Contents

1) A HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR STORYTELLERS

2) MY HOLIDAY GIFT TO YOU: A NEW, FREE NEWSLETTER

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1) A HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR STORYTELLERS

We face a significant opportunity

In the U.S. public schools, 48 states have now adopted the “Common Core State Standards” for what students should learn.

This is an enormous development for teachers of children in kindergarten through high school.

The near-universal adoption of these standards is so new that teachers are scrambling to adapt their teaching to them. Even some of the largest textbook publishers have not yet provided full sets of materials.

As a result, these standards represent, I believe, a significant opportunity for storytellers.

“Standards? Storytellers Don’t Do Standards!”

For those of us who, like Einstein, cherish imagination above knowledge, trends toward standardized curriculum don’t necessarily sound inviting.

We are reminded of the French school administrator of years past who famously bragged, we are told, that he could look at his watch and know what every student in France was studying at that moment.

Where is there room in such a system, we might say, for individual learning styles? Individual interests? Divergent thinking?

Where is there room for education as an exciting adventure? For the thrill of discovery? For any form of enjoyment at all?

Not As Bad As I Feared…

Once I looked at these standards, though (and talked to the forward-looking educator/storyteller Lynne Burns about them), I saw them in a more hopeful light.

First, the creators of these standards have given some thought to what skills they think high school graduates need, to succeed in college and their careers. Indeed, each grade-level standard refers to a long-term “College and Career Readiness” standard.

This means that, unlike some other systems, the work at each grade level builds in a meaningful way on the work at previous levels – and helps prepare the student for the next levels.

Second, these standards don’t seem to lend themselves to over-reliance on uncomprehending memorization.

The vast majority, in fact, seem to focus on thinking skills. They are dominated by words and phrases like “analyze,” “compare and contrast,” “explain the relationships between…,” etc.

But Wait: There’s Another Problem

If the good news is that these standards seem to challenge students to do more than memorize, that merely highlights an ongoing problem: from the students’ point of view, why would they want to exert the effort? What will motivate them to rise to the challenge?

Imagine a student who is faced with a task like this, for example:

Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details.

I readily imagine the student thinking, “What does that have to do with my life? Why would I care about that?”

The more a curriculum requires mental exertion (learning to analyze requires more effort than simple memorization, for example), the more important it becomes to answer the students’ questions about “Why?”

This is a huge potential problem inherent in all standards-driven education: the student might be treated like a thinking machine, expected to perform tasks that seem unconnected to the student’s universal human motivations, such as:

• What do I want to accomplish? How can I accomplish it?
• Who is on this journey with me? How do we fit into each others’ lives?

In other words, these standards don’t, by themselves, make curriculum meaningful to the student.

Stories and Connection

Who could help humanize such a curriculum?

Needed: connection, meaning, involvement

Such helpers would need to be experts in:

• Connecting to human motivations;
• Putting problems in understandable contexts; and
• Engaging people both intellectually and emotionally.

Sound familiar?

If anyone knows about connecting to human motivations and emotions, it’s storytellers. After all, such meaning-building is the essence of what stories do.

Re-wording E.M. Forster’s famous dictum, I would say:

“’The king died and then the queen died’” is a series of unconnected events. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a story.”

In other words, a story differs from a recital of facts in that a story creates causal connections between the facts. A story is really the most basic way of giving meaning to events, of interpreting people’s motivations and personalities.

Such interpretation is essential both to story and to human life.

Specialists in Meaning

Whenever you need to create personal involvement in an otherwise impersonal context, the premier discipline to call upon is storytelling.

Said another way, the missing element in the Common Core State Standards is EXACTLY what storytellers have, since time beyond memory, always known how to provide.

We specialize in helping people create meaning and become involved.

Like a shovel-store in a gold rush, we have what people need

How Often Does This Happen?

Two factors are therefore converging. First, teachers are desperate for help in this time of change.

Second, storytellers have the exact skills that educators need.

We are like a long-established shovel store that just happens to be near a new gold rush. Suddenly, everybody needs what we offer!

A convergence like that comes once in a long, long while.

So How Do We Help?

I see three principal ways that storytellers can help well-meaning teachers carry out a Core Standards based curriculum, so that students become engaged. We can do, or assist teachers in doing, the following:

1. Perform stories;
2. Help students learn, create, and tell their own stories;
3. Teach storytelling games.

In a future article, I’ll talk about the contributions that each of these methods can make.

In the meantime, read on for a new, free resource for the least familiar of the three: Story Games.

