![John Everett Millais (1829-1896) - The Boyhood of Raleigh - N01691 - National Gallery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/John_Everett_Millais_%281829-1896%29_-_The_Boyhood_of_Raleigh_-_N01691_-_National_Gallery.jpg)
Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing
stories, sometimes with
improvisation,
theatrics
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...
or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or
narratives, which are shared as a means of
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
, education, cultural preservation or instilling
moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include
plot
Plot or Plotting may refer to:
Art, media and entertainment
* Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction
Music
* ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava
* The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003
Other
* ''Plot' ...
,
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
s and
narrative point of view
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to storytelling, convey a narrative, story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deli ...
.
The term "storytelling" can refer specifically to oral storytelling but also broadly to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story.
Historical perspective
![WLANL - MicheleLovesArt - Tropenmuseum - Pabuji-Verteldoek (4669-1)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/WLANL_-_MicheleLovesArt_-_Tropenmuseum_-_Pabuji-Verteldoek_%284669-1%29.jpg)
Storytelling, intertwined with the development of
mythologies
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrati ...
,
predates writing. The earliest forms of storytelling were usually
oral
The word oral may refer to:
Relating to the mouth
* Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid
**Oral administration of medicines
** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or or ...
, combined with gestures and expressions. Some archaeologists believe that
rock art
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...
, in addition to a role in
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
rituals
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...
, may have served as a form of storytelling for many ancient
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
s. The
Australian aboriginal
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...
people painted symbols which also appear in stories on cave walls as a means of helping the storyteller remember the story. The story was then told using a combination of oral narrative,
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, rock art and dance, which bring understanding and meaning to human existence through the remembrance and enactment of stories. People have used the
carved trunks of living trees and ephemeral media (such as sand and leaves) to record
folktale
A folktale or folk tale is a folklore genre that typically consists of a story passed down from generation to generation orally.
Folktale may also refer to:
Categories of stories
* Folkloric tale from oral tradition
* Fable (written form of the a ...
s in pictures or with writing. Complex forms of tattooing may also represent stories, with information about
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
, affiliation and social status.
Folktales often
share common motifs and themes, suggesting possible basic psychological similarities across various human cultures. Other stories, notably
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
s, appear to have spread from place to place, implying
memetic
Memetics is a study of information and culture. While memetics originated as an analogy with Darwinian evolution, digital communication, media, and sociology scholars have also adopted the term "memetics" to describe an established empirical study ...
appeal and popularity.
Groups of originally oral tales can coalesce over time into
story cycle
Story or stories may refer to:
Common uses
* Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events)
** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting
* Story (American English), or storey (British ...
s (like the ''
Arabian Nights''), cluster around mythic heroes (like
King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...
), and develop into the narratives of the deeds of the
gods
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater ...
and
saint
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
s of various
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
s.
The results can be episodic (like the stories about
Anansi
Anansi ( ; literally translates to ''spider'') is an Akan folktale character and the Akan God of Stories, Wisdom, Knowledge, and possibly creation. The form of a spider is the most common depiction of Anansi. He is also, sometimes considered t ...
),
epic (as with
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
ic tales), inspirational (note the tradition of
''vitae'') and/or instructive (as in many Buddhist or Christian
scriptures
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...
).
With the advent of
writing
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...
and the use of stable, portable
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, storytellers recorded, transcribed and continued to share stories over wide regions of the world. Stories have been carved, scratched, painted, printed or inked onto wood or bamboo, ivory and other bones,
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
, clay tablets, stone,
palm-leaf books, skins (parchment),
bark cloth,
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
, silk,
canvas and other textiles, recorded on
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
and stored electronically in digital form. Oral stories continue to be created, improvisationally by impromptu and professional storytellers, as well as committed to memory and passed from generation to generation, despite the increasing popularity of written and televised media in much of the world.
Contemporary storytelling
Modern storytelling has a broad preview. In addition to its traditional forms (
fairytales
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cult ...
