Theory and storytelling

Storytelling by Eric Miller.

“Storytelling” can be defined as, relating a series of events. Storytelling can be considered as a type of play.

A distinction can be made between actual storytelling, and presenting a story through other mediums. The difference is that in actual storytelling, the tellers and listeners can give instantaneous and ongoing feedback to each other. Even though making movies (or other recordings, or books) is not actual storytelling, we often speak of cinematic storytellers. To be most verbally accurate, we might say that movie makers (and novelists, etc) are presenting a story.

Projection, Identification, Empathy, Imitation, and Imagination are important processes when it comes to people and stories. People project themselves into story characters. They identify with the characters. They feel empathy with the characters. This occurs through the use of the listener’s imagination. The listener may then imitate the character. Each culture has traditional and conventional ways of signaling that a story is beginning and ending. In English, one way is -- “Once upon a time”, and “They lived happily ever after”. Some storytellers like to comment upon, and tell the moral of, a story. Others like to let the story speak for itself, and permit listeners to generate their own interpretations and meanings.

 Storytellers often alternate between

• narrating a story, and going into character (role-playing, speaking dialogue).

 • speaking and singing.

 • normal conversational speech and movement; and stylized (exaggerated, rhythmical, etc) speech and movement

 • telling in the past tense, and in the present tense.

What Makes a Storytelling Event Great, Entertaining, and Meaningful?

Listeners are drawn in, and feel involved and engaged. They relate to the teller and to what is being told. They forget themselves, and get involved in the efforts, struggles, and behavioural styles of the characters. They put themselves in the place of the characters; they relate to characters’ situations and decisions, on the levels of feeling (emotion) and intellect (thought). The story is important to both teller and listeners. The style of telling is vivid and clear -- the design (of the form and content) of the storytelling experience is in step with the times.

http://www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com/67.pdf