Notes from the Storytelling Coach

In 1979, I decided to praise a student storyteller rather than criticize her. This led to a search for how to teach and coach storytellers and, ultimately, for how to use what I had learned that day to assist others in the burgeoning storytelling movement. Eight minutes, thirty-nine seconds

Episode 3 of the Storytelling Coach Podcast.

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How a student turned me into a storytelling coach. My choice was between my father’s approach to teaching and what I had experienced in school. Ten minutes, thirty-eight seconds

Episode 2 of the Storytelling Coach Podcast.

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Do you want to learn to coach others? Do you want to be an informed consumer of coaching for yourself? In either case, you need to understand what makes coaching work, and how a coach can support your creative thinking – not substitute the coach’s thinking for yours.

Back in 1995, I wrote the first (and still the only) book on coaching storytellers, The Storytelling Coach: How to Listen, Praise, and Bring Out People’s Best.

Now I am recording the entire book, in segments that are 5 to 10 minutes long. I will make these recordings available each week as episodes in this podcast. I estimate that it will take nearly two years (94 episodes) to record the entire book.

The first episode, “A New Kind of Helper,” is attached to this post. Please subscribe, to be sure not to miss an episode.

In 2008, I was meeting with members of the Utah storytelling guild, helping them think about what activities might best help them strengthen their community and promote storytelling in Utah.

One teller, Rachel Hedman, suggested a series of “story slams,” one-evening competitions in which anyone can offer a story on the evening’s theme. The story’s are judged and scored; the night’s winner usually receives a prize of some sort.

I have long opposed competitions in the arts. Can you score a Beethoven symphony over a Brahms symphony? Works of art are unique and complex. The idea of ranking them along a single continuum has always seemed like an invasion of our competitive culture into something inherently non-competitive. After all, if Beethoven had written a tenth symphony, it wouldn’t have taken away the value of his previous nine. Nor did Brahms’ symphonies diminish the value of Beethoven’s. Competitions are zero-sum games, whereas works of art are more like “magic pennies” – the more you send into the world, the more benefit you and others gain.

Therefore, my response to Rachel’s suggestions was this:

To bring in new and varied listeners to storytelling, we will undoubtedly need to make our existing events less comfortable for us, our existing listeners. I am uncomfortable with the idea of a story slam. Therefore, I won’t participate in organizing one.

But I support someone else doing it! Making me uncomfortable is probably necessary to expand the audience for storytelling.

A Story Slam in Boston?

Fast-forward to September, 2009. A group calling itself MassMouth asked me to attend one of their new Boston story slams as a judge. I refused until I could at least visit a slam and decide whether I wanted to support this competitive form of storytelling.

In December, I attended the third MassMouth slam, with a theme of “It’s My Job.” Jackson Gillman drove me into Boston (we both live south and east of Boston). On the way, he told me about attending the past two slams. Three things he told me piqued my interest:

• In one of the slams, several professional tellers told and told well. But a first-time teller told a story that was clearly superior to all the others – and walked off with the prize.
• The atmosphere is encouraging, not at all competitive.
• Because of the judging, Jackson found himself reluctant to tell a story that isn’t highly polished. For a story swap (non-competitive story-sharing event), he would likely tell a story-in-progress. But for this, he worked hard to perfect a story and get it down to the five-minute limit.

Once I arrived at the slam, I discovered some more interesting facts:

• The room – which can hold about 60 people at the most – was packed. There was an air of excitement.
• About one-third the attendees appeared to be below the age of 30 – a much younger crowd than attends other storytelling events.
• Many of the attendees had attended one of the first two slams, and were returning with friends
• Several non-professional tellers told, such as the former school secretary telling about one day’s dose of unruly children, worried parents, and frustrated teachers.

All this makes me think that this series is definitely a service to storytelling. It’s bringing in new audiences. It’s improving the quality of stories told by experienced tellers. For me, the element of competition is balanced by an implicit message:

Anyone can tell a story; the stories of ordinary people are worth listening to.