,
folktales,
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
,
legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...
s,
fables
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral ...
etc.), it has extended itself to representing history, personal narrative, political commentary and evolving cultural norms. Contemporary storytelling is also widely used to address educational objectives. New forms of media are creating new ways for people to record, express and consume stories. Tools for asynchronous group communication can provide an environment for individuals to reframe or recast individual stories into group stories. Games and other digital platforms, such as those used in
interactive fiction or
interactive storytelling
Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters, and situation which the narrative must address, but the user ( ...
, may be used to position the user as a character within a bigger world.
Documentaries
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
, including interactive
web documentaries
A web documentary, interactive documentary, or multimedia documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools. The interactive multim ...
, employ storytelling narrative techniques to communicate information about their topic. Self-revelatory stories, created for their cathartic and therapeutic effect, are growing in their use and application, as in
Psychodrama
Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives.
Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and h ...
,
Drama Therapy and
Playback Theatre Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.
History
The first Playback Theatre company was founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and ...
. Storytelling is also used as a means by which to precipitate psychological and social change in the practice of
transformative arts Transformative arts is the use of artistic activities, such as story-telling, painting, and music-making, to precipitate constructive individual and social change.
The individual changes effected through transformative arts are commonly cognitiv ...
.
Some people also make a case for different narrative forms being classified as storytelling in the contemporary world. For example, digital storytelling, online and dice-and-paper-based role-playing games. In traditional
role-playing games
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...
, storytelling is done by the person who controls the environment and the non-playing fictional characters, and moves the story elements along for the players as they interact with the storyteller. The game is advanced by mainly verbal interactions, with dice roll determining random events in the fictional universe, where the players interact with each other and the storyteller. This type of game has many genres, such as
sci-fi
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...
and fantasy, as well as alternate-reality worlds based on the current reality, but with different setting and beings such as werewolves, aliens, daemons, or hidden societies. These oral-based role-playing games were very popular in the 1990s among circles of youth in many countries before computer and console-based online MMORPG's took their place. Despite the prevalence of computer-based MMORPGs, the dice-and-paper RPG still has a dedicated following.
Oral traditions
![Story Teller by Gaganendranath Tagore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Story_Teller_by_Gaganendranath_Tagore.jpg)
Oral traditions of storytelling are found in several civilizations; they predate the printed and online press. Storytelling was used to explain natural phenomena, bards told stories of creation and developed a pantheon of gods and myths. Oral stories passed from one generation to the next and storytellers were regarded as healers, leaders, spiritual guides, teachers, cultural secrets keepers and entertainers. Oral storytelling came in various forms including songs, poetry, chants and dance.
Albert Bates Lord
Albert Bates Lord (15 September 1912 – 29 July 1991) was a professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Harvard University who, after the death of his mentor Milman Parry, carried on Parry's research on epic poetry.
Early life
Lord was bor ...
examined oral narratives from field transcripts of Yugoslav oral bards collected by
Milman Parry
Milman Parry (June 23, 1902 – December 3, 1935) was an American Classicist whose theories on the origin of Homer's works have revolutionized Homeric studies to such a fundamental degree that he has been described as the " Darwin of Homeric ...
in the 1930s, and the texts of epics such as the
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
. Lord found that a large part of the stories consisted of text which was improvised during the telling process.
Lord identified two types of ''story vocabulary.'' The first he called "formulas": "
Rosy-fingered Dawn", "
the wine-dark sea" and other specific
set phrase
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
s had long been known of in
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
and other oral epics. Lord, however, discovered that across many story traditions, fully 90% of an oral epic is assembled from lines which are repeated verbatim or which use one-for-one word substitutions. In other words, oral stories are built out of set phrases which have been stockpiled from a lifetime of hearing and telling stories.
