Improving Your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work or Play (American Storytelling) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Want to learn how to tell a story straight from your heart--read this book!

Like some targeted readers, I am a professional storyteller. How intellectually stimulating it was for me to experience Doug's story-learning process. It felt so good for Doug to take me with him as he showed how he makes each story his own.

Doug Lipman seamlessly wove together three concepts: honoring your audiences, telling only stories that you can love and that speak to you, and practical story-learning techniques. He found methods to engage both my right and left brain as I voraciously chewed and swallowed each and every page. This book is rich with no extraneous wordiness or meaningless trivia. This author makes every word count within a logical whole cloth of thought about ways any teller of tales can enrich their audiences by becoming one with their stories and their audiences.

Kudos to a master teller!

Frankly, I was unaware of Lipman until I read his Foreword to Annette Simmons' The Story Factor. Favorably impressed, I then read Improving Your Storytelling which was first published in 1999. Of course, people have been telling stories for thousands of years. My own list of history's greatest storytellers includes Homer, Plato, Aesop, Jesus, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Joel Chandler Harris, L. Frank Baum, and E.B. White. All of the great storytellers are guided and informed by the same basic principles: They use compelling language and powerful images, establish an appropriate context (physical, intellectual, emotional, and social) within which to place a story, and then develop a relationship with both their audience and their story. As Lipman suggests, the storyteller, audience, and story "form the three corners of a triangle -- the storytelling triangle."

He offers material "beyond the basics for all who tell stories in work and play." Obviously, "play" includes situations in which stories are told to "children of all ages" primarily to delight and entertain them. But what about "work"? While reading Lipman's book, I soon realized that his insights and advice are at least as relevant to "work" as they are to "play." Effective storytelling skills are indeed valuable in all forms of communication between and among people.

Only in recent years, however, has there been significant interest in what is generally referred to as "the business narrative." I shudder when recalling countless formal presentations I made in the past when droning on and on much as then Governor Bill Clinton once did at a Democratic national convention. Thousands roared their approval when he said "In conclusion...." and then groaned as he continued on for another 35 minutes. He indicated little (if any) respect for his audience. Had Lipman been given the opportunity to help Mr. Clinton to prepare his remarks, presumably the length of his speech would have been reduced by half, if not by more. Lipman would also have formulated an interesting "story" to be told with authentic passion or at least enthusiasm while investing the narrative with vivid images and compelling details and, in countless other ways, enable Mr. Clinton to establish, immediately, a close bond with his audience and then nourish that relationship with empathy, respect, and (yes) humility.

The material in this book is carefully organized and developed within five Sections after Lipman briefly reviews "storytelling basics and beyond." He explains how to transfer imagery. How to establish relationships with the story told, with the given audience, and with yourself. Then in Section Five, he explains how to integrate each component of the storytelling event, noting that "the components are only important insofar as they contribute to the overall effect" of the event. That is, as "an invisible whole." The focus in Chapter 18 is on the four "layers" of attention. In the next chapter, Lipman explains how a storyteller can direct her or his attention "in a way that helps to connect each moment in the story to [her or his] overall goals for the storytelling event." He concludes by examining what he calls "the mystery of transformation -- the sometimes elusive result of perfect balance among all the components of the storytelling event."

It is important to keep in mind that, although Lipman briefly reviews the basics of storytelling, he goes "beyond" them (or at least explores each in much greater depth) than would, for example, an author of Storytelling for Dummies. A story will be told best by continuing to shape it while carefully observing those to whom it is told. Only then will the "storytelling triangle" have a "dynamic balance." To me, the single most important point which Lipman makes is that the storytelling event is the result but never the conclusion of a process. Revision of material and refinement of presentation are inevitable. The storyteller's journey never ends and sometimes no transformation occurs. What then? According to Lipman, "change the path, dance backwards, or leap into the unknown."

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Simmons' aforementioned book, The Story Factor, as well as Robert B. Miller and Gary A. Williams' The 5 Paths to Persuasion, Stephen Denning's The Leader's Guide to Storytelling, and Storytelling in Organizations co-authored by John Seely Brown, Denning, Katarina Groh, and Laurence Prusak.

As the title suggests, this book is not aimed at storytelling novices. It has wonderful information, however, organized around the storytelling "triangle" (the story, the teller, and the listener) -- and all of the relationships between them. Lipman includes information on language, imagery, kinesthetics, voice, understanding the story, preparing the story, and much more.