Storytelling is what we do. I love writing and reaching the end and realizing that I’ve written something others might enjoy reading. At the same time, I’m not a shabby public speaker. It was something I studied pretty often during college. Aside from the required classroom speeches, there were several times I gave presentations for anything from conferences to a magic show for the college’s Halloween festival. Once I get talking in front of folks, I really don’t suffer from those stage jitters (though they can hit beforehand, I’ll admit).
But, if you stuck me in front of an audience and tell me to spout off a story…I think I might have some trouble making it up as I go along.
Now, you say, Josh, that’s what you’re doing anyways. All that you’ve written so far has almost nothing to do with reality as it is. Why would you have such a hard time making things up?
Mainly because I need time to mull things over. To make mental connections for plots and characters. These come to me, but often not right when I demand them. So if I were making it up on the spot, there’d be a lot of hemming and hawing and back-tracking from me, and I think the audience might get a little frustrated with my constant revisions. Either that, or I’d talk myself into a corner and need a couple days to figure out how to get out of it. Every writer seems to hit these situations…though I’m sure there are exceptions.
All this to point out why I am impressed with reports of this storytelling collective, known as The Moth.
There’s the link for the story itself. It asks the question whether being a good writer makes one a good (auditory) storyteller by relation. Or are they two skills that must be fashioned in their own way?
“It is a different medium,” says Lea Thau, Moth executive director. Indeed. Just a few days before he was scheduled to perform before 300 people at the Calderwood, Steve Almond, author of the memoir “Candyfreak,” noted, “There are people who are born good storytellers. Then there are people like me, who know how to tell a story if we can work on it or edit it. But we’re not natural storytellers – which is why we write.”
If I could memorize and relate one of my short stories on stage, I think that’d be a lot of fun. Certainly I think I could put across a lot of emotion and my original intent, kind of the same way authors do readings at bookstores and all that, but perhaps with a bit more theatrics to it. It’d be a great exercise, I think. In fact, one of the ways I review and revise my writing is to read it out loud to myself to see if it has a natural flow. Still, I’d at least to have the stuff memorized, or have notes in my hand. I’m impressed by what the Moth and similar organizations are bringing to audiences…maybe I’ll be able to do something like that someday.
I hear some writers say that they like the fact that writing is a solitary profession…that we aren’t being watched constantly, and the only editor is the one with horns and a pitchfork, sitting on our shoulder and laughing at the cliches we let slip into the draft.
A quote from the article struck me on this:
“I’ve been writing for years….Sometimes I don’t even remember how alone I am. Having an audience right in front of you is startling – and invigorating, hugely invigorating. I remembered that we tell stories to connect with other people. And in this instance, the connection was simultaneous.”
I see that smile.