A World in a Grain of Sand

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.