2) MY HOLIDAY GIFT TO YOU: A NEW, FREE NEWSLETTER

Storytelling is a part of every human culture; so are games.

Storytelling games can help teach subjects, enjoyably

So it’s natural that people in many cultures have created games that involve stories.

For me, a storytelling game is any game that involves:

• Telling a story;
• Telling part of a story; or
• Using a skill that’s used in storytelling.

It turns out that people have created such games, for entertainment purposes, for generations.

Many such games help the beginning storyteller develop a particular storytelling skill. Other games focus on particular kinds of content that are of interest to teachers – and that apply to educational standards.

For example, there are storytelling games that require the use of words or phrases that can have two or more meanings. In such games, the spotlight of attention is easily and entertainingly focused on homonyms and metaphors.

To learn more about storytelling games every month, just subscribe – at no charge – to my new, free Storytelling Games newsletter.

In the newsletter, you’ll get games, variations on games, hints on teaching games, and suggestions of Common Core Standards that particular games help develop.

In time, I’ll have a website devoted to storytelling games. For now, you can subscribe by double-clicking this link:

http://www.storydynamics.com/games.newsletter

Questions or problems? Please use my contact form: http://www.storydynamics.com/contact

This newsletter is a gift from me to the storytelling (and education) communities. Happy Holidays! Enjoy!

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The Duck Derby table caught my attention, but it led me to think about storytelling...

I asked the friendly-looking woman behind the table, “What’s a Duck Derby?”

She said, “Once a year, we throw rubber ducks into the river and let them race downstream. The sponsors of the winning ducks get prizes. The proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity.”

Thinking strategically, I said, “Can I help my duck along?”

She replied, “No. You can’t touch it, even if it gets stuck in the reeds.” She smiled. “The Duck Derby’s not meant to be too serious.”

In my storyteller’s brain, which imagines such things without my conscious volition, I saw eager “duck sponsors” along the river bank, trying to control their rubber ducks without touching them. I pictured dozens of business people on their knees, blowing into long straws aimed at their ducks.

I smiled to myself.

“That’s the spirit,” said the woman at the table.

Storytelling As Rubber Duck Racing?

For some reason, the image of “trying to influence the direction of a rubber duck by blowing on it” has stuck in my mind with regard to storytelling.

After all, stories can lead people to create meanings. Such meanings are powerful, because listeners are committed to meanings that they create for themselves.

Not all tellers, though, are satisfied with allowing each listener a different meaning. Applied storytellers like teachers, clergy, salespeople, and managers often want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want two things at once:

1. The listener’s commitment to the meaning that the listener has given to the story;
2. The assurance that the listener’s meaning is the same one the teller has in mind.

Some tellers would maintain that such expectations are like saying, “You can have whatever you want – as long as you want what I feel like giving you.”

Such tellers might go on to say: If you intend for people to create their own personal meanings about a story, you need to “throw” the story into the river of the listener’s consciousness – and then leave it alone. If you “touch it” by telling the listener what the story means, the story runs the danger of never making it to the listener’s mental “finish line.”

Are There Other Ways?

If you could steer your duck, you could avoid these pesky traffic jams!

The “throw it in and leave it to work” point of view is valid much of the time, especially in performance settings.

But what if there were ways to “blow on” the story’s meaning without “touching” it? What if there were ways to influence the listener’s meaning-creation process without the listener crying, “Foul!” and going home before the race is over?

Such ways exist, I believe. Most are, individually, as subtle as the influence of one straw blowing on a rubber duck from a yard away. But many straws blowing at once can, indeed, change the duck’s course.

What Varied Meanings You Have, Grandma!

Consider the folktale, “Little Red Riding Hood.” Here are a few of the many meanings that have been attributed to the tale:

- The danger to children posed by strangers.
- The perils of sexual awakening for young women.
- How women can pretend innocence as part of seduction.
- How humans of any age can be “reborn” with more wisdom after a foolish act.

"Good day to you, Little Red Cap!"

How might you tell the story, in order to influence the listener’s interpretation of the girl’s actions – without coarsely telling the listener what to think? A simple method is to shape the characters’ non-verbal communication. Here is the girl’s simple first exchange with the wolf in the Grimm’s version:

[Wolf] “Good day to you, Little Red Cap.”

[Little Red Cap] “Thank you, wolf.”

If your intended meaning is “stranger danger,” you might give the wolf a predatory posture and an evil-sounding voice as he speaks these commonplace words. Red Riding Hood, on the other hand, might respond with the posture and mannerisms of a child at play, along with an innocent tone of voice.

