Category Archives: Story Starters

How to Be the Story You Tell

Posted on by Grace Wolbrink

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Be a Story

That can’t be about me … or is it?

Actually, it is. If you are telling a story it is about you.

But I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about someone else.

Still, it doesn’t matter. Stories are stories. We are the stories we tell. Our ideas and images come from somewhere. That somewhere is inside of us.

The stories we tell, tell us about ourselves. What we like or don’t like. What we would like to be or not to be. What we like to do or not do.

Yep, a bit repetitive but true. The truth is, we can’t hide. We can’t even behind one of those folktales or fairy tales we like to tell. Like everything else, our quirks and foibles show up here too.

This whole thing is making me feel a piece of plastic wrap instead of meat and bones.

OK, so we’re all a bit transparent. But hey, when it comes to you, you are the expert. So be you. Live it. Show it. Tell it. Artfully flaunt it. It’s the stuff your great stories are made of.

When you craft a story, you become the story. When you tell the story, be the story.  Because you are the best at being you, be you in your story. When you craft all those quirky, zany, eccentric, devious or outrageous characters, parts of them are you. Even the crazy or I never want to be seen with them, types people in your life become a part of your stories.

Craft a Story

When crafting a personal story or a folktale, remember you are the story.

Next, pick a story you are crafting or a folktale you love.

Take a few minutes and cast yourself in the leading role or another character’s role.
The stage is set …
The curtains raise …

Who are you?
Where are you?
Where is happening around you?
What is your story of why you are doing what you are doing?
How did you get to where you are in the story?

Who else in your story?
What do they think about you?
Where are you going?
What mischief, romance or quest are they on?
What do you do or hope to become?
What are you doing that you never thought you could do?
How is the ending of your story different from the beginning?

Tell a Story

So . . . What’s your story?

Grab some delighted listeners. Tell your story. Experience the ease with which the images and words of your story grow.

Until next time . . . Let Your Storyographer’s Journey Begin!

Story vs. Facts

Posted on by Grace Wolbrink

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The dissemination of intellectual or knowledge-based information is often achieved through educational lectures and professional seminars.  Word-impacted power-point presentations fill overhead screens accompanied by handouts with accompanying empty black lines flanking images of screen shots. Thus offering audience members an additional way to record another’s idea of what they think is truly important. Opinion poles, bar graphs, and test results are frequent flyers in the realm of evidence-based documentation or presentations. This type of official data also provides audience members with justifiable proof and unquestionable credibility about what they have to say and why they should be paid.

These authoritatively utilized, zealously prescribed and frequently clung to methods of information dumping are heralded by acclaimed experts. Yep, duty-bound experts in any given field come fully armed and loaded with their ability to blast us with yet another round of impressively, important material. Information we’re privileged enough to listen to and even more privileged to pay for.

OK, I get it. Informational programs and seminars can be helpful and informative. Learning new information and being exposed to fresh ideas can also be illuminating, practical and even inspirational. Still, they can also be easily forgotten, yawn-provokingly dull, and stoically lifeless. But what about story? A word, a concept and an art form often lost in an impressively, impersonal jungle of justifiably, unwavering facts and stats.

Now back to story, with its emotionally engaging and creatively inspiring conquests of intrigue, suspense, and adventure. Stories are juicy, zany, troublesome, romantic, cataclysmic, informational, cautionary and heartwarming. They captivate our attention and tug at our heartstrings. Stories remind us of who we are and inspire us to be more than we thought we could be. They remind us of what is important and how our lives impact others. They challenge us. They inspire us. They incite action. They are intrical to who we are and to the foundation of our lives.

For now, let’s power down our powerpoints and put down our writing utensils. Let’s nestle in, leaving behind the concerns of the day. Let’s forget the past and focus on the present. Through the power of story, let’s discover more of who we are and the resources we have to meet the challenges which lie ahead. Let’s find out who or what changed over the course of story’s journey. Let’s experience the intrigue of what happened, how it happened and how it all came to be. Let’s move into action and gain inspiration from the protagonist or others who have gone before us. Let’s celebrate the victory of story’s success.

Great, so where do we go from here?

What is a problem or challenge does your audience needs to solve?

Who is the main character? (a worker, manager, client, patron …)

What obstacles have to be overcome? Pick a few of the key ones. It’s ok, even preferable if the protagonist doesn’t meet all of them. This is just life and part of what makes a story great!

What happens at the end?

How do they get there?

Who or what has changed?

What’s the most important point of your story?

Once you’ve formulated your story, tell it to a few supportive listeners or a storytelling coach. The job of supportive listeners is to listen; not to critique. Although, you might ask them what they liked about it or if they had any questions.

Facts, stats, and figures have their place. Yet stories engage us. They are easily remembered. They compel us to tell them again and again. For a story well-told is always the beginning; never the end.

Until next time . . . Let your Storyographer’s journey continue!

