Storytellers, memoirists, journalers, bloggers — anyone who talks or writes about himself or herself in a public forum — is faced with the dilemma of how much to reveal about oneself. Penelope Trunk, whom I wrote about not long ago for her brave column on the relationship between her two … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Do These Videos Pass Test for ‘Compelling, Inspiring, Radically Simple’ Storytelling?
Video is everywhere these days … it’s more and more ubiquitous. Often I’ll see an interesting Twitter tweet or other storytelling reference that when I click on it, turns out to be a video. Nothing wrong with that except that I have zero patience and often am too restless to … Continue reading
Storied Food and Changing Eating Habits
My 22-year-old son works as a produce specialist in a health-food store and has become quite an evangelist for natural foods. He has been campaigning to change his parents’ eating habits and urged me to read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. So I’ve been reading it — or rather … Continue reading
Cautionary Tales for Business
Sometimes storytelling that teaches a lesson is inadvertent. It’s not intended as “business narrative” or one of Steve Denning’s springboard stories meant to spark change. It’s just good reporting and writing that tells a story that provides a lesson businesses can learn from. Want to convey the lesson that you … Continue reading
Moon Landing Stories
I don’t have a good moon-landing story. Forty years ago, I was 15. I watched the grainy, black-and-white video of the landing on a snowy, black-and-white TV. I always associate the moon landing — for some reason — with the Miracle Mets of 1969 and with my fervent participation that … Continue reading
A Clearer Picture of ‘What’s at Stake?’ in Job-Search Stories
It’s probably pretty typical for authors to immediately second-guess what they’ve written in their books and be champing at the bit to revise as soon as the book is published. I wish I’d been more original with Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get a Job and Propel Your Career. … Continue reading
What Is Storymapping?
I’ve mentioned storymapping before but am now seeing enough new material on the subject that a definition seems in order. The blog Emerging Upstate Arts Professionals describes what storymapping, a project of The Center for Digital Storytelling, is: Essentially, “storymapping” is a method of reclaiming the dialogue and character of … Continue reading
Using Story to Teach [Hi]story
Clay Burrell says history isn’t learned, but story changes that problem. He suggests scrambling “the major periods of history in a random cluster on the board or a handout: “Medieval Period,” “Cold War,” “Roman Empire,” “Enlightenment,” “Age of Exploration,” “Classical Greece,” “Industrial Revolution,” “Greek Heroic Age/Trojan War,” “Renaissance,” “Sumer,” “Solomon … Continue reading
Three Interesting Story Prompts
Whether we are storytellers, story practitioners, journalers, writers, bloggers, memoirists, or just folks seeking personal growth and self-actualization, we can always use good story prompts for inspiration. Here are three I liked that I came across recently: Tell the story of the most inspiring, influential storyteller you’ve known. This one … Continue reading
Storytelling: Key to Our Species’ Survival
Why did homo sapiens survive while Neanderthals didn’t? Thriller novelist Lee Child wrote not long ago that it was because homo sapiens developed language. “But then something strange happened,” Child wrote. “We invented fiction. We started talking about things that hadn’t happened to people that didn’t exist.” Speculating, based on … Continue reading