But if your meaning is “how women can pretend innocence…,” on the other hand, the Wolf may stand as a humble servant and sound as benevolent as actor Morgan Freeman. For her part, Red Riding Hood might sound and act mature and seductive.

Dozens of Subtle Methods?

The use of body language and tone of voice are fairly obvious ways to “blow through the straw.” Less obvious ways include color clues.

Charles Perrault, for instance, explicitly interpreted his 1697 “Little Red Riding Hood” as about the dangers of “charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet” men who pursue young women “at home and in the streets.” He was also the first to associate the girl in his story with red-colored clothing. (In European cultures, red is often associated with blood and with sexuality, especially with menstruation and a woman’s first experience of intercourse.)

If you wanted to emphasize the danger to the innocent girl, on the other hand, you might choose to talk about her white cheeks or dress – and the wolf’s dark colors, which, in Western cultures, tend to be associated with the sinister.

There are dozens of such tools for “blowing” a listener’s attention in one direction or another. They range from obvious to extremely subtle. They can be delivered via the words of the narrator, the words of a character, and even the words of the master of ceremonies. They can alter the story itself or just the context in which the story is told.

And the Meaning of This Essay Is…

The moral of this essay applies especially to stories told in applied situations, when it’s also important that listeners adopt the teller’s attitude as their own:

“Don’t pick up the duck when simply blowing on it would do.”

When you take this advice, your stories for teaching or persuading won’t be so often “disqualified” in the minds of your listeners.

To be sure, the development of subtle storytelling tools requires some extra investment of time and thought. But the reward is great. In the end, you’ll more often cross the finish line. And both you and your listeners will feel that the race was fairly run.

Of all the books written on storytelling so far (4,469 hits on Amazon.com), can you think of a single one that opposes storytelling?

But now we have Christian Salmon’s “Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind,” published in March, 2010.

Salmon doesn’t just hate storytelling. He thinks storytelling is dangerous and disruptive to modern civilization.

That’s the best news I’ve heard in our decades of trying to spread the word about storytelling!

Why Is This Good News?

Since storytelling was rediscovered in the 1970′s, the world has seen storytelling as something quaint and harmless. For decades, you and I have tried to correct that view by asserting that storytelling is timely and powerful. Sometimes it felt as though we were whispering into a hurricane.

But now that an author took the time to research and write an entire book against storytelling, our years of work must have had an effect.

Well, Not Exactly Storytelling

If you’re a performer, don’t worry; Salmon isn’t aiming at you. Rather, he is concerned about applied storytelling: storytelling that is used to persuade, sell, or educate. In particular, he rails against the use of stories and storytelling in business and politics – in seven chapters with titles like these:

• The New “Fiction Economy” (about manipulating workers emotionally so they can, in turn, fool customers)
• Turning Politics Into a Story (about the role of narrative in recent presidential politics in the U.S.)
• Telling War Stories (about video-game-like, immersive military training) and
• The Propaganda Empire (Karl Rove, Fox News, the internet and more.)

Salmon sees all these trends as combining to form a frightening replacement of a reality-based world with a series of “shared fictions” (p.67).

His claim is that storytelling puts emotions ahead of rational thought, elevates entertaining fiction over hard reality, and replaces political skill with “fictional competence.”

Blaming the Hammer?

Like all tools, storytelling can be used for good or bad, to illuminate the nature of reality or to conceal it.

Salmon, to be sure, puts his finger on some disturbing uses of storytelling. But he focuses blame on the tool, not on those using it or even on those of us who allow ourselves to be manipulated.

Too Simple a Story

I would have loved a good book about the dangers of mis-applied storytelling. But this isn’t it.

Salmon writes like a muck-raking journalist. He is good at assembling many examples of storytelling-as-deception and assembling them into an alarming montage. But he has clearly spent more time compiling examples than constructing a penetrating analysis of them – or suggesting a reasonable corrective for society.

To make matters worse, his writing is frequently lacking in the logic that he glorifies. He often uses examples that don’t support his conclusions. He uses emotional language in an apparent attempt to prejudice the reader against his targets. (For example, people in favor of storytelling are usually called “gurus,” whereas those critical of it are “researchers.”)

He doesn’t appear to have noticed that the emphasis during the Industrial Age on “discipline” and “rational argument” has failed to make us either disciplined or rational – never mind relaxed or peaceful. Most importantly, he doesn’t seem to notice that storytelling’s increased presence is in part a reaction to the suppression of important aspects of the human experience.

