Modelling a Storyteller #2 – The Project Evolves
Whisht now, haad yer gobs, and I’ll tell ye aboot the stories… The project has been bubbling away in my cauldron and is starting to call for its own ingredients now. I realise that the spice of any particular storyteller can have no purchase without something solid to take on its flavour. So the project is developing a shape.
The last few weeks have been very much about goal setting: knowing the intention of any particular action, and being realistic about resources. So my project has evolved as I realised that the primary intention of the project is to create the best presentation on storytelling which I can for the Master Practitioners in October. The secondary intention was to show a modelling project, but it must not overtake the purpose of the storytelling piece. My resources – time, energy, and geography – have therefore gone into being in touch with the best storytellers I have access to, and learning from them as best as I can, even if my resources don’t permit a full traditional modelling project for each.
I will actually now be richly peppering this broth with several wholesome storytellers rather than one. This is because I’ve been thinking about different aspects of storytelling, and I know that some specialise in one or two aspects, and I’m also interested to find out what top storytellers have in common, and what is unique about each.
I mentioned aspects of storytelling. More are rising to the top of the brew all the time, releasing their sweet or pungent aromas, tempting the palette and making themselves known. So far I’ve been thinking about how to choose a story to tell and when to make one up, engaging with the audience and embodying the story amongst other things.
So as the victuals for this fantastic feast mature, let me tell you about a cook I worked with this month…
I chose to model Graham because I’ve been on the receiving end of his teaching stories, and as I was co-training with him in Manchester I thought it’d be a great opportunity to pick up some of his recipes for a really well-told story.
Graham is an expert and experienced teacher and has been training for decades. His storytelling engages the audience and helps the content of his teaching to sink in at an unconscious level. He is a great example of storytelling with purpose, specifically for the purpose of teaching.
How?
I spent part of one training day modelling from first position: copying his physiology – stance, breathing, gestures, facial expressions – to see how that energy felt and what I could pick up from there. I also took note of what he was doing from third position – trying to understand him by careful observation. I felt that my modelling process did have some flaws – time pressures and the fact of both being in training mode meant that I could not be fully in modelling mode and I was also observing from third position at the same time as doing first. I would do this differently next time; however I still gleaned some useful information.
Some notes about Graham’s storytelling
Embodying the story: Graham takes on a different physiology as he quotes different characters, and behaves as if he is them in their surroundings. At one point I watched him pat an imaginary dog on the head.
Choosing the appropriate story: I watched how Graham switched from traditional teaching mode to storytelling mode, noting his eye access cues to get an idea of strategy. It went something like this: “[Describes theory]…[gives example]…such as…” and at this point his eyes dropped to the side, as if he were searching for the physical sensation of the feeling he wanted to convey “[names emotion]” and then his eyes swivelled upwards, searching for a visual boot/up to the memory, before his body gave a little jolt and he moved into the physiology of the story, along with which came the words.
Details and memory: as I listened to Graham retell stories of his which I knew well, I noticed that small details, such as days of the week, changed from telling to telling, whereas the larger details, like the structure of the story, key points and outcome, remained the same almost word for word.
Engaging the audience: Graham is a very active storyteller, expending a lot of energy into the telling, and this pays off in the captivation of his audience. I noticed that he would look round the room, making eye contact with each person one at a time, and occasionally he would move towards someone (each time a different person, unless he was returning to a point made earlier with a particular person). He would catch this individual’s attention by moving towards them and looking them in the eye as he seemingly told one part of the story just to that person. Once he knew he had their attention he would back off, expanding the width of his gaze and gestures to include the whole (enthralled) room.
Spatial anchors: Graham would place different parts of the story on different sides of him to contrast. He also had behind him a diagram (PowerPoint) of the model he was teaching, and although he mainly ignored that in favour of engaging with the audience, occasionally he would point at a particular part of the diagram to illustrate how a particular part of the story fitted in with that.
A point of methodological interest: from first position, I found that at one point I knew what story was coming about a minute before he began to tell it. I’m sure this knowledge came from my unconscious mind; how much of it was unconscious uptake from first position and how much of it was contextual (me knowing both the story and the material he was teaching) I can’t say.
I have yet to interview Graham to confirm/expand on my observations, and will be writing it up when I do that over the summer.
Meanwhile, I’m excitedly eyeing other storytellers to add to the mix, and thinking about how best to share all I’ve learned….
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