Thinking about how you present a story can really help your memory of it. Props, rhythms, sounds, actions – this blog has talked about all these before. On the right, for instance, is my sea-tray which I featured in The Magic of Objects. But thinking about memory gives a timely prompt for thinking about such things again. Also useful is beginning to think about how different stories relate to each other. All over this earth, in every culture past and present,  are stories with similar themes. Developing an awareness of the relationships between them – what’s similar, what’s different – helps with an awareness of story in general. It develops the memory muscles. And that’s what storytelling is all about – developing your muscles as a storyteller so as to feel confident about sharing your stories and giving your listeners the pleasure of them too. It’s not work that ever ends. But as you go on, the process becomes part of the way that you think.

1. Developing effective presentation

Developing your thoughts about how to present your story can really help you as the storyteller. Decisions about presentation help embed your memory of what you are going to tell. For instance,  it’s important to pay attention to how your story will sound and where you may add good sound-effects. This applies whether your story is destined for adults or children. Refrains where appropriate can also add texture and help your audience to follow the direction the story is taking.

Another possibility if you’re telling to children is to introduce the story with some kind of game that not only relates to the story but encourages visualisation. (more…)

Giving is at the heart of the Christmas story. It’s central to storytelling too. Sharing a story, you pass on something the recipient can either keep and ponder or pass on to others. Last week I was contacted by someone enquiring about a story I told over twenty years ago. The story had been remembered and often retold. And it hadn’t been ‘mine’ to start with,  but one of those traditional stories that gets remade from teller to teller.

In the Spirit of Christmas starts today with two items focused on children. The first is a Christmas-time chant – and I’m including it in this first Christmas blog in the hope that it will give any of you who work with children plenty of time to get to know it before sharing it in the run-up to Christmas.

The second item is a story generally known as The Little Fir Tree.

Going to See Father Christmas is a chant I created myself but on a traditional pattern. I’ve used it many, many times, always with enormous enjoyment both for myself and my audiences. As my pattern (for I believe in recycling tried and true materials), I used the well-known action chant, Going On A Bear-Hunt, which you may already know either in its traditional oral form or from Michael Rosen’s book of that name. (more…)

Magic Music-makers

The strangest sound-maker in my Storytelling Bag is what I call my Magic Music-maker. I put a lot of reliance on it: it can draw intrigued attention from adults as well as children, watching eyes as well as listening ears.

Ten-pence worth of magic

My original Magic Music-maker – a bendy, double-ended, pink plastic pipe – was bought for ten-pence from a box of sales items outside a Paper Chase shop at Waterloo Station. With caricature faces at either end, I think it might have been a Mr Men product. Whatever made me pick it up and blow into one end I have no idea. As soon as I did, I realised what interesting sounds it might make with a bit of experimentation. I took it home and the cat went wild as I practised, gradually extending the range of sound I could get. Eventually when I brought it into my storytelling, it got people sitting up and taking notice as soon as I began to blow.

Then one day in Cardiff, (more…)

Welcome again to Storytelling Starters.

Now we’re going to move on to the second lovely object that can set a good atmosphere and inspire many stories.

The Story Cloth

Fantastically flexible, fabulously focussing, restful and relaxing …if you open your Story Bag and bring out the Story Cloth you’ve put in there, you’ll quickly begin to discover just how useful it can be. It focuses attention. (‘What’s that for, Miss?’) It brings colour. (Colour is a building-block of imagination.) It gives energy and movement. (With just a swirl of the hand, it can suggest different things … a river, a snake, a bird, a garden.)

And that’s not all. Draped over unlovely or distracting objects before you begin your storytelling, your Story Cloth can provide your listeners’ eyes with a welcome point of rest. (Why should they have to look at you the whole time?)  Set beside you on the floor or a table, your Story Cloth can also help arouse expectations if you use it to set out special objects or instruments to be employed in your storytelling.

And then again … (more…)