Altogether, his implied story has more in common with tabloid journalism than with reasoned analysis: “We are being manipulated by unseen forces that are taking over the world. Be afraid!”

Our First Critic. Hooray!

If Salmons’s book were well-argued and well-interpreted, it might be a valuable addition to the literature about storytelling.

As it is, it’s a source of references to story and storytelling in contemporary culture. (Did you know that one of President George W. Bush’s speeches used the word ‘story’ 10 times?) That’s the best recommendation I can give it.

We deserve better critics. I hope that the coming years produce them.

But for now, let’s celebrate: we are powerful enough to be on a critic’s radar. At last, storytelling has come of age!

Hearing how I had helped Jay overcome some key hurdles, a participant said, “So Doug was one of the parents of the story, huh?”

No! Jay and I were emphatic. I surprised myself with how emphatic I was.

I said, “Jay was the story’s only parent. I was a midwife, helping the story be born.”

To be sure, in my style of coaching, it would be a betrayal of Jay for me to be a co-parent, to supply creative material for his story. Rather, I see myself as a helper who assists Jay in uncovering his own creativity.

Still, the participant could hardly be blamed for not knowing Jay’s and my deeply held belief about coaching, especially since other coaches base their work on different beliefs. My strong reaction was an indicator of a problem: how can we describe different coaching philosophies succinctly?

Are Interviewing Styles Similar?

This issue came back to my mind recently while reading books about interviewing. Many of the books treat interviewing as a one-way act of collection, as the interviewer “getting” information from someone. In this model, the creativity comes from the “data miner” not from the “data holder.”

This style of interviewing may make sense for a census taker or hospital intake interviewer. But it doesn’t work well at all when you are interviewing for the purpose of eliciting personal-experience stories.

In this latter case, both parties are seeking something that doesn’t yet exist: a particular version of the story of the person’s experience. To be sure, the experience already exists. But the interviewer and the person are about to create, together, a new STORY about that experience.

Again, the question popped up: How can we describe the various possible styles?

The Four Roles

All this put me to thinking: what are the actual similarities and differences between different approaches to coaching and interviewing? How can we explain them clearly, to ensure good matches between a style and a situation?

In response, I came up with four pairs of roles that coaches, directors, and interviewers (and others who work with storytellers of all kinds) can assign either to themselves and to those they work with:

1. Beneficiary or Helper;
2. Creative Director or Creative Assistant;
3. Evaluator or Contributor;
4. Elicitor or Story Source.

Each style of coaching (or of interviewing or directing) assigns the coach, etc., one role from each of these four pairs, and assigns the teller (or interviewee or actor) the other role. In some cases, a role can be shared. But how a coach assigns these four roles gives a clear, general description of the coach’s style.

Which of these roles do you want when you coach (or direct or interview) someone else? Which role do you want when you are being coached, directed, or interviewed?

Role #1: Beneficiary. Who is the event for?

In most professional interactions, one person has the role of Helper, while the other has the role of Beneficiary. For example, in a paid performance, the teller is the Helper, whereas the listeners are the Beneficiaries. In other words, the event is held for the sake of the audience, not for the primary benefit of the teller. That’s why the audience pays.

In coaching, on the other hand, the teller is usually the Beneficiary and the coach is the Helper.

Role #2: Creative Director. Whose creativity is given priority?

In my approach to coaching, the teller (not the coach) is the Creative Director. That is, as coach I apply my creativity to assisting the creativity of the teller, not directly to creating or adding to the teller’s story.

In many theatrical productions, on the other hand, the stage director is the Creative Director. The actor/storyteller is an instrument of the director, whose creativity is primary to the production. Some storytelling coaches see themselves as Creative Directors.

Role #3: Evaluator. Who evaluates the results?

In a story slam where the audience rates the tellers, the audience is the Evaluator. But if a teller hires a coach or other expert to evaluate the teller’s stories, then the coach serves as the Evaluator.

Role #4: Elicitor. Who draws out stories from the other?

In my role as coach, I often take the role of Elicitor. I question the teller, helping her or him find new stories or parts of stories that will meet the teller’s goals. Other coaches, on the other hand, expect the teller to do that work on her/his own.

Interviewers, of course, are almost always the Elicitors. Interestingly, some theatrical directors expect to pull stories out of actors and therefore take on the Elicitor role; whereas others leave the work of Elicitor to the playwright.

Coaching Styles Defined?

