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Storytelling
- 1. Storytelling We are Made for Stories
- 2. Pretending: We’re programmed for it
- 5. President Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
- 6. In 1890 Harriet Powers fell on hard times. An art teacher named Jennie B. Smith admired Harriet’s bible quilt and bought it for $5. Jennie entered the quilt in the Cotton States Exposition, where a group of women from Atlanta University saw it and commissioned Harriet to make another. Eventually this quilt made its way to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the other was given to the Smithsonian. That is all we know about the needlework of Harriet Powers. We can only imagine what other quilts she might have made.
- 7. Ingredients For a Great Story 1. Begin with a promise: Once upon a time 2. Add uncertainty: what will happen next? 3. Make it emotional 4. Create wonder
- 8. Ingredients For a Great Story 1. Begin with a promise: Once upon a time 2. Add uncertainty: what will happen next? 3. Make it emotional 4. Create wonder 5. Make it personal
- 9. Ingredients For a Great Story 1. Begin with a promise: Once upon a time 2. Add uncertainty: what will happen next? 3. Make it emotional 4. Create wonder 5. Make it personal 6. Know what your story is about
Editor's Notes
- We are made for stories. We think in narrative, and it goes all the way back to our beginnings. We have, from the moment we are born, sensory information coming at us from all over at amazing speed. How to make sense of it? The human answer is to construct a narrative around it in order to create meaning, to understand what it means. We think in narrative.
- Children, when left to their own devices, play pretend. It’s like they’re programmed for it. You've all seen it. And when they play pretend they are telling stories. Researchers who study the pretend stories of children have concluded they are play acting adult narratives, testing and building their knowledge about how to be a grown up. It's like they are running flight simulators for their lives ahead, getting ready to become adults.
- In fact stories continue to be like flight simulators for all of us, not just children. Neuroscientists have discovered when you read a story you have the same reactions to the story as if it were happening in real life. Literally. Researchers put subjects in a scanner and played a film clip of an actor drinking from a cup and grimacing. They read aloud a story about someone bumping into a vomiting drunk and accidently catching some vomit in their mouth, and they had subjects sip a disgusting tasting liquid from a cup. In all three instances the same regions of the brain lit up. Throughout our lives we continue to think in narrative as a way to make sense of all of the information: visual, auditory, sensory coming at us at once. Take a look at this video. What’s happening?
- If your answer is there are some geometric shapes floating around a blank ground, you’re correct. But that wasn’t your answer, was it? You made up a story about the interaction of the shapes to explain what was happening.
- If there’s any doubt about how powerful stories are, think about stories that changed the world. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a perfect example. In 1862 when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, here’s what he said to her: “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” In a 2015 Wall Street Journal article titled “Docents Gone Wild” a museum visitor is quoted: “We got to one stop and he [the docent] said, ‘Well, I’m going to tell you this and I just made it up, but it could be true.’ The guide told a story about what prisoners might have done with insects while locked in the building’s basement centuries ago.” (Ellen Gamerman, Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2015) Docents tell stories, and apparently sometimes make them up, because they are such a powerful connection with visitors.
- This text about Harriet Power’s bible quilt was adapted from the The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art, and it tells a powerful story. Let’s unpack how it does that. First of all, it starts with a promise: you are about to hear a story. The opening line: In 1890 Harriet Powers fell on hard times is like “Once upon a time,” or someone inviting you to come sit by the fire. The next sentences crafts a narrative and leaves you wondering what will happen next. That uncertainty about what will happen next is the next ingredient for a great story. According to Andrew Stanton, creator of the movie WALL-E (Pixar), a great story should give the audience 2 +2, never 4. In other words, don’t add everything up for your audience, let them add it up themselves. People grapple with uncertainty by employing their imaginations, and now you’ve got a rapt audience. The third ingredient for a great story is emotions. The second to the last line of the bible quilt story is an emotional sucker punch. You feel the loss as if it was your own. But the Guerilla Girls don’t leave it there. That would be hopeless. Instead they wrap it up with wonder: “We can only imagine what other quilts she might have made.” Did Harriet Powers make other quilts? We’ll probably never know. But what if she did, and they are out there somewhere? The wondering is delicious. Give your audience 2 + 2, never 4. Recipes for great stories: add uncertainty, mystery, the best stories invoke wonder. Make your audience wonder what will happen next. JJ Abrams on mystery: What if mystery is more important than knowledge
- The Harriet Powers story is a great example of a short story that packs a big punch. Stories don’t have to be long to be good. A little story goes a long way. Docents will get more mileage out of storytelling if they’re intentional about it, and will avoid the pitfall of using stories for the sake of themselves rather than to show people something. Creating a story about an object or work of art isn’t hard if you have the right ingredients. So far we’ve assembled a decent ingredient list for creating great stories by unpacking the Harriet Powers story. There are just a couple more ingredients to consider.
- Making a story personal both makes is relevant and helps make it emotional. Notice that the Guerilla Girls don’t say “No other quilts by Harriet Powers are known.” Instead, they say “That is all WE know about the needlework of Harriet Powers.” Changing a passive line like “No other quilts by Harriet Powers are known” into an active one and making it personal invites the audience to join you in knowing. Use “we” and “you” when ever you can. Practice identifying passive statements (Mistakes were made, for example) where no person exists and make them active by making them personal.
- The story the Guerrilla Girls tell about Harriet Powers really isn’t about Harriet Powers, and they knew that going in. It’s about the loss of both the work of and the potential work of women artists, through poverty, anonymity, misogyny and racism. But a story is a way of showing that rather than telling. Statistics could be listed, bland and disembodied examples could be given, but instead, the story of Harriet Powers and her quilt shows us how it is.
- Watch this Ted Talk by J. J. Abrams, creator of Lost, and the director for the latest Star Wars movie. Notice how he analyzes what the stories told in film are really about. And listen for his observation: “…maybe there are times when mystery is more important than knowledge.” Something to think about!