A World in a Grain of Sand

Yes, I know I’m being out of order.

Second Day Introductions: On the second day of the storytelling course, Jackson Gillman started by having us interview a person next to us and then introduce that person to the class. My partner, if she could be any food, would be creme brulee.

Popcorn: Jackson then did what he calls “popcorn” stories—short stories meant to inspire us to share similar stories with our class. I did think of family anecdotes, but I didn’t see how to make stories out of them. For example, my daughter had learned enough Hebrew in school that she was able to briefly ask for directions, but not enough to understand the rapidly spoken, long answer. Is that a story? Yes, I could make it longer, but that’s the essence and it did not support any of the points being made at the time.

Two stories: Jackson told a story about reflexes; it included fencing and his heroic attempt to stop an allegedly moving car and breaking his son’s fall from a high stool. He told another story about picking blueberries with his year-old daughter in Maine. Jackson moves all over his available space, unlike the Storycrafters, who sit when they do their stories.

Single words: Jackson asked us to write down single words meant to prompt us when we tell stories.

Hooks: You have to grab your audience in the first 15 seconds. He asked us to come up with one to three first sentences to a story.

Active listening: Then we were to tell the story itself to one other person (twice). Based on my partners’ feedback, I realized I needed to expand my story from the insight I received while playing volleyball to a series of instances demonstrating my lack of athletic intelligence. Jackson is part of a group of performers who meet monthly to critique each other’s works in progress. We should remember that some criticism are really not about our work but the critic’s own problems.

Two disciplines: Jackson believes in getting there on time and making notes afterwards. He even uses feedback forms: in general, responses are not too hurtful and sometimes they are even useful.

My story: In case I ever decide to tell my sports story, here’s what I learned. I guess I could keep my hook, “the way I see the world is not the same as the way everyone else sees it; in fact, it may not be the way anyone else sees it.” But then I should go for my second hook, “I suck at sports.” The only thing I was ever good at was dodge ball. But baseball, basketball, jacks, tennis, softball throw were either hopeless or I bloomed so late that all the other flowers were long gone. It was when a ball came at me while playing volleyball and I instinctively put up my crossed arms over my head and was told by my teacher that I shouldn’t have reacted that way that I realized that what I thought was a perfectly natural reflex was not seen that way by others. It was a revelation.

A better story: A classmate told a story about his life in Hawaii. He did not include his finding out that a friend of his, who was eight-months pregnant, had died. But his story was filled with contrasts and I think he can add this and have an even more powerful story.

General comments: I’m writing this on the third day of the course and I’ve noticed that the amount of notes I take is dwindling: 3 pages the first day, 1 the second day, and 1/2 a page on the third.

Things are starting to blur a bit: Similar points are have been made by more than one person and it’s getting harder to remember who said what. Since the point of the course may be to internalize everything and make it my own, maybe this is not such a terrible problem? Then again, being able to quote your sources and give credit where it’s due is a good thing.

Day Three:

Coaching tips: While it’s still a little fresh, let me try to talk about what I learned today. Michael Parent started the day by having volunteers greet the audience, give their names and say one sentence. He demonstrated a perfectly bad job to make it easy for us to offer coaching tips. I volunteered, hoping to go first so that there would be no one else to compare me with and because this sounded doable and I knew his “challenges” would get harder. I went second. I experimented with sitting down in a chair in the designated “spot” because I wanted to see if it made me feel that I owned the space (not sure it did) and provided a neutral sentence, “The sky is blue.” Michael suggested that the second time I did my routine (to make a good performance better, he always says), I stand up and, indeed, my voice was louder. He had us prove to ourselves that as we run out of breath, the sound level of our voices decreases. So, important lesson: Breath. In the middle of sentences if necessary.

He offered other challenges and asked for more volunteers. I felt safe sitting still.

“One Obstacle Story:” Next, he asked for volunteers for a “One Obstacle Story:” I wanted to <x>, but <y>, so I <z>, where doing <z> allows <x> to happen. At the end of the day, I asked whether a story that fit this format automatically had enough to be considered a story. Michael started to explain that you have to flesh out a story and I realized that what was missing for me was not the flesh but the innermost part. (I went to a college whose motto is “Truth even unto its innermost parts.”) The way I saw this was that this One Obstacle structure was the Kevah of prayer—its ritualistic format—devoid of Kavanah—the intention, meaning, connectedness—that makes prayer worthwhile. Or, as I read in our text (and yes I should find the source), the “Aha” for a really basic obstacle story is missing. All this makes me wonder what does make a story a story? I suppose the conflict at the center of a One Obstacle Story is an important part of most stories. But there is some spark, some soul of a story that is essential and hard to define.