With these four role-pairs in mind, we can describe the basic philosophy of different coaches.

For example, in my model of coaching, I expect the roles to break down this way:

Beneficiary: the teller;
Creative Director: the teller;
Evaluator: the teller;
Elicitor: the coach.

That is to say, I coach for the sake of the teller and see myself as an assistant to the teller’s creativity, not as a substitute for it. The teller is in charge of deciding what suggestions of mine are worth acting on. And, whenever achieving the teller’s goals calls for it, I am happy to elicit additional scenes or stories from the teller.

In another of the many possible coaching models, however, the coach might have these expectations:

Beneficiary: the teller;
Creative Director: the coach;
Evaluator: the coach;
Elicitor: the teller. (The teller is expected to dig for stories outside the coaching session.)

These simple descriptions show important differences in coaching philosophy. I believe there is a place for many styles of coaching. At the same time, it is vital that the coach and teller match each other’s expectations.

Directing Styles?

Similarly, a very traditional theater director might expect:

Beneficiary: the director;
Creative Director: the director;
Evaluator: the director;
Elicitor: the playwright.

That kind of traditional director expects to be the creative “dictator” of a production that interprets a playwright’s work. But a different kind of director, one who expects a collaboration with actors (or storytellers) in creating new material based on the actor’s creativity, might expect this:

Beneficiary: the actor;
Creative Director: the actor;
Evaluator: the actor;
Elicitor: the director.

Both styles (and other variant styles, too) have a place. But if actors and directors expect different styles, trouble can ensue – especially without a shared vocabulary to describe these different expectations.

And Now, Interviewing Styles

With all that in mind, we can look at interviewers. The data-seeking census interviewer, for example, probably expects:

Beneficiary: the interviewer (ultimately, the interviewer’s
boss, the government and the people it represents);
Creative Director: the interviewer (The census taker interprets what the interviewee’s statements mean);
Evaluator: the interviewer (The census taker evaluates whether the required information has been obtained);
Elicitor: the interviewer.

What about the story-seeking interviewer? I can imagine several different, equally valid styles.

Suppose an interviewer wants to discover the stories a teller knows, but doesn’t want to find stories of a particular kind. (This might be true when interviewing a family member in the hopes of finding some family stories of any kind.) In such a case, the interviewer might expect:

Beneficiary: the interviewer;
Creative Director: the interviewee (The one being interviewed decides how to tell the stories);
Evaluator: the interviewer (The interviewer gets to define what a “family story” is);
Elicitor: the interviewer.

Now suppose that an interviewer is helping a family member discover stories, so that the family member can write a book. The expectations might be:

Beneficiary: the interviewee;
Creative Director: the interviewee;
Evaluator: the interviewee (The interviewee decides which stories s/he might want to include);
Elicitor: the interviewer.

Finally, consider the case of someone from a charity, interviewing a person who has benefited from the charity’s programs, so that the charity can use the person’s stories for fund-raising. In the case where the interviewer wants stories that will meet the organization’s purposes but also preserve the intention of the interviewee, the interviewer’s expectations will be:

Beneficiary: the interviewer;
Creative Director: shared between interviewer and interviewee;
Evaluator: the interviewer;
Elicitor: the interviewer.

I have summarized these examples in a chart (and explained them further) at http://www.storydynamics.com/4roles

Which Roles Do You Want?

When you seek a coach, director, or someone to interview you, ask yourself these questions:

Do I expect to be the Beneficiary? Who do I expect to be the Evaluator, the Creative Director, and the Elicitor?

Just as importantly, ask yourself the same questions when you find yourself coaching, directing or interviewing.

In all cases, take the time to compare your expectations with those of the other person involved. You CAN get what you want – but first you may need clear terms in which to describe it.

Are there concise ways to describe various styles of interacting around stories? This article sets out four roles common to coaching, theatrical directing and interviewing that, together, define a particular style of interacting.

The discussion begins by describing the four roles, then goes on to show how the roles are apportioned differently in different styles of coaching, directing, and interviewing.

The Four Roles

Each “role” is really a pair of roles, just like “Storyteller” and “Listener” are a pair of roles; each requires the other. Here are the roles that, together, define a style of coaching, etc.:

Role 1: Beneficiary

The paired role for Beneficiary is Helper. Between them, Helper and Beneficiary describe for whom the interaction is taking place. 