The other type of story vocabulary is theme, a set sequence of story actions that structure a tale. Just as the teller of tales proceeds line-by-line using formulas, so he proceeds from event-to-event using themes. One near-universal theme is repetition, as evidenced in Western
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
with the "
rule of three": Three brothers set out, three attempts are made, three riddles are asked. A theme can be as simple as a specific set sequence describing the arming of a
hero
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''her ...
, starting with shirt and trousers and ending with headdress and weapons. A theme can be large enough to be a plot component. For example: a hero proposes a journey to a dangerous place / he disguises himself / his disguise fools everybody / except for a common person of little account (a
crone
In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal fig ...
, a tavern maid or a woodcutter) / who immediately recognizes him / the commoner becomes the hero's ally, showing unexpected resources of skill or initiative. A theme does not belong to a specific story, but may be found with minor variation in many different stories.
The story was described by
Reynolds Price
Edward Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011) was an American poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in Biblical ...
, when he wrote:
A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species ''Homo sapiens'' – second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.
In contemporary life, people will seek to fill "story vacuums" with oral and written stories. "In the absence of a narrative, especially in an ambiguous and/or urgent situation, people will seek out and consume plausible stories like water in the desert. It is our innate nature to connect the dots. Once an explanatory narrative is adopted, it's extremely hard to undo," whether or not it is true.
Märchen and Sagen
![Schlesisches Märchen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Schlesisches_M%C3%A4rchen.png)
Folklorists sometimes divide oral tales into two main groups: ''Märchen'' and ''Sagen''. These are
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
terms for which there are no exact
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
equivalents, however we have approximations:
''Märchen'', loosely translated as "
fairy tale
A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
(s)" or little stories, take place in a kind of separate "once-upon-a-time" world of nowhere-in-particular, at an indeterminate time in the past. They are clearly not intended to be understood as true. The stories are full of clearly defined incidents, and peopled by rather flat characters with little or no interior life. When the supernatural occurs, it is presented matter-of-factly, without surprise. Indeed, there is very little effect, generally; bloodcurdling events may take place, but with little call for emotional response from the listener.
''Sagen'', translated as "
legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...
s", are supposed to have actually happened, very often at a particular time and place, and they draw much of their power from this fact. When the supernatural intrudes (as it often does), it does so in an emotionally fraught manner. Ghost and
Lovers' Leap stories belong in this category, as do many UFO stories and stories of supernatural beings and events.
Another important examination of orality in human life is
Walter J. Ong
Walter Jackson Ong (November 30, 1912 – August 12, 2003) was an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, cultural and religious historian, and philosopher. His major interest was in exploring how the transition from orality ...
's ''Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word'' (1982). Ong studies the distinguishing characteristics of oral traditions, how oral and written cultures interact and condition one another, and how they ultimately influence human epistemology.
Storytelling and learning
![Orunamamu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Orunamamu.jpg)
Storytelling is a means for sharing and interpreting experiences.
Peter L. Berger
Peter Ludwig Berger (17 March 1929 – 27 June 2017) was an Austrian-born American sociologist and Protestant theologian. Berger became known for his work in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of religion, study of modernization, and theor ...
says human life is narratively rooted, humans construct their lives and shape their world into homes in terms of these groundings and memories. Stories are universal in that they can bridge cultural, linguistic and age-related divides. Storytelling can be adaptive for all ages, leaving out the notion of
age segregation
Age segregation is the separation of people based on their age, and may be observed in many aspects of some societies. Examples of institutionalized age segregation include age segregation in schools, and age-segregated housing. There are studie ...
. Storytelling can be used as a method to teach ethics,
values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
and cultural norms and differences. Learning is most effective when it takes place in social environments that provide authentic social cues about how knowledge is to be applied. Stories function as a tool to pass on knowledge in a social context. So, every story has 3 parts. First, The setup (The Hero's world before the adventure starts). Second, The Confrontation (The hero's world turned upside down). Third, The Resolution (Hero conquers villain, but it's not enough for Hero to survive. The Hero or World must be transformed). Any story can be framed in such format.