The top two winners are eligible to tell in the “Big Mouth-Off” in April. And the top prize there is a one-week stay at a restored town house in Tuscany, Italy!

Okay, I want that prize!

I admit it: in this tough economy, the villa in Tuscany sounds like a great way to get a vacation for Pam and me – just for the cost of some frequent flier miles (to get to Italy).

So I decided to compete, myself.

For the March slam in Boston (the last before the Big Mouth-Off), the theme was “Outrageous!”

What would I tell? I’m generally more at home with stories of personal transformation, rabbinic wisdom, or social liberation. I certainly don’t think of myself as a teller of humorous or “outrageous” stories. I spent two one-hour sessions with my story-buddies before settling on an experience I had in the 1960′s: having to sing a song at gunpoint.

I had already included this experience in a longer tale, Hopping Freights. But in that 90-minute story, I put this episode in the context of a decision about how to respond to the draft during the Vietnam War.

After several coaching sessions and a trial performance at the Story Cafe in New Bedford, MA, I had re-shaped the episode and drastically shortened to fit the 5-minute time limit.

See more videos of Slam participants on MassMouth

I’m proud (and, in light of my reservations about competition in storytelling) somewhat humbled to have won that story slam. You can see my winning performance in the video, above.

To survive, public storytelling events need to evolve. I now believe that story slams – when done with care and embraced by a supportive community – can be part of a useful evolution that brings storytelling to wider audiences.

Kurt Rosenberg, director of Witness to Innocence, just emailed me a link to a short video featuring some of the folks I had the privilege of working with last spring and fall.

Here’s a remarkable statistic: when a Witness to Innocence speaker appears before a group, Kurt always does a simple survey of the audience, asking them to write their position on the death penalty before hearing the speaker and then after hearing the speaker. In this way, he has a non-scientific way of tracking how many minds are changed.

Knowing how deeply held beliefs in favor of the death penalty are, what percentage of pro-death-penalty listeners would you expect would change their positions after one speaking event?

1%? 5%? 10%?

Actually, 20% of the listeners who came to the event convinced of the rightness of the death penalty change their minds. One in five!

The right story, told sincerely by the right person at the right time and place, can, indeed, change the world.

Here’s the clip from ABC News, covering an Alabama conference featuring Witness to Innocence members, some of whom I have coached:

Just came back from Brother Blue’s wake. Jay and Linda O’Callahan drove up with Pam and me from Marshfield to a funeral home in Cambridge, MA. It was bitter sweet to share memories of Blue on the drive up.

Saw scores of storytellers at the “visiting hours.” I would have rather seen them at a party than a wake, but it was my first time to see them at all since I moved back from OK. Hugging so many and saying heartfelt hellos was grounding and delightful.

Ruth Hill (Blue’s wife) was magnificent, shaking hands and talking to each person in the line to view Blue’s casket. In death, even though I had never seen him so still, Blue’s spirit was still evident. I could have cried for an hour.

So today was an affirmation of storytelling community, combined with the irreplaceable loss of Blue. Even after he “blew away” (his term from long ago), though, he brought us together in celebration of story and life. 

One of Blue’s gifts was to be able to summarize a person’s unique qualities in a phrase or two. I will always cherish what he said to me every time we met: “Look at him,” he would say to the world in general, with his arm on my shoulder. “He was born ancient and wise. His spirit is 10,000 years old!”

If that’s true, Blue would know. His spirit must have been even older. He seemed like a natural force, like water seeping up through rocks or like sunlight insisting on finding its way into the dark corners of a forest.

A force like that never really stops. Perhaps on its own, perhaps through those of us who were touched by him, his spirit must surely still be at work, dancing through the landscape of dreams, the oceans of stories, the quiet waters of our lives.

