I spent this past weekend at the Festival of Lights in Midland, Texas with a lot of storytelling friends and enjoyed hearing all their stories. On Saturday night, I heard Donald Davis honor the creator of the festival, Patty Smith, by telling an old story of his about his typing teacher in high school. In the story, the ancient teacher insisted that nothing could stop the timed typing test given every Friday. Her insistence leads to some pretty hilarious consequences.
Afterwards I was talking with other tellers about how Donald structured the story, and suggested that the story worked because it asked a question at the beginning of the story that had to be answered (Would anything stop the test?). My pal Willy Claflin suggested that Donald’s story was a good example of the scientific method – when confronted with a problem the protagonist suggests a solution and then tests his theory. What happens if we do this? As soon as the audience hears the question, we know where the story is headed, though not the outcome.
A good story asks a question and then answers it. It needs to ask the question early on – after the stage is set and the main character’s world is established. And the question that is asked is the result of a problem that presents itself. And really, the asking of questions may be the reason stories exist in the first place – they explain to people what happens when they take certain courses of actions – they’re about being predictive. Just like Einstein imagining traveling at the speed of light. The scientific method. What happens if you do this? Our ability to imagine what might happen is what makes us storytelling animals – we put events in a context to make sense of them.
I don’t think it’s necessary that the question always be directly stated, as it was in Donald’s story. (“We got to thinking, could anything stop the timed test?”) If you make it clear that the hero of the story really wants something, then the unstated question is “Will she get what she wants?” and “How is she going to get it?” Which is enough to hook the audience so they want to know the most important question in narrative – “What happens next?”
While some narrative artists can get away from this simple structure because of other skills they have, it’s dangerous to do so. How many times have you read a book, or gone to a movie or a play and after a while get this confused feeling that makes you ask, “Where is this going?” If that feeling lasts too long, the audience checks out. If the artist hasn’t asked that questions of herself, it can lead to a really flabby, confusing story. Not every narrative artist is so direct – some folks are more elliptical in their presentation. But by and large, I think storytellers are better off practicing the scientific method.
Thanks Bill for this.
I would take it a step further. You are speaking about the structure of the story itself; asking a question early on then getting the timing right so as not to overextend the interest of the audience. So narratively speaking we ask a question and answer it, like a mathematical equation.
There are other questions too, that are placed silently, which can change the energy of a performance or the performer themselves. What is the storyteller asking him/herself when they go to perform? What is the storyteller asking the audience?
If the questions the storyteller are asking herself reach only as far as “Will this work? Will they like it?” or “Will they like me?” then the performance will retain that quality of need. What if the storyteller asks himself: “What will happen if I really let go of my anxieties as a performer and let this story fly?” or “what if I really focus my attention on holding the space between me and my audience?” or “What do I want to achieve with this story?”
In a similar light what we silently ask the audience also changes the nature of the performance. If the question to the audience is only based around the basics “Will you listen to my story?” or “Will this interest you?” the quality is need based. What would happen if we asked a different kind of question of our audience? “How much do you trust your perception?” or “What assumptions are you making?” or “Where can we go together in this story?”
These questions can raise a different tonality to the telling and to the relationship between storyteller and audience.