2008-03-12 8:44 p.m.
Storyteller
Last night, down at the campus Women's Center, we had an open mic cafe night. My friend was hosting it, so our group went. It was pretty much just us - another group of girls was there for about twenty minutes. They improvised three random songs - one about chlamydia, one about monkeys, and one about a vibrator named Indiana Jones - and then left.
So the rest of us were there, hanging out, not really having a whole lot to do.
If I hadn't been sick, I probably would have hopped into my role as storyteller and tried to keep everyone amused, except the thing about telling stories is that you have to have a receptive audience, and while I'm friends with the girls I was there with, I know they're not the types to listen to someone telling them a story.
They'd think it was too childish or something.
But why are stories childish? Why do we all feel as though we outgrow the myths and tales that we loved as kids once we hit the teen years, and only revisit them after we've had children of our own (god forbid)?
And the thing about telling stories, is that it's not nearly as easy as people think it is. It is so hard to catch the attention of the audience. But to hold it? That's even harder than just about anything else I've ever tried.
I'm not a bad storyteller. Actually, I'm a pretty good one. People who don't mind sitting for a while and listening to someone spin a yarn will frequently tell me that I'm good at it...but I have to be suckered into actually starting a story before anyone can see that I'm good at it.
The thing about storytelling is that, even when you tell stories that are essentially "commonly known", what gives the story its spark that sets it alight in the imaginations of your audience is the life that you pour into it. And that life can only come from yourself.
Storytelling is the art of baring your soul, when you get down to it.
The great epics, world-famous legends, everything, they're all stories that mirror the cycles of life that every person goes through. The details change but the plots remain the same, and it's this universality that makes a tale satisfying to hear told - even repeatedly.
It's the same universality that makes it difficult to tell a tale well. You have to put your own perspective, your own details into the story to make it come alive for you - because if it isn't alive in your own mind, it will never come to life for the audience. And once it does come to life - which is always exhilarating because suddenly the story takes on an energy, a pace, a flow that you didn't know it had until you struck into it - once that happens you have no choice but to follow along to wherever it takes you, caught up in the magic of the narrative.
It's not easy to start telling a story. Oddly, though, it's easier to tell one to people who you don't know well.
Sigh.
I suppose that's just me looking for excuses though.
There was a point to this, I swear, but my fever seems to have chased it away.
I'm going to go back to sleep for another 22 hours. Back | Older | Current | Next