Human knowledge is based on stories and the human brain consists of cognitive machinery necessary to understand, remember and tell stories. Humans are storytelling organisms that both individually and socially, lead storied lives. Stories mirror human thought as humans think in narrative structures and most often remember facts in story form. Facts can be understood as smaller versions of a larger story, thus storytelling can supplement analytical thinking. Because storytelling requires auditory and visual senses from listeners, one can learn to organize their mental representation of a story, recognize structure of language and express his or her thoughts.
Stories tend to be based on experiential learning, but learning from an experience is not automatic. Often a person needs to attempt to tell the story of that experience before realizing its value. In this case, it is not only the listener who learns, but the teller who also becomes aware of his or her own unique experiences and background. This process of storytelling is empowering as the teller effectively conveys ideas and, with practice, is able to demonstrate the potential of human accomplishment. Storytelling taps into existing knowledge and creates bridges both culturally and motivationally toward a solution.
Stories are effective educational tools because listeners become engaged and therefore remember. Storytelling can be seen as a foundation for learning and teaching. While the storylistener is engaged, they are able to imagine new perspectives, inviting a transformative and empathetic experience. This involves allowing the individual to actively engage in the story as well as observe, listen and participate with minimal guidance. Listening to a storyteller can create lasting personal connections, promote innovative problem solving and foster a shared understanding regarding future ambitions. The listener can then activate knowledge and imagine new possibilities. Together a storyteller and listener can seek best practices and invent new solutions. Because stories often have multiple layers of meanings, listeners have to listen closely to identify the underlying knowledge in the story. Storytelling is used as a tool to teach children the importance of respect through the practice of listening. As well as connecting children with their environment, through the theme of the stories, and give them more autonomy by using repetitive statements, which improve their learning to learn competence. It is also used to teach children to have respect for all life, value inter-connectedness and always work to overcome adversity. To teach this a
Kinesthetic learning style would be used, involving the listeners through music, dream interpretation, or dance.
Storytelling in indigenous cultures
![The Historian (The How and Why Library)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/The_Historian_%28The_How_and_Why_Library%29.jpg)
For indigenous cultures of the Americas, storytelling is used as an oral form of language associated with practices and
values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
essential to developing one's identity. This is because everyone in the community can add their own touch and perspective to the narrative collaboratively – both individual and culturally shared perspectives have a place in the co-creation of the story.
Oral storytelling
Oral storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The storyteller and the listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. The intimacy and connection is deepened by ...
in indigenous communities differs from other forms of stories because they are told not only for entertainment, but for teaching values.
[Archibald, Jo-Ann, (2008). Indigenous Storywork: Educating The Heart, Mind, Body and Spirit. Vancouver, British Columbia: The University of British Columbia Press.] For example, the
Sto:lo community in Canada focuses on reinforcing children's identity by telling stories about the land to explain their roles.
Furthermore, Storytelling is a way to teach younger members of indigenous communities about their culture and their identities. In Donna Eder's study,
Navajos
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
were interviewed about storytelling practices that they have had in the past and what changes they want to see in the future. They notice that storytelling makes an impact on the lives of the children of the Navajos. According to some of the Navajos that were interviewed, storytelling is one of many main practices that teaches children the important principles to live a good life.
In indigenous communities, stories are a way to pass knowledge on from generation to generation.
For some indigenous people, experience has no separation between the physical world and the spiritual world. Thus, some indigenous people communicate to their children through ritual, storytelling, or dialogue. Community values, learned through storytelling, help to guide future generations and aid in identity formation.
In the
Quechua community of Highland Peru, there is no separation between adults and children. This allows for children to learn storytelling through their own interpretations of the given story. Therefore, children in the
Quechua community are encouraged to listen to the story that is being told in order to learn about their identity and culture. Sometimes, children are expected to sit quietly and listen actively. This enables them to engage in activities as independent learners.