 

 

 

 

 

Story – Creative Lawlessness

Posted on by Grace Wolbrink

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Through the power of story, political figureheads, tax regulators, law enforcers, socially perceived hierarchy, culturally-defined norms, bosses, supervisors, parental units and rigamortis impact the course of our life experiences. Story artists throughout the centuries have creatively conspired to orchestrate, direct, lead, dominate, choreograph and otherwise differentiate between the lawfully lawful and the law abiding lawlessness of story. Through the power of story cannibalism moves beyond its perceived cultural preferences, war-lording chiefs and individual menu planners. Questing, never thought they would make it, heroes’ embark on tantalizing bean-stalking, mirror-talking, troll-defying and glass-shoeing adventures. Acrobats death defying feats; athletes epic-sagas; noodle-heads’ rampaging insolence and individuals’ hilarious, gut-hugging escapades frequently challenge previously perceived, story-inspired, social norms and morays.

Scientific discoveries and inventors’ inventions become real through the image of story’s powerful impact. Story; a place where the world becomes round and the planet’s sun takes center stage. A place where jet propelled engines take flight and motorized vehicles storm roadways. A place where towered-connected cellular devises interface human connections. Story; the place where we go beyond the boundaries of what we thought we could do or what we thought was possible.

Stepping into your story’s story-line, experience and embrace the lawfully lawlessness and compelling intrigue of story’s creative inspirations. Step beyond the perceived boundaries of someone else’s words or where you think this story should go. Lawfully respect your audience’s values while lawlessly unleashing the uniqueness of your ideas, your inspiring voice and your breathlessly-intriguing, story-inspirations. Inspire, experience and enrich story’s powerfully, magnetic journey.

Take a quick review:

What first sparked your interest in this story?
What is the most important part or aspect of this story to you?
What do you love most about this story?
What else is possible?

Now reconnect with the images of your story’s story.

Would the story spark more or further dynamically impact audience members if it started at the end or ended in at the beginning?

What might happen if the story was told from another character’s voice or perspective?

Is the main character as strong, sassy, silly, introspective or insane as they appear or don’t appear to be?

Did it really happen this way . . . or maybe, just maybe . . . it happened; yet another way.

So dive, drive, fly, squeak, spurt, float, bob or belly-flop into your next story’s adventure. Remember, it’s your story to tell, in only the way you can. Enjoy, experience and soar into the journey of your story’s images. Boldly break into the lawfully lawlessness of story and the unprecedented uniqueness of your creative inspiration.

Until next time . . . Let Your Storyographer’s Journey Begin!

Story Starters – Egg House Demolition

Posted on by Grace Wolbrink

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In the beginning, there was the chicken and there was the egg. After the beginning, there were chickens and there were eggs.  The two, once melded into one, range in variety, size, shape and color. Their destination predominantly lies between the thermostats of incubation and refrigeration; often leading to some type of incineration. Throughout centuries intellectual thought and philosophical debate collide in their attempts to answer one of life’s most sought-after questions: Who or what came first; the chicken or the egg?

Questions ignite images. Images ignite questions. From inception to completion, images become story’s vehicle. We can either begin or end with an egg; one of nature’s perfect, metaphorically designed, housing units. Inside it’s universally recognized structure, local residents are deposited, encapsulated in a shell, as opposed to steel, brick, wood or mortar. A highly crackable shell containing a mixture of two-toned, globular masses of stringy ooze. External climate control largely determines its fated or ill-fated destiny; often ranging from procreation to culinary delight. If this residential unit is kept precisely at mother nature’s recommended temperature, the kind suggested for incubation vs refrigeration, this two-toned masses of gobbler ooze begins their metaphoric journey into realms of chicken-dom. Along the way, their ooze glopping mass begins acquiring a uniquely designed collection of feathers, beaks, eyes, legs, claws and one of two stamps indicating gender-identity.

Having survived their climate-controlled, incubation and shape-shifting process, home demolition begins; one peck and scratch at a time.  Immediately following the home demolition phase of shell-shocking reality, this young shell hatching resident prepares for chicken-hood. A journey and a career path often lead to the procreation of egg hatchery or one leading to being the invited guest of honor at a local, backyard, grill.

Overtaken in a moment of insane insanity, you find yourself frantically peeking through and scratching holes into your now fragmented home. The only residence you’ve ever known. It’s not only your home being shattered; one peck at a time, but your previously perceived reality, your essence and your identity. The final shell falls. Looking back is no longer an option. Gathering your courage and securing an imprint-able guide, you forge ahead. You forge ahead into a world, a land and a frontier you never knew existed, until now. The existence which has become your new reality.

Story-Spirations!

  • You are mysteriously transported from one local to another; immobilized in mass of two-toned, glopping ooze . . .
  • Trapped without visible connection to an external reality, you have nowhere to go, except, where you have never been before . . .
  • Escape plan, not knowing what lies on the other side . . .
  • Once you arrive, needing, but not knowing who or what will be there to guide you . . . now showing you what are you likely to gain, to learn or to lose.
  • How is the end of this journey different from the beginning?
  • What has changed through the course of this journey?
  • What was the best part?
  • What was the worst part?
  • What has been gained, learned or lost through this process?

Feel and experience the reality of the image(s). Allow these new images, emotions and feelings to emerge. Briefly record this image-filled journey of a story and enjoy the basis of your next, image-filled, story oozing with all its engaging unsuspecting crazy, zany, terrifying, creepy and mysterious tips and turns. The best part? It is your story, so tell it or crack it like it is; in only the way you can!

Until next time . . . Let your Storyographer’s journey begin!