Story Dynamics – Stories

Of all the books written about storytelling, 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. Our movement is finally big enough to be someone’s target.

When we storytellers talk about the power of stories, we usually think of the stories we ourselves tell. To be sure, those stories are important and powerful.

But there’s a trend emerging that features another kind of story: the kind told by ordinary individuals about events or things that have affected their lives. Let’s call those “personal encounter stories.”

Personal encounter stories have some very practical uses. At the same time, they are easily overlooked…

Listening to a radio interview about Haiti earthquake relief, I realized the three qualities of a message that made me take immediate action. Can a knowledge of these qualities improve your ability to use storytelling to motivate?