This teaching practice of storytelling allowed children to formulate ideas based on their own experiences and perspectives. In
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
communities, for children and adults, storytelling is one of the many effective ways to educate both the young and old about their cultures, identities and history. Storytelling help the Navajos know who they are, where they come from and where they belong.
Storytelling in indigenous cultures is sometimes passed on by oral means in a quiet and relaxing environment, which usually coincides with family or tribal community gatherings and official events such as family occasions, rituals, or ceremonial practices. During the telling of the story,
children may act as participants by asking questions, acting out the story, or telling smaller parts of the story. Furthermore, stories are not often told in the same manner twice, resulting in many variations of a single myth. This is because narrators may choose to insert new elements into old stories dependent upon the relationship between the storyteller and the audience, making the story correspond to each unique situation.
[Silko, L. Storyteller. New York, New York: Seaver Books Pub., 1981.]
Indigenous cultures also use
instructional ribbing— a playful form of correcting children's undesirable behavior— in their stories. For example, the
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
(or Chippewa) tribe uses the tale of an owl snatching away misbehaving children. The caregiver will often say, "The owl will come and stick you in his ears if you don't stop crying!" Thus, this form of teasing serves as a tool to correct inappropriate behavior and promote cooperation.
Types of storytelling in indigenous peoples
There are various types of stories among many indigenous communities. Communication in Indigenous American communities is rich with stories, myths, philosophies and narratives that serve as a means to exchange information. These stories may be used for coming of age themes, core values, morality, literacy and history. Very often, the stories are used to instruct and teach children about
cultural values and lessons.
The meaning within the stories is not always explicit, and children are expected to make their own meaning of the stories. In the
Lakota Tribe of North America, for example, young girls are often told the story of the
White Buffalo Calf Woman
White Buffalo Calf Woman ('' Lakȟótiyapi'': ''Ptesáŋwiŋ'') or White Buffalo Maiden is a sacred woman of supernatural origin, central to the Lakota religion as the primary cultural prophet. Oral traditions relate that she brought the "Seven S ...
, who is a spiritual figure that protects young girls from the whims of men. In the
Odawa Tribe, young boys are often told the story of a young man who never took care of his body, and as a result, his feet fail to run when he tries to escape predators. This story serves as an indirect means of encouraging the young boys to take care of their bodies.
Narratives can be shared to express the values or morals among family, relatives, or people who are considered part of the close-knit community. Many stories in indigenous American communities all have a "surface" story, that entails knowing certain information and clues to unlocking the metaphors in the story. The underlying message of the story being told, can be understood and interpreted with clues that hint to a certain interpretation.
In order to make meaning from these stories, elders in the
Sto:lo community for example, emphasize the importance in learning how to listen, since it requires the senses to bring one's heart and mind together.
For instance, a way in which children learn about the metaphors significant for the society they live in, is by listening to their elders and participating in rituals where they respect one another.
Passing on of Values in indigenous cultures
Stories in indigenous cultures encompass a variety of
values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...
. These values include an emphasis on individual responsibility, concern for the environment and communal welfare.
Stories are based on values passed down by older generations to shape the foundation of the community. Storytelling is used as a bridge for knowledge and understanding allowing the values of "self" and "community" to connect and be learned as a whole. Storytelling in the
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
community for example allows for community values to be learned at different times and places for different learners. Stories are told from the perspective of other people, animals, or the natural elements of the earth. In this way, children learn to value their place in the world as a person in relation to others. Typically, stories are used as an
informal learning
Informal learning is characterized "by a low degree of planning and organizing in terms of the learning context, learning support, learning time, and learning objectives". It differs from formal learning, non-formal learning, and self-regulated l ...
tool in Indigenous American communities, and can act as an alternative method for reprimanding children's bad behavior. In this way, stories are non-confrontational, which allows the child to discover for themselves what they did wrong and what they can do to adjust the behavior.