More detailed definition: Both Helper and Beneficiary can, of course, gain benefit from the coaching (interviewing, etc.) interaction. But the Helper agrees that, if there is ever a conflict between the Helper’s benefit and the Beneficiary’s benefit, the Helper will, for the duration of the interaction, give the Beneficiary’s benefit top priority.

In a paid performance, for example, the listener is the Beneficiary and the storyteller is the Helper. In a therapy session in which the client is telling a story, on the other hand, the storyteller is the Beneficiary and the listener is the Helper, as summarized in this table:

Role 2: Creative Director

The paired role is Creative Assistant. Between them, Creative Director and Creative Assistant describe whose creativity is given precedence.

More detailed definition: Both Creative Director and Creative Assistant may contribute to the creative process. But when both desire to contribute creatively, the Creative Assistant must take a back seat.

More particularly, the interaction is meant to explore the creativity of the Creative Director. The Creative Assistant may offer the results of her/his own creativity as stimulus to the creativity of the Creative Director, or may take an active role in helping the Creative Director’s creativity to flow.

In a certain kind of coaching, for example, the teller is the Creative Director and the coach is the Helper. In such a coaching session, the coach would contrive to help the teller find her/his own scenes, character interpretations and images.

In another kind of coaching, however, the teller seeks help not in unblocking her/his own creativity, but in the actual creative work. In this kind of coaching session, the coach would offer his/her own ideas for scenes, character interpretations, etc.

The two kinds of coaching styles are summarized in this table:

Role 3: Evaluator

The paired role is Contributor. Between them, Evaluator and Contributor describe whose judgment is given precedence.

More detailed definition: Both Evaluator and Contributor may exercise judgment about the results of their interaction, such as whether a particular story is acceptable, worth pursuing, etc. But whenever there is a conflict between their judgments, the judgment of the Evaluator must take precedence. Further, the judgment of the Contributor should usually be offered only when requested.

In a job-performance-evaluation interview, for example, the interviewer is the Evaluator and the interviewee is the Contributor. In such a coaching session, the coach would contrive to help the teller find her/his own scenes, character interpretations and images.

In another kind of coaching, however, the teller seeks help not in unblocking her/his own creativity, but in the actual creative work. In this kind of coaching session, the coach would offer his/her own ideas for scenes, character interpretations, etc.

The two kinds of coaching styles are summarized in this table:

Role 4: Elicitor

The paired role is Story Source. Between them, Elicitor and Story Source describe who is to try to draw out stories in a given interaction.

More detailed definition: Both Elicitor and Story Source may contribute stories. But the Elicitor’s stories are told only for purposes of stimulating the flow of stories from the Story Source. If the Elicitor is telling a story when the Story Source begins a different story, the Elicitor must immediately cease telling and begin listening encouragingly.

In interviewing sessions, for example, the interviewee is commonly the Story Source and the interviewer is the Elicitor.

Some improvisational theater directors expect to elicit stories from actors (or storytellers). Others, however, expect all the stories to be provided by the playwright.

These examples are summarized in this table:

Examples of Varied Styles

With these four role-pairs in mind, we can describe the basic philosophy of different coaches, directors, and interviewers.

Coaching Styles

For example, in my model of coaching, I expect the roles to break down one way, since I coach for the sake of the teller and see myself as an assistant to the teller’s creativity, not as a substitute for it. In my model, the teller is in charge of deciding what suggestions of mine are worth acting on. And, whenever achieving the teller’s goals calls for it, I am happy to elicit additional scenes or stories from the teller.

This can be summarized in the table below as “Doug’s coaching.”

In another coaching style, though, the coach expects to be Creative Director and expects the teller to look for new stories and scenes outside of the coaching session. This style appears as  “Coaching style #2” in the table below.

This simple table shows important differences in coaching philosophy. I believe there is a place for many styles of coaching. At the same time, it is vital that the coach and teller match each other’s expectations.

Directing Styles

Similarly, a very traditional theater director might expect to be the creative "dictator" of a production that interprets a playwright’s work. (See “Traditional Director” in the table below.)

But a different kind of director expects collaboration with actors (or storytellers) in creating new material based on the actor’s creativity. This style is “Directing style #2” in the table:

Both styles (and other variant styles, too) have a place. But if actors and directors expect different styles, trouble can ensue – especially without a shared vocabulary to describe these different expectations.

Interviewing Styles

With all that in mind, we can look at interviewers. The data-seeking census interviewer, for example, probably expects to be the Beneficiary (or at least to be a stand-in for the Beneficiary, who may be the interviewer’s boss: the government or the people it represents).

