Your Story, Well Told!

Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow an Audience

Corey Rosen

• Publisher: Mango
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781642504668
• Topic: Crescita personale
• Subtopic: Comunicazione e public speaking

So, You've Got a Story to Sell

Learn how to tell a good story with The Best Story Ever Told. Jam-packed with some of the best storytelling strategies, this manual gives creatives the confidence bump they need to make the sale, land the client, propose a toast, or impress their date.

The following is (not) a work of fiction. We've all got stories to tell?but how do you make your story the best story? In The Best Story Ever Told, Moth veteran and master teacher, Corey Rosen, inspires you to get on stage and tell your story. Using the best storytelling techniques from improvisational theatre, Rosen designs an accessible guide for all ages and skill levels. Crafted to help ordinary people tell extraordinary stories, this laugh out loud handbook covers everything from how to tell a good story to going off script.

Spontaneous stories to tell. The best storytelling uses improvisation to enthrall, entertain, and keep audiences on edge. Laugh along with tales of performance triumphs (and disasters) and explore ways to tell your story with confidence and spontaneity. From brainstorming and development to performance and memorization techniques, you'll learn how to tell a good story with:

• A variety of structures and editing approaches that bring out your best story
• Broadly-tested improv exercises to stimulate creativity without feeling foolish
• Quick and easy lessons on building stories to tell
• Resources for putting on a showcase to tell your story

If you're ready to sell the story straight or enjoyed books like Stories That Stick, Long Story Short, or Storyworthy, then you'll love The Best Story Ever Told.

Chapter 2

What Is a Story?

How Do We Define a Story?

sto·ry1 stôrē/ Noun

1.An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment. Synonyms: tale, narrative, account, anecdote.

2.An account of past events in someone’s life or in the evolution of something. “The story of modern farming.”

Ok. But what’s a STORY (really)? Is it just the accounting of an event and people for entertainment? Of course not. Relating an account of “what happened” in someone’s life of the evolution of something might be defined as a story, but it sure doesn’t feel like one.

When my son, Henry, recollected the events on the day his dad was punched in the face in Chapter 1, he’s not telling us a story. He’s recollecting a memory without meaning or perspective. He’s relating it as one would to their inherited audience: your family, close friends, etc. People in our inherited audience get a pass when they relate these memories. They’re in the tribe. We give them credit and fill in the gaps. We put some of our own meaning onto their stories and draw connections that don’t work when the circle expands.

When Henry told his version of what happened that day, it was an expression—not a story. And in my mind, it’s perfect. It’s what a twelve-year-old felt about an incident he witnessed, just as an adult may relate an event as they witnessed it to their best friend. It’s engaging, and it’s as detailed as it needs to be to function as their impression of the incident…but it’s not a story, not yet!

You don’t have a story until you’ve made it a story. Similar to how someone who is funny is often told, “you should do stand-up!” Stand-up, like storytelling, is a craft.

A story differentiates something that “happened” in one very important way—something or someone changed because of it. Or was changed in light of it. In a dramatic or subtle way, the world was altered after the events described in “what happened.” This could be an inward change (I never looked at her the same way again). This could be an outward change (I quit the job, changed careers, and never looked back). This change could affect your private world (I know my daughter is growing up). Or this change could affect the planet (Thanks to this discovery, 60,000 people are now being delivered clean water per day).

Getting from “the idea” to “the story” is not always clear. What we think of as “the story” might be the dictionary definition of a story (accounting the events as you remember them).

Here are some other writers’ definitions of what storytelling is all about:

“A Story is a chain of events that…seems to begin at one place and to end at a very different place, without any essential interruption in its progress.”

—Randall Jarrell (Randall Jarrell’s Book of Stories: An Anthology)

“A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.”

—Mark Twain (The Mark Twain Collection: His Novels, Short Stories, Speeches, and Letters)

A “narrative” describes what happened. A “story” is told for a reason, taking a narrative’s sequence of events to a higher level that can reveal or reflect on that sequence’s significance.

What Do Stories Have in Common?

Let’s look at some story examples we’ve already explored to see what they have in common:

•The Punch in the Face Story

•The Broken Star Wars Toy Story

•The Student Council Election Story

Characters:

•All of these stories feature distinctive characters

–The angry driver

–The Star Wars-loving child

–The scared first grader

•All of these stories also include peripheral characters:

–The onlookers, school administrators, and other children

–The eBay auction seller

–Ms. Cruz, the kindergarten teacher

Conflict:

•Inward forces of conflict:

–Am I teaching...