Parents in the
Arizona Tewa
The Hopi-Tewa (also Tano, Southern Tewa, Hano, Thano, or Arizona Tewa) are a Tewa Pueblo group that resides on the eastern part of the Hopi Reservation on or near First Mesa in northeastern Arizona.
Synonymy
The name ''Tano'' is a Spanish bor ...
community, for example, teach morals to their children through traditional narratives. Lessons focus on several topics including historical or "sacred" stories or more domestic disputes. Through storytelling, the Tewa community emphasizes the traditional wisdom of the ancestors and the importance of collective as well as individual identities. Indigenous communities teach children valuable skills and morals through the actions of good or mischievous stock characters while also allowing room for children to make meaning for themselves. By not being given every element of the story, children rely on their own experiences and not formal teaching from adults to fill in the gaps.
When children listen to stories, they periodically vocalize their ongoing
attention and accept the extended turn of the storyteller. The emphasis on attentiveness to surrounding events and the importance of oral tradition in indigenous communities teaches children the skill of keen attention. For example, Children of the
Tohono O'odham American Indian community who engaged in more cultural practices were able to recall the events in a verbally presented story better than those who did not engage in cultural practices. Body movements and gestures help to communicate values and keep stories alive for future generations. Elders, parents and grandparents are typically involved in teaching the children the cultural ways, along with history, community values and teachings of the land.
Children in indigenous communities can also learn from the underlying message of a story. For example, in a
nahuatl community near
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
, stories about ahuaques or hostile water dwelling spirits that guard over the bodies of water, contain morals about respecting the environment. If the protagonist of a story, who has accidentally broken something that belongs to the ahuaque, does not replace it or give back in some way to the ahuaque, the
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
dies. In this way, storytelling serves as a way to teach what the community values, such as valuing the environment.
Storytelling also serves to deliver a particular message during spiritual and ceremonial functions. In the ceremonial use of storytelling, the unity building theme of the message becomes more important than the time, place and characters of the message. Once the message is delivered, the story is finished. As cycles of the tale are told and retold, story units can recombine, showing various outcomes for a person's actions.
Storytelling research
Storytelling has been assessed for critical literacy skills and the learning of theatre-related terms by the nationally recognized storytelling and creative drama organization, Neighborhood Bridges, in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
. Another storyteller researcher in the UK proposes that the social space created preceding oral storytelling in schools may trigger sharing (Parfitt, 2014).
Storytelling has also been studied as a way to investigate and archive cultural knowledge and values within indigenous American communities. Iseke's study (2013) on the role of storytelling in the
Metis
Metis or Métis may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, prima ...
community, showed promise in furthering research about the Metis and their shared communal atmosphere during storytelling events. Iseke focused on the idea of witnessing a storyteller as a vital way to share and partake in the Metis community, as members of the community would stop everything else they were doing in order to listen or "witness" the storyteller and allow the story to become a "ceremonial landscape," or shared reference, for everyone present. This was a powerful tool for the community to engage and teach new learner shared references for the values and ideologies of the Metis. Through storytelling, the Metis cemented the shared reference of personal or popular stories and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
, which members of the community can use to share ideologies. In the future, Iseke noted that Metis elders wished for the stories being told to be used for further research into their culture, as stories were a traditional way to pass down vital knowledge to younger generations.
For the stories we read, the "neuro-semantic encoding of narratives happens at levels higher than individual semantic units and that this encoding is systematic across both individuals and languages." This encoding seems to appear most prominently in the default mode network.
Serious Storytelling
Storytelling in serious application contexts, as e.g. therapeutics, business, serious games, medicine, education, or faith can be referred to as serious storytelling. Serious storytelling applies storytelling "outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality ... and is part of a thoughtful progress".
Storytelling as a political praxis
Some approaches treat narratives as politically motivated stories, stories empowering certain groups and stories giving people agency. Instead of just searching for the main point of the narrative, the political function is demanded through asking, "Whose interest does a personal narrative serve"?