I have worked with a teller well over a year, helping him hone his next CD. It’s a personal story, close to the bone, and so it has required extra work to make it work. I have helped him:

• Determine his MIT (“Most Important Thing” – the main idea for the project, and for each story);
• Find and select the images required to make the MIT work for a listener; and
• Come to terms with the emotional content, so that he could both think better about what to include and also could tell the stories well, using the tones of voice that each section requires to be moving rather than overwhelming or flat.

So far, this is familiar ground for me as a coach. It takes time and creativity on both his and my parts, but it doesn’t break new ground for me.

Listening to a demo

But the surprises came when I had him make a “demo” recording, so that I could both hear the entire project all together and also play it for others, to get their reactions.

My other listeners panned the result. Oh, no! As I listened to their reactions, I went from, “Oh, I’m so glad I played this for you!” to “Oh, I have really misled this teller. I feel terrible.”

I knew my job was to keep thinking clearly about the teller’s work and avoid getting stuck in my own feelings, of course. So I kept at it with my test listeners. After they had had their say about all the things they objected to in the recording and the few things they liked, I asked them to listen to me describe the important story that the teller has to tell.

Because it’s a long and somewhat complex story, it took me quite a while to talk it out. Fortunately, my test listeners stayed with me. At the end, I said, “So, do you like the story I just described? Do you see it as a worthy story?” They answered “yes” to both questions.

Interviewing the Listeners

Then I went on to ask, “What is missing from the recording you heard and disliked, that would get across to you what I just described?”

Now it was my turn to listen and to ask clarifying questions of them.

After another 40 minutes, I had a list of what the listeners felt would be needed to convey the story at hand. It included things like:

• Close to the beginning, show that the teller has survived the traumas of the story intact, so we won’t worry whether this is just a catalog of horrors.
• Give us a few scenes to show how, during the traumatic events, the teller managed to cope some with the horrors (so that the “survival” will be believable).
• Add a few light-hearted moments along the way, so that listeners can “come up for air” from time to time.

Looking down at that list, I had a surge of hope: in earlier drafts of this project, nearly all those points were covered. I made a list of scenes (that the teller had omitted himself) to suggest re-inserting in the recording. I made another list of scenes currently in the recording that could be omitted or replaced. I also noted which items from the list might require new scenes to be created.

Now I feel confident that, in our next coaching session, I can make positive suggestions that will help the teller both meet the objections of my test listeners and also realize his goals for the recording.

Lessons for Me As a Coach

What does this experience teach or reinforce for me? First, that, after extended work on a project, I can become so familiar with the stories that I lose perspective and fail to notice what a new listener will perceive.

Second, that getting the help of test listeners isn’t always as simple as asking what they like and what could be better. Instead, it can involve a two-way process where, after I hear their initial reactions, they listen to me—and then I coach them to put their reactions in a form that would be most helpful for the teller.

What about you? Have you had similar experiences as coach, as teller, or as a test listener? Please add a comment to describe them.

After four and a half years in Oklahoma, I have returned to Massachusetts. (Photo: the view from our deck, in our new house in Marshfield)

The time in OK was wonderful. I learned a great deal about storytelling from the fine folks in the heartland. I learned about waiting calmly and patiently. I learned about connecting with everyone I came in contact with.

Now that I’ve come back East (admittedly, to the small town of Marshfield, not to the densely populated towns adjacent to Boston, where I lived before), I’ve found that the people here have many of the same lessons to teach me!

Do you know the story about the traveller who asks a local, “What are the people like here?”

The local asks back, “What were the people like where you came from?”

The traveller says, “They were mean and ignorant.”

The local says, “Well, you’ll find them to be much the same here.”

Then another traveller asks the same question. The local asks back, “What were the people like where you came from?”

The traveller says, “They were kind, open, and smart.”

So the local says, “Well, you’ll find them to be much the same here.”

Knowing that story, I’m abashed to learn that it has applied to me all these years! Going from Boston to Oklahoma, I found the people in OK much nicer. But now that I’ve returned, I see that the people here are just as nice!

Telling a story doesn’t mean that I’ve actually learned from it yet.