Storytelling

1. Developed by Mountain Quest Institute Storytelling The Thread of Humanity

2. Storytellers agree… • Story is a specific structure or narrative • Has a specific style, a set of characters and a sense of completeness • Has a beginning, a middle and an end • The beginning sets the routine • In the middle, something happens to upset the routine, going on until … • A new routine is established (the end).

3. Four aspects of story • The telling • Marks its humanity • Sent out into the world as an act of faith • The something to tell • Something worth telling that matters to the teller and the listener • The character • Habits of choice that shape who we are • Our core, our essence, that which is remembered • Telling significant actions of characters over time • Duration of the action of the story itself • Duration of the telling A story is the telling of the significant actions of characters over time.

4. Time honored sequences • Initiating event motivating character(s) to attempt a certain goal, leading to a consequence, which promulgates a reaction. Tension builds with an expectation of eventual resolution (denouement). • Central character sets out on a journey, overcomes three obstacles, ending with radiant sense of unity and well-being • Departure, initiation, return (hero’s journey) • Uniting story imagination with the power of one, two, three, resolving in four (pulse-beat hear rhythms) Transformational tales are the single largest thematic topic in storytelling …

5. ? • We can only answer the question • “What am I to do?” • If we can find the answer to the question • “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”

6. What do stories do … • Dreams somehow unclog your mind and help you tune into the unconscious world from where you can draw experience and information. I think that’s what stories do. (Allende) • In the world of imagined reality, the reader enters into the role of co-creator with the author. (Birkerts) • We make ourselves through myth. (McDaniels) • Wisdom is often ascribed to those who can tell just the right story at the right moment and who often have a large number of stories to tell. (Shank) • The narrative language of stories is the most appropriate instrument to communicate the nature and shape and behavior of complex adaptive phenomena. (Denning)

7. Value of personal storytelling to individual • Invests our lives with more meaning • Connects us more vitally with others • Develops our creativity • Strengthens our humor • Increases our courage and confidence • Renders our lives more memorable • Builds network relationships

8. Story as Knowledge • Knowledge of the world is more or less equivalent to our experiences • We understand experiences in terms of those experiences already in our memory that we understand • So new ideas are dependent on old ideas • Context helps us relate incoming information to those experiences already in memory • Stories provide that context. Knowledge is experiences and stories, and intelligence is the apt use of experience and the creation and telling of stories. (Shank)

9. Your turn …