This approach mainly looks at the power, authority, knowledge, ideology and identity; "whether it legitimates and dominates or resists and empowers".
All personal narratives are seen as ideological because they evolve from a structure of power relations and simultaneously produce, maintain and reproduce that power structure".
Political theorist,
Hannah Arendt argues that storytelling transforms private meaning to public meaning. Regardless of the gender of the narrator and what story they are sharing, the performance of the narrative and the audience listening to it is where the power lies.
Therapeutic storytelling
Therapeutic storytelling is the act of telling one's story in an attempt to better understand oneself or one's situation. Oftentimes, these stories affect the audience in a therapeutic sense as well, helping them to view situations similar to their own through a different lens. Noted author and folklore scholar, Elaine Lawless states, "...this process provides new avenues for understanding and identity formation. Language is utilised to bear witness to their lives". Sometimes a narrator will simply skip over certain details without realizing, only to include it in their stories during a later telling. In this way, that telling and retelling of the narrative serves to "reattach portions of the narrative". These gaps may occur due to a repression of the trauma or even just a want to keep the most gruesome details private. Regardless, these silences are not as empty as they appear, and it is only this act of storytelling that can enable the teller to fill them back in.
Psychodrama uses re-enactment of a personal, traumatic event in the life of a psychodrama group participant as a therapeutic methodology, first developed by psychiatrist,
J.L. Moreno, M.D. This therapeutic use of storytelling was incorporated into
Drama Therapy, known in the field as "Self Revelatory Theater." in 1975] Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas developed a therapeutic, improvisational storytelling form they called
Playback Theatre Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.
History
The first Playback Theatre company was founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox and ...
. Therapeutic storytelling is also used to promote healing through
transformative arts Transformative arts is the use of artistic activities, such as story-telling, painting, and music-making, to precipitate constructive individual and social change.
The individual changes effected through transformative arts are commonly cognitiv ...
, where a facilitator helps a participant write and often present their personal story to an audience.
Storytelling as art form
Aesthetics
The art of narrative is, by definition, an
Aesthetics, aesthetic enterprise, and there are a number of artistic elements that typically interact in well-developed stories. Such elements include the essential idea of narrative structure with identifiable beginnings, middles, and endings, or exposition-development-climax-resolution-denouement, normally constructed into coherent plot lines; a strong focus on temporality, which includes retention of the past, attention to present action and protention/future anticipation; a substantial focus on characters and characterization which is "arguably the most important single component of the novel"; a given
heterogloss of different voices dialogically at play – "the sound of the human voice, or many voices, speaking in a variety of accents, rhythms and registers"; possesses a narrator or narrator-like voice, which by definition "addresses" and "interacts with" reading audiences (see
Reader Response
Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and f ...
theory); communicates with a
Wayne Booth
Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and ...
-esque rhetorical thrust, a dialectic process of interpretation, which is at times beneath the surface, conditioning a plotted narrative, and at other times much more visible, "arguing" for and against various positions; relies substantially on now-standard aesthetic figuration, particularly including the use of
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...
, metonymy,
synecdoche and
irony (see
Hayden White
Hayden V. White (July 12, 1928 – March 5, 2018) was an American historian in the tradition of literary criticism, perhaps most famous for his work '' Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe'' (1973/2014).
Career
...
, ''
Metahistory'' for expansion of this idea); is often enmeshed in intertextuality, with copious connections, references, allusions, similarities, parallels, etc. to other literatures; and commonly demonstrates an effort toward ''
bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...
'', a description of identity development with an effort to evince ''becoming'' in character and community.
Festivals
Storytelling festival A storytelling festival is an event that features local, regional and/or nationally known oral storytellers. Each storyteller will have a scheduled amount of time to share a story (or stories) with an audience. The featured storytellers are often p ...
s typically feature the work of several storytellers and may include workshops for tellers and others who are interested in the art form or other targeted applications of storytelling. Elements of the
oral storytelling
Oral storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The storyteller and the listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. The intimacy and connection is deepened by ...
art form often include the tellers encouragement to have participants co-create an experience by connecting to relatable elements of the story and using techniques of
visualization
Visualization or visualisation may refer to:
*Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message
* Data visualization, the graphic representation of data
* Information visualiz ...
