The magic of storytelling

By Lionel Wijesiri

“Amma, will you tell me a story?” Anusha’s three-year-old daughter Deshani asks as Anusha tucks her in at night. Who could refuse, particularly, a mother?

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Of course, five minutes later when Anusha says, “It’s the end of the story,” the follow-up request comes: “Another story, Amma? About that turtle?” Anusha usually negotiates the number of stories to three.

I was wondering how she invented three stories a night and often a couple at nap time. Fortunately, Deshani likes to hear about the same characters over and over again: A little boy named Asela, a lion named Ango, Horatio the hippo, Fiona the crocodile, and an elderly turtle couple who live by the ocean. She also likes true stories, especially about heroes and how each one saved the lives of many people.

Like most things related to parenting, storytelling could feel like a chore. I asked Anusha whether she enjoys telling stories to her two children. She said, “Yes, for a good reason.”

It gives her imagination a workout. Hanging out with a three-year-old is great for her creativity. Children are master pretenders and can jump into the imaginary world instantly. Just as when writing, good child story writers try to include sensory details, setting, conflict, twists and dialogue in their stories. Those devices make for more entertaining stories for children.

Humans live in a storm of stories. We live in stories all day long, and dream in stories all night long. We communicate through stories and learn from them. We collapse gratefully into stories after a long day at work. A teledrama, newspaper story, short story, novel or just a plain piece of gossip! The stories may come in many ways.

Human experience

Without life stories to organise our experience, our own lives would lack coherence and meaning. Homo sapiens is a pretty good definition for our species, but Homo fictus (fiction man) would be about as accurate. Man is the storytelling animal.

Storytelling captures and reflects many facets of the human experience. Some tales relate astounding deeds of a country’s heroes, teach life’s lessons, or reveal human idiosyncrasies.

Other tales fuel the listener’s fantasy with magical occurrences. Tales of magic have captured the imagination of children and adults throughout human history. Sleeping spells, supernatural creatures, talking eggs, or objects that bestow boons on those who come across them all inhabit the realm of the magic tales of people around the world. Wishes take wing, aspirations are realised, and the world becomes a safe, delightful place in stories.

Inter-connection

Storytelling can rebuild authenticity by enabling the speaker not simply to recite abstractions formulated by others and articulate stories that represent the speaker’s unique creation. Developing skills at storytelling enables individuals to be trustworthy, real, original and unique.

The storytelling is authentic. It is about re-connecting the speaker with the spoken: Writing separates the speaker from the spoken. Oral storytelling reconnects the speaker with the spoken. The living voice is connected to living reception in a way that responds to some of our deepest desires to be connected.

It’s about listening to the audience as much as being listened to: Effective storytelling is an interactive process and cannot be accomplished successfully without a strong ability to listen to the audience, and adjust the storytelling as the story evolves.

It is about sparking creativity and not giving instructions: Ultimately, the storyteller’s performance will depend on what’s within, the spirit, the energy, the soul and the force of the storyteller. In the process, storytellers get to know themselves.

Most children want a bedtime story every day

It is because of this inter-connections that everyone wants their stories told. As Hamlet is dying, his last request to Horatio is that his story be told. He articulates the wish in all of us. Storytelling enables us, not only to tell stories, but also to tell our story.

The ancient art of storytelling is especially well-suited for further exploration. As a folk art, storytelling is accessible to all ages and abilities. No special equipment beyond the imagination and the power of listening and speaking is needed to create artistic images.

As a learning tool, storytelling can encourage listeners to explore their unique expressiveness and can heighten a listener's ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in an articulate, lucid manner.

These benefits exceed the art experience to support daily life skills.

In our fast-paced, media-driven world, storytelling can be a nurturing way to remind listeners that their spoken words are powerful, that listening is important, and that clear communication between people is an art.

Skills

If you like to learn some tips on improving storytelling skills, here they are:

* Bait your audience. Start with a humorous statement or an original thought about the story. Amuse yourself. An audience responds well to a story that delights the storyteller.

* Begin the story with the action: “I was on my way to meet my father that morning of the tsunami....” Start with one motion and let it lead to the next. Lay out the events to raise questions. “What happened then?”

* Create more interest to engage the audience. Include specific details. Say “red carnation” instead of “flower.” Vivid details paint lasting pictures in the minds of listeners.

* Flesh out your characters. Give the audience a sense of a character's physical appearance, colouring, occupation and manner of speaking. Paint believable pictures to create unforgettable characters.

* Develop a sense of the rhythm of storytelling. Vary sentence length. Know when to pause, when to keep the action going and went to interject an opinion.

* Conclude with a surprising new thought about the world. Good stories provide new experiences, perspectives or transformations, either for the character in the story or for us.

* Practise your delivery until it is perfect. Record yourself telling the story and analyse it. Consider the pace, pauses and flow. Rehearse the telling until it sounds natural.

Family affair

When I was a child, I loved the stories my father made up for me, memorably nightly installments of the Arabian Nights.

However, I was even more captivated by my parents’ true stories about where they grew up and about those mysterious years they spent together before I was born and the first few years after I was born.

Those stories placed me in a big “family”, connected me with relatives I’d never met, and helped me to understand who I am. Most importantly, they helped me get to know my parents and set up a family culture of openness, conversing and enjoying one another’s company.

So if you don’t already tell stories as a family, consider carving out some time to do it. Once you start, you might be amazed at how entertaining you can be - and by how much your family loves this simple, free and ancient pastime.