What about the story-seeking interviewer? I can imagine several different, equally valid styles.

The Seeker of Family Stories

Suppose an interviewer wants to discover the stories a teller knows, but doesn’t want to find stories of a particular kind. (This might be true when interviewing a family member in the hopes of finding some stories of any kind from your family.) In such a case, the interviewer might expect to be the Beneficiary, the Elicitor and the Evaluator. (The interviewer gets to define what a "story" is.) Since the interviewee decides how to tell the stories, this interviewee is the Creative Director.

Helper for a Family Member

Now suppose that an interviewer is helping a family member discover stories, so that the family member can write a book. The expectations might be that the interviewee is the Beneficiary—and also the Evaluator, since the interviewee decides which stories s/he might want to include.

Charity Fundraiser

Finally, consider the case of someone from a charity interviewing a person who has benefited from the charity’s programs, so that the charity can use the person’s stories for fund-raising. In the case where the interviewer wants stories that will meet the organization’s purposes but also preserve the intention of the interviewee, the interviewer will expect to be both the Beneficiary and the Evaluator.

All these story-interviewing styles are summarized in this table:

Which Roles Do You Want?

When you seek a coach, director, or someone to interview you, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I expect to be the Beneficiary?
• Who do I expect to be the Evaluator
• Who do I expect to be the Creative Director?
• Who do I expect to be the Elicitor?

Equally importantly, ask yourself the same questions when you find yourself coaching, directing or interviewing.

In all cases, take the time to compare your expectations with those of the other person involved. You can get what you want—but first you may need clear language in which to describe it.

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Table 1: Summary of the Seven Differences

Stories Concepts
1. Mode of Listening Creation Evaluation
2. Essence Unique event:
• one moment,
• one character,
• one place,
• one action Abstract commonalities:
what many events (etc.) have in common
3. Causes & Effects The specific
which may lead to the general The general
which may evoke the particular
4. Owner of Meaning The Listener The Speaker
5. Precision of Meaning Diverse
(wider range) Shared
(narrower range)
6. Scope of Meaning Contextual Literal (“Textual”)
7. Emotional Responses Empathic Reactive

The guest was the director of Partners in Health, a local Boston non-profit that has worked for years in Haiti.

The talk turned, naturally, to the recent earthquake. I listened numbly as the host and guest outlined the disaster and predicted that weakened buildings would continue to collapse for days and weeks.

Then the host summarized a staffer’s urgent email:

S.O.S. – S.O.S. – Please help us – Pain meds, bandages needed.

The guest said she had heard more from that staffer’s field hospital:

There are reports of a lot of casualties that are coming
there with only one doctor and no medical supplies still.

Without realizing it, I began to imagine myself as that lone doctor, trying to attend to hundreds of injured people without supplies.

I imagined myself looking over rows of makeshift beds, thinking, “Where is the rest of the world? Why aren’t they helping me?”

In the process of imagining, I had stopped being so numb.

I had begun to weep.

Before eating my sandwich, I went to the computer and made a donation to Partners in Health.

Why Was I Weeping Now?

What was so different about those two sentences? How did they break through my haze? How did they motivate me to interrupt my lunch to make a donation?

As far as I can tell, those two sentences had three important qualities.

The first quality: narrative

First, those two sentences told a little story. Therefore I had something to imagine.

But the director had told other stories already. She had told about her group’s history in Haiti and had narrated what groups were sending aid.

So what other qualities were important?

The Second Quality: A Single Point of View

The director’s other stories were about organizations, hospitals and agencies. They weren’t about individual people. Most of them weren’t even about individual locations.

But the two moving sentences evoked a single doctor in a single location.

As soon as the director described one person’s point of view in one place and time, I begin imagining empathetically.

The Third Quality: Innocence

Looking back, I realize that the immediate context of the director’s story played nearly as big a role as the story itself.

In particular, the director’s story wasn’t a “pitch.” It wasn’t (it seemed to me) pre-calculated to have an effect on me. It came up in response to a question by the interviewer.

I can imagine that the following sentences would have had a much smaller effect on me:

We need the help of those listening to this program. We have a hospital near the airport that urgently needs doctors and supplies. Please donate!

Why? Before she could even describe the need – as soon as I felt that she was trying to persuade me to take an action – I would have unconsciously closed the door to my heart.

Implications for Your Storytelling?

