Storytelling at The Westport Historical Society

by Tish & Patrick, November 12, 2009

The story I decided to tell—a challenging situation that arose when I
managed a halfway house for the Federal Bureau of Prisons—had popped up as
a teaching tool in Freshman Comp classes. The strange little saga of
criminal economics had evolved in many tellings without me thinking much
about it, just retelling it every semester as a way of breaking the tone of
instruction and illustrating the power of using a personal story.

Once I decided to use it for a storytelling event, however, I realized that
I had to teach myself lessons on how to do on-purpose what I had previously
done intuitively.

One, prepare with a stopwatch:  I had a terrible time just getting myself to
say it out loud without the context of the classroom.  So, I wrote a few
notes, thought about it and took a few false starts.  When I finally did a
trial-run, I was amazed to discover that it was more than 20 minutes in the
telling.  To meet the event criteria, I had to cut more than half.

Two, formal telling is not the same as spontaneous jawing.  All the
teacherly tangents that are part of my natural presentational style needed
the ax.  My students would tolerate rumination, but an audience had to get a
clean, clear story.  I had to limit focus to setting, character, event—
the halfway house, the mob boss, and my misunderstanding of how power really
worked. I had to tailor my leisurely presentation to meet my audience and
the venue expectations.

Three, there’s more to telling than talking.  As I was working out
loud—cutting and revising—I noticed all sorts of actorly problems with
dialects, intention, and making an emotional through-line.  Stuff I had
never even noticed before now distracted me when I rehearsed.  I had to be
able to shift characters quickly and convincingly.  And in truth, I needed
more practice that I had time for.

Last, the microphone:  I hate microphones, but the venue audience, their
eardrums battered by Aerosmith concerts or slightly eroded by the decades,
insisted that we use one.  How do you tell a story about street violence,
beer, pummeling, vomit, and a lucky punch with a metal ice cream cone in
your face?
—–
Yet, all came out well.  The audience was generous, and paid lively
attention to my tale of  retribution and the power of luck, and despite my
discovery that storytelling is really its very own, very specific medium,
the experience of was invigorating.  And the lessons well learned.
Patrick