Lessons Learned from the National Storytelling Festival 15.January.2008
The Settings
Jonesborough is in the eastern Tennessee mountains. From here that involves driving south on I-75, East on I-40, North on I-81, East on I-26. Then you get off the freeway and head past the standard near freeway franchisees of McDonald’s and BPs. About 8 miles down the road you see a Big Lots and Hardees. You know you are getting close, through one more stoplight you realize this little downtown just snuck up on you. For those of you familiar with Central Kentucky, the downtown is basically like Wilmore merged with Midway, surround by the Nicholasville bypass and boxed in by surprising steep hills. And like Wilmore and Midway still has a surprisingly active train track that is probably the reason why Jonesborough was the first city in Tennessee.
They have used up every big flat surface in downtown to stick a huge tent on: church parking lots, grassy areas, city land etc. Evidently there are seven such big flat surfaces in Jonesborough because they have somehow found a way to cram 7 tents in this small town with steep hills. While different sizes, all tents could probably hold around a thousand. You find a seat on a folding chair, or on the ground outside the tent during a particularly popular session, then enjoy listening to tellers who remember their childhood, tell a tale about King Arthur or sing a song about crickets and kudzu. The tellers tell their stories in concerts which range from 10 minute to 75 minute sets.
Great Tellers
The storytelling was as varied as the tellers themselves, ranging it ages from 10 years old to 90. But one thing remains fixed, your attention. After trying and failing to take notes the first day, I learned probably the most important lesson. A good storyteller has absolutely no problem maintaining someone’s attention. If I were to look down and write a note, I would loose my place in the story. Strangely, this is so unlike the session at a marketing conference.
The Heath brothers, in their book Made to Stick, have a section on story. And like they said, a good story can really make a point memorable. One thing the Chip and Dan glossed over though, was that a story well told can grab your attention so tight it throws everything we know about the MTV era attention span out the window. An hour of sitting it cheap folding chairs? My butt didn’t notice until the emcee came back up to hit us with a few parting announcements.
It just took a couple hours to noticed an above average number white canes and guide dogs leading people around town. And then it hit me. If you are blind, you don’t want to go to a movie or attend a broadway show, but verbal stories, now that is a different question. Beyond the sighted being able see the posture and facial expressions of the teller, every listener is on a level playing field. Storytelling captures the imagination. They tell just enough to convey the important part, the rest is up to the listener. Keeping the audience’s imagination running, helps keep their attention focused on the story.
One assumption I went into the weekend with, and was just waiting for three days full of examples to bring back to you, was that to tell a good story you have to start with a good story. Good characters, good plot, exciting climax and great ending, but is not the case. A story can end with, “and so the cricket went back to life as normal”, yet the audience was having a hard time remembering to blink. Absolutely amazing and shows how much skill a teller has.
Technique: Know Your Audience
The two way feedback between the teller and audience is vitally important as he/she refines the story. I am absolutely certain that during their first telling of a story, the teller realizes sentances they should have paused longer after. Things they should repeat for emphasis or humor. Things they should elaborate more on because the listeners find it interesting. Going into their first telling, they have a good idea about what works and what doesn’t because they are experts. They hear the audience laugh, they pause the story until the audience regains its composure. They learn what is working and what isn’t. A couple of tellings later they know what works for that particular story and after a few stories to the same audience they know what works for that particular group of people. It is this constant feedback that we can’t overlook in our form of storytelling which uses paper, color, pixels and motion.
Some tellers took it a step further and not only interacted with the audience but with their surrounds. The whole town could hear it every time the train passed through. About three time I remember the teller found a way to “right” it into their story right on the spot. Other tellers would interact with the sign language interpreter they were sharing the stage with. And when a seasoned teller messed up, he found a way to fix it, by humorously making it part of the story or just moving on.
Technique: Don’t say it
For a professional storyteller, if something does not come across right, they can’t say, “Um, I guess you just had to know Uncle Joe.” No, no they have to make sure you do know Uncle Joe. Know what is personality was, know how he acts and know what makes him angry. The best storytellers are the ones who will let you know who Uncle Joe is without telling you directly. They won’t say “Uncle Joe had an irrational fear of snakes, so when he saw a snake in his car he flipped out.” Instead they will tell you about how “whenever uncle Joe would walk with us behind Granddad’s house, he would stop and point out. ‘There was a snake right there’. Where uncle Joe, I don’t see it? When I was 8. We would walk a few step farther and point to the left, ‘right there’. ‘What uncle Joe?’ ‘There was a snake curled up there when I was ten.’ So when he saw a snake on his dashboard it was no surprise that the car was quickly parked in the nearest ditch and Uncle Joe was 40 yards in the other direction at a pace that would make an NFL wide-receiver jealous.” [Full disclosure this series of events was adapted from a Donald Davis story.
Say something to the audience not by saying it but by showing them. Use stories to tell your story!
Technique: Repetition
Repetition is used in so many different ways. There were three main ways it was used during the festival: for comedy, emphasis and finding ones place after a tangent.
Repetition serves as a valuable technique to bring the audience back to where you before leaving on a tangent. Several tellers repeated the exact line they used earlier to let the audience know that the flashback is over and are now returning to the normal chronology of the story.
Repetition is an vital way to show emphasis, just look at Psalm 136. What is the most important phrase in this chapter?
Tying repetition into my “saying it by not saying it” point. In one story Judith Black tells of a World War II wife working in an armory and a husband off at war. They write letters to each other and each one ends with “Our love is real and will never fade”. After a few letters built on frustration and misunderstanding those lines aren’t said at the end of one particular letter. The teller doesn’t have to point it out. The audience was expecting it there, and they know it is missing and they know what it means.
Repetition is a great comedic tool. Take any running gag you have ever seen as an example. No matter how many times a character makes the same mistake they never learn. Take any college road trip you ever embarked on, someone did something and for the remainder the the weekend all anyone had to do to get a laugh was vaguely imitate that same action.
Speaking of expectations, breaking expectations is another foundation of comedy. Think about any good joke, or the funniest parts in a movie. That line or that event you didn’t see coming, but there is, taking you off guard and somehow making you laugh. It is also vital to any good story even if it is not a comedy. It is the very definition of a plot turn.
Limitations
Stories are primarily used for entertainment. From the books when you were little to the movie you saw last weekend, we take in stories mainly to be entertained. But as the staff and clients know at Cre8tive Group, stories can contain powerful messages. They can bring us emotionally closer to a problem or need. It is easier to focus on packing a box of food for an otherwise hungry family than it is to eliminate the hunger problem. Stories tell us what the local food bank means to one family, but it is almost impossible to comprehend as a whole what that kind of work is during. The best our minds can do is multiply that one story a hundred times.
Stories can also be used to convey philosophies, morals and exemplify behavior. “I like my mother’s version better” can tell the power of optimism and joy when bad events, minor or not happen. She put “a positive spin on things” you could say. Buy if someone took those same 10 minutes Dolores Hydock had and explained in a ten point presentation why optimism is so good, it wouldn’t have the same impact. However, there are some times when you need to convey hard numbers and stats. Stories are not the greatest for conveying numbers, facts and basically other boring stuff and sometimes that is what you need to convey. If Dolores tried to cram those ten reasons in a story it wouldn’t work either. Stories can convey the core of a message not too much more yet the listener won’t feel like they are being preached at. It is a basic “show me don’t tell me” scenario.