If you use storytelling to persuade in any way, you may want to ask yourself the following questions:

1. What stories (however brief) can I tell about my organization?
2. Which of those stories concern (or could concern) a single person in an easily imagined situation?
3. What opportunities do I have, that would allow me to present narrative apart from a plea? In other words, can I trust the story to do the work of persuasion by affecting my listeners’ hearts? Can I trust my listeners to make their own best decisions based on my straightforward narratives?

If you make any experiments along these lines, please let me know the results by adding a comment, below.

But is this an accurate assumption? What is the exact relationship between a story and the meaning or meanings that a listener experiences? If you tell stories in a practical context (such as business, religion, education, therapy, public policy, or persuasion of any kind) what is a useful way to think about how stories convey meaning?

Interpreting a 3-Word Sentence

Let’s start simple and work our way toward complexity.

Suppose Jack said to Jill, “I love you!” What meaning does Jill attribute to that three-word statement?

Obviously, it depends on Jill’s past experiences with Jack and her attitude toward him. For example, does she take Jack’s statement as a long-awaited declaration of undying affection? Or does she take it as an insincere attempt at seduction?

Equally obviously, Jill’s interpretation of meaning depends on the immediate context – on where they are and on what has just happened.

For example, if they were sailing on Jack’s yacht for the twentieth time and she had just told him that she was sick of sailing in stormy weather, does she take Jack’s statement as an attempt to stop her from being mad at him?

Or if they had met only three days ago on a cruise ship and she had just told Jack that she has decided to leave the cruise and go back to Yonkers, does she take Jack’s “I love you” as his attempt to make her change her mind and continue with the cruise?

In other words, Jill’s interpretation of Jack’s words depends on the nature of her relationship to Jack, her attitudes toward him, and the context of his remarks. But that’s just part of the problem.

But the Story of Jill?

Jill is responding to the Jack she knows. But what if you hear about all this second-hand? In short, how is this different for the listener to a story about Jack and Jill?

There are multiple differences between Jill’s interpretation and a listener’s interpretation. For today’s discussion, let’s notice simply that Jill has first-hand knowledge of what happened with Jack. But the listener to Jill’s story has to imagine what happens during Jill’s story, based on the storyteller’s description.

What Actually Happened?

Even though you and I may have heard the same story about Jill and Jack, we may imagine subtly different events.

For example, suppose you heard a story that begins like this:

“On the shifting deck, Jack knelt down in front of Jill and said, ‘I love you!’”

When you read that, you most likely created your own mental images. For example, you probably created a “shifting deck” in your mind.

Take a moment to notice: What was YOUR “shifting deck”?

Did you imagine the deck of an ocean liner? Or of a sailing ship? Or did you imagine the porch of a house in an earthquake? Or…?

And when Jack knelt down, how did you imagine him? Was he on one knee or two? Was he looking at Jill or not? Did you imagine how he was dressed?

If you took the time to imagine that scene, you imagined it in your own way. No two people ever imagine a scene exactly the same way, because each has his or her own predilections and memories to draw on.

So the details of your images differ from Jill’s and from every other listener’s. Your exact version of the story itself is unique! It’s no surprise, then, that your interpretation of those events will be unique.

Be Thoughtful About the Factors

Once we understand that many factors go into the process of a listener’s creation of a meaning and that listeners will arrive at many different meanings from a given story, then we can be more thoughtful about the problems of applied storytelling.

In entertainment storytelling, the engagement of your listeners is paramount. You want listeners to find your stories meaningful, but you are generally not invested in a single meaning.

But in applied storytelling, the particular meaning your listeners arrive at is as important to you as their engagement with the story.

Not an Arrow in a Target, but Ripples in a Pond

If you assume that telling Story #1 will automatically cause listeners to arrive at Meaning A, then your communication will fail for many of your listeners. Why? You will not be paying attention to all the factors under your control that tend to guide people toward a particular meaning.

What are those factors? There are many. But they all affect the exact context in which the story is heard. They affect the listener’s relationships to the storyteller and to the events of the story.

All great applied storytellers make use of these factors, at least unconsciously. Fortunately, everyone can learn to be aware of these factors. With experience, you can learn how changing each one of them affects the listener’s likelihood of creating a particular meaning. It is even possible to master the adjustment of several factors simultaneously.

But first – and foremost – you need to understand that stories convey meaning only by influencing the individual meaning-creation decisions of your listeners. This is an artistic process, not a mechanical one.

In even the most matter-of-fact environment, stories “mean” by initiating a complex, interactive series of communicative events. That complexity is the source of the power of stories. If you use creativity and thoughtfulness about the process, you can fully unleash that timeless power.