Story Dynamics – Stories

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for students in US public schools emphasize thinking skills. But they lack something essential that storytellers can help provide. We are in the enviable position of knowing things that teachers are desperate to learn!

This makes storytellers like pickaxe-sellers in a gold rush. We have meaning-related tools that teachers desparately need.

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. Is it possible to influence them toward creating meanings similar to what you have in mind, using only “rubber duck race” techniques?

Stories are powerful. They have been used since prehistoric times and have an important role in the modern organization. But most business leaders have been trained not to talk in stories. Instead, they have been trained to talk in bullet points, to “cut to the chase,” to get to the core concept. As a result, [...]

In storytelling, paradoxes abound.

In every case of paradox, we need to notice not just the effect we intend to create, but also the potentially opposite effect.

Continuously noticing the effects of our storytelling like this is demanding and sometimes unsettling. But it can also help our telling.

This article looks at three paradoxes that concern meaning – and how they might affect our storytelling.