(the seeing of images in the mind's eye), and use vocal and bodily
gestures to support understanding. In many ways, the art of storytelling draws upon other art forms such as
acting,
oral interpretation
Oral Interpretation is a dramatic art, also commonly called "interpretive reading" and "dramatic reading", though these terms are more conservative and restrictive. In certain applications, oral interpretation is also a theater art – as in rea ...
and
Performance Studies
Performance studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses performance as a lens and a tool to study the world. The term ''performance'' is broad, and can include artistic and aesthetic performances like concerts, theatrical events, ...
.
In 1903, Richard Wyche, a professor of literature at the University of Tennessee created the first organized storytellers league of its kind. It was called The National Story League. Wyche served as its president for 16 years, facilitated storytelling classes, and spurred an interest in the art.
Several other storytelling organizations started in the U.S. during the 1970s. One such organization was the National Association for the Perpetuation and Preservation of Storytelling (NAPPS), now the National Storytelling Network (NSN) and the International Storytelling Center (ISC). NSN is a professional organization that helps to organize resources for tellers and festival planners. The ISC runs the
National Storytelling Festival
The National Storytelling Festival is held the first full weekend of October in Jonesborough, Tennessee at the International Storytelling Center. The National Storytelling Festival was founded by Jimmy Neil Smith, a high school journalism teache ...
in
Jonesborough, TN. Australia followed their American counterparts with the establishment of storytelling guilds in the late 1970s.
Australian storytelling today has individuals and groups across the country who meet to share their stories. The UK's
Society for Storytelling was founded in 1993, bringing together tellers and listeners, and each year since 2000 has run a National Storytelling Week the first week of February.
Currently, there are dozens of storytelling festivals and hundreds of professional storytellers around the world, and an international celebration of the art occurs on
World Storytelling Day
World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling. It is celebrated every year on the March equinox, on (or near) March 20. On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many la ...
.
Emancipation of the story
In oral traditions, stories are kept alive by being told again and again. The material of any given story naturally undergoes several changes and
adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
s during this process. When and where
oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
was superseded by
print media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit informatio ...
, the
literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
idea
In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being ...
of the
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
as originator of a story's
authoritative
In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The Ne ...
version changed people's
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
of stories themselves. In centuries following, stories tended to be seen as the work of individuals rather than a collective effort. Only recently when a significant number of influential authors began questioning their own roles, the value of stories as such – independent of authorship – was again recognized. Literary critics such as
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popula ...
even proclaimed the
Death of the Author
"The Death of the Author" (French: ''La mort de l'auteur'') is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of relying on the intent ...
.
In business
People have been telling stories at work since ancient times, when stories might inspire "courage and empowerment during the hunt for a potentially dangerous animal," or simply instill the value of listening. Storytelling in business has become a field in its own right as industries have grown, as storytelling becomes a more popular art form in general through live storytelling events like
The Moth
The Moth is a non-profit group based in New York City dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Founded in 1997, the organization presents a wide range of theme-based storytelling events across the United States and abroad, often featuring ...
.
Recruiting
Storytelling has come to have a prominent role in recruiting. The modern recruiting industry started in the 1940s as employers competed for available labor during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Prior to that, employers usually placed newspaper ads telling a story about the kind of person they wanted, including their character and, in many cases, their ethnicity.
Public Relations
Public influence has been part of human civilization since ancient times, but the modern public relations industry traces its roots to a Boston-based PR firm called The Publicity Bureau that opened in 1900. Although a PR firm may not identify its role as storytelling, the firm's task is to control the public narrative about the organization they represent.
Networking
Networking has been around since the industrial revolution when businesses recognