piece of paper, and threw it across the table at me.  She started carrying on about how ridiculous it was for me to make that statement considering all of the things I was doing.  Then, to my amusement, she began complaining about her own career, then, stopped and started laughing.

I noted that it isn't possible to do everything, and take advantage of every opportunity, and it always seems like somebody else is doing something more exciting, interesting or fascinating than you.

Beth nodded, "Yes, even in storytelling the grass is always greener."

So, the next time you begin to wonder why you haven't ever been featured at Jonesboro, or why you only did fifty schools last year, or why you don't do more work in libraries, or how come Mr. X is always at place Y, and you haven't even been there once...take a deep breath, look in your mirror, and consider all of the beautiful, luscious green grass behind you.  Consider the fact that somewhere out there is another person looking hungrily at that grass, and wondering what you did to get such good, sweet stuff.

Then, put the mirror down and get back to work!

The competition you face is too stiff to sit around wondering what someone else might be doing.


Happy Telling!

The Storyteller's Toolkit: The Body or To Move or Not To Move

The Storyteller's Toolkit is a simple way to talk about the elements that storyteller's use to present a story.  These do not include puppets, props, costumes or anything extraneous.  You can certainly use all of those things as a storyteller, but they are not standard tools in the toolkit.  




The basics in the toolkit are as follows.

Voice:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Eyes:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Face:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Hands:  If you missed the post, just click here.

Body:


Easy enough.  In keeping with my new policy about blog entries.  We will deal with each of these one at a time.  Today's selection deals with the body in storytelling.

Let me explain my point of view about movement and storytelling, and then proceed with the rest of the post

I searched, but didn't find much in the way of using the body as a storyteller.  Many sites rolled the body in with 'body language' which covered every item in the toolkit except the voice.  There were some articles about dance, lots about mime, and there were some tips on a couple of sites, but nothing really addressed the subject in the way I was seeking.


Here is my take on the Storyteller's body….



I believe that when you move all over the stage you break the illusion built with your words.  As long as the audience can imagine you moving around, you don't need to move.  I believe you become less effective the more you move about the performance space.

The reason I believe that wandering about while telling is problematic?  Moving your body everywhere scatters the energy you are creating and throws it off in all different directions, lessening the impact of the story and distracting the audience from the narrative.

The advice I am going to offer, the observations I will make and the comments I will submit are based around the points I've just made.  You may or may not agree with my take on movement and storytelling, and that is what makes our art form so varied and interesting.

On any number of occasions, I've taken storyteller's aside and suggested they attempt to tell while standing still.  Most of them swear they can't do it.  The story causes them to move.  The ones who have gone away and tried it have all contacted me in shock at how big a difference it made in the telling.  The one thing you notice right away is how much more control and power the story has when you ground it.


Six years ago I was performing a version of the Squeaky Door.  It is a tale about a kid who is frightened of the sound his bedroom door makes.  His grandmother misunderstands the source of his fear, and runs back and forth to the barn putting all sorts of animals in his bed in order to comfort him.  My version is silly, ridiculous, and an audience participation riot.  After the tale was done, I had an inservice with the teachers.  One of them interrupted my introduction and announced that she thought it was hilarious that I was running all over the stage.  The other teachers laughed out loud and agreed.  They'd seen me! They saw me running back and forth to the barn, dragging the animals across the stage, and running back and forth to the kid's room whenever he started yelling.  They saw it all.

I let them laugh about it for a few minutes, sharing their favorite moments, and then told them I hadn't moved an inch.  I'd stood in one spot in front of the mic the entire time.  Silence.  Confusion.  They didn't believe it.  They argued the point.  They knew what they'd seen. I pointed out that the mic was on a stand and I hadn't taken the mic out of the stand the entire time.  How would they have heard me so clearly if I'd been running around the stage without the mic?  They didn't know.  They realized I couldn't have been running all over the stage.  They still didn't believe I'd been standing still.  Then, I informed them that it was perfectly possible for them to have seen me running all over the stage, but despite that, I hadn't moved.

You can take up an amazing amount of space without moving.  Let the audience see the story, and they will see every part of it.  The key is to employ the other elements of the toolkit to give the illusion of movement.  

The story does not happen in front of you, it happens all around you.  As long as you don't break into the space around you and trample it, the story can take place in that space.  The second you actually move, you stop the imagination from filling the space with images.  We need to see the story coming out of you in all directions.  If you are moving in all directions, the story can't expand to fill the space.  Instead of being someone surrounded by wild images, you are a single person moving around an empty space.  The first is powerful, the second just gets tiring for the audience.


If you get out of the way of your stories, they have a chance to take the audience to places even you can't see!

Of course, not everyone wants to stand still.  If you are going to move, do it on purpose!  Choose when you are going to move.  Don't let your feet decide where your body is going!  

So, here are some fabulous storytellers making the world shake from the space around their feet.

Peter Cook!





Geraldine Buckley!





Carmen Agra  Deedy





Len Cabral




Andy Offut Irwin




Was there anything that these stories lost because the storytellers either sat, or simply turned their bodies, or adjusted themselves?  Did they need to move further than they did?  Did they need to show us beyond what they did in the spaces around their feet?

If you've never tried standing still, give it a shot.  What you will find is that you will have to focus much more heavily on your face, voice, eyes, and hands.  Translate your nervous energy into power.

Stand still and hit your audience with everything you have!


Empower your stories!  Empower your audience!

Happy Telling!