The Pizza Principle: Stories have Basics (crust, sauce, cheese) and Flavorings (pepperoni, mushrooms, anchovies, pineapple). Without the basics—required characters and events— there is no story; it’s good to figure out what is basic and what is a topping.

Golden Moments: Every so often, when working with / telling a story to a group, you will experience a golden moment; e.g., when a child who never volunteers in class comes up, tells a story and gets a resounding round of applause from her classmates.

“Kill your darlings:” My son had a professor who told him you have to be able to kill your babies. I assume that Michael’s comment means the same thing. Sometimes there is a thing you do in your story that you love but that doesn’t help the story. It has to go. He mentioned someone who told Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart” with obviously marvelous technique, but made no contact with his audience. This is not good storytelling (although it may be good acting). Jackson, on the second day, said something similar about connecting with your audience being important. And the Storycrafters also talked about the difference between acting and storytelling.

Telling a story: Michael gave us 18 stories to read and asked that we pick one to work on. In groups of two, we each read our story, had our partner read it to us, and then told our story without looking. I picked “What I Did in Texas” because it was another version of a Hershel Ostropoler story, so I felt comfortable with the basic structure. Also, although it has a punchline and I stink at punchlines, it has enough other stuff that I figured I could at least do most of it reasonably. On the first day, as a warming up / break the ice exercise (I guess it’s easier to break warm ice), we were asked to name our favorite colors. Half the class picked the same color. Today, when asked to name the story we wanted to tell, three-eighths of us picked the same story, “What I Did in Texas.” I thought of the Jeeves and Wooster story where so many people sing “Sonny Boy” that the last performer is pelted with rotten vegetables. So I volunteered early again; I’d had enough vegetables at the salad bar at lunch. Unfortunately, I ended up telling the second telling of the story, but doing the Hershel version. I remembered that there were Jewish cowboys and realized that I could introduce Hershel as an ancestor of the cowboy in the first telling. Introducing the story instead of moving right into it gave me a chance to settle in and become comfortable: I’m better at theory than practice. Considering that I had not rehearsed my telling and that I was outside talking to my entire class (alright, eight people including two teachers ’cause two students had to leave early), I think I did not so bad.

Background: I’m taking my final course (I hope) for my MLS. There were two things I wanted from my program at Southern: their ILS course in database design and lots of courses from their Art of Oral Tradition. I began to worry a few months ago that I only had one year left to get my degree: What if the database course, never available to me before for a variety of reasons but supposedly scheduled for the spring was not offered, or offered at a time when I work, or was offered but then canceled because of insufficient enrollment? And not driving or writing on late Friday afternoons in winter or Saturdays made AOT courses impossible to take except in the summer. School and vacation schedules encouraged me to decide that the oral tradition course I wanted to take was Storytelling Art and Technique. Otherwise, I would have picked a class about folklore around the world so I could learn about it in a more formal setting than grabbing whatever looked interesting at book sales and libraries. I convinced myself, and maybe the powers that be in the department, that an experiential knowledge of storytelling would be useful if I wanted to learn more about folklore. I also figured that learning how to tell stories might make me a more effective reader of stories.

Before the course: The thought of getting up in front of fifty people (the maximum class size) was of some concern. I ordered the book from an Amazon merchant who promised that all proceeds went to a good cause; the merchant is the Friends of the Phoenix, Arizona Public Library. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the book yet and the course is now 2/5 over. Fortunately, my local library actually had the book on the shelf as well as in its catalog and I have it in my possession.

First general impressions: I am not a morning person. Learning that the course was over around 3 pm each day sounded good, but I’ve come home the first two days exhausted. I considered staying on campus at the library until 5 each day, as Dr. Nolan suggested, but the library closes at 4:30.

There are only eight students in the course, not fifty. That’s a lot closer to my maximum number of people with whom I feel comfortable talking: five, including me. And we seem to break up into small groups of four or two—even better.

The awful buzzing in the hallway cannot be heard in the classroom. I’m glad I’ve dressed for a room that might be too warm as well as too cold. The chair backs recline a bit and the book rests are big and the room is wide enough that we can all be in the front row. The noise of the air conditioning is not overwhelming. All in all, this may well be the best on-campus environment I’ve come across.

First day: Jeri Burns and Barry Marshall are Storycrafters. They tell stories and teach workshops like this in tandem. This means they can comment on each other’s work as it is happening and talk over each other to create a very small crowd of characters. They have an immediate audience when they work on creating a story.

By the end of the day, as they informed us, we were no longer storytelling virgins. My first time was intimate—only one person listening and he listened well and with interest—so it felt safe and not terrifying and I found myself making things up spontaneously—character conversations and actions and motives.

I also took notes and learned a lot about the creation of a story.