Creative composition

Storytelling

One of the elements that makes or breaks a storyteller is the ability of the speaker to create a visual and kinesthetic experience for the listener/reader. A parent might say to a small boy wearing his best clothing, “Don’t walk next

to that mud puddle; you will ruin your clothes.” This command might not

have the effect of communicating an image in the boy’s mind that relates the

intended message, a more effective way to articulate a meaningful a

message that will have impact would be to say something like, “Billy, when I was your age, I was walking too near a mud puddle just like that one. I slipped and fell in, got covered by nasty mud, ruined my clothes, and I didn’t get to go to the party. Walk over here with me please.”

There are several elements involved in the second communication: a plea instead of a command, the danger of missing a highly anticipated event, an image of what the boy who fell into the mud looked like, and a story which allowed the child to visualize an event.

People who are visualizing an event will see themselves as the main character in the story. This is an elementary example of the impact of story telling, but it is a tool that has been used for centuries to teach a lesson or make a point. The Bible, Torah, Koran, Tao, and Native American spiritualists have used stories and tales to illustrate their desired points.

Greek, Nordic, and Roman Mythology relate fantastic tales for educational purposes. A minister of a nondenominational church noticed that a Hindu

woman who often attended his services with her young son had recently been coming to Sunday services alone. The Pastor asked the woman why the child had stopped accompanying his mother. She said, “The boy likes to go to Hindu services because the stories are better.” Psychologists say that when they are giving advice they often tell the patient a story and don’t bother explaining the meaning of the story or the lesson to be learned; it is more effective to simply tell the story.

Aesop has been popular for centuries for the same reason. Stories, allegories, and parables are very effective ways of relating ideas that are conceptual, spiritual, or ideal in nature.

If you want your audience to visualize themselves in the story and relate to the experience, tell the tale in such a way to help them feel it for themselves and have a familiarity with the event. The audience can vicariously experience the emotions, sounds, sights, and feelings of the story. This tends to make the writing and telling of a story more work.

Ernest Hemingway labored on the choice of a specific word for weeks before continuing to complete a tale. The effects are clearly powerful. Use references to the senses in the words of your story. Talk about the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings experienced by the characters. Do not overdo it and make every sentence a litany of verbose descriptions. Use the tools carefully in such a way as to complete the picture for the listener.

Put them into the story. Descriptive terms such as, “It was so hot I could have cooked an egg on the sidewalk.” “Her voice was so irritating, it reminded me of the sound of a chainsaw.” “He smelled like

he had been sleeping in a rugby locker room.” “He looked like hell. I’ve

seen those same pale faces at funerals, in the casket.”

A longer example: “I was a rail-thin ten year-old ruffian with brown eyes the color of chestnuts and with scruffy auburn hair that looked like the soiled straw in a horse’s stall, excrement and all. I thought taking a bath would ruin the protective layer of dust-filled sweat that had built up on my body, face and arms.

When I walked down a crowded street, I could hear people commenting about my general appearance and odor. I was the master of my world and no one dared approach me or reprimand me for fear of infection. I was usually accompanied by a swarm of flies and other minuscule vermin that cannot be seen but most expected were there because of my constant scratching and itching. People just let me be so I could lay by the creek, fishing, listening to the water trickle while I watched clouds form shapes like naked women, apple pies, and big old fluffy Southern biscuit butts.

Then Nimrod Sherman was assigned pastor of the First Baptist Church and took it on himself to see that I was brought into line like a proper soldier of the Lord. Every time I saw him coming it felt like a whole apple was stuck in my throat. Not one of those little green apples they have at the general store but one of those huge red apples I helped myself to from old Mrs. Johnson’s majestic apple tree.”

“Pastor complained about my body odor but I preferred it to the gallons of Old Spice he anointed himself and his suit with. He smelled like a sailor on the way to a whorehouse. There was only one real problem with the situation, because I had never let anybody tell me what to do or when to

do it, along with pastor Sherman came dainty, coy Ester Lynn Sherman. I don’t know exactly what it was about Ester Lynn, but she seemed to cast some sort of witch spell on every boy that laid eyes on her long curly fire engine red hair and sky blue eyes. Her complexion was porcelain white except for the pinkness of her cheeks that seemed to defy the very laws of nature. She never said much, but, when she did, she spoke in a kind of dreamy lilt that

made my eyes glaze over and my knees shake like a couple of gambling dice.

Unfortunately, I always seemed to roll up snake eyes. It could be a cold December day, and I’d still break out in a sweat if she brushed up against

my sleeve. So when Pastor Sherman started out on one of his correctional lectures I’d be frozen in place if Ester Lynn was by his side. I felt kind of sick to my stomach, and, one day in the middle of one of her daddy’s tirades, I realized that it was Ester Lynn and not Pastor Sherman who would be the architect of my demise as a free individual.”

Once you get into the rhythm of writing to create a visual, kinesthetic, auditory and olfactory experience, it becomes much easier. Use descriptive

terms before nouns. If I mention a room before I tell you the color you may

imagine a different color than I intend you to visualize. “Imagine a blue

room.” “Imagine a room that is blue.” It is a minor and subtle distinction,

but it allows for an uninterrupted process of visualization. Use this technique

when it serves your purpose, but leave it alone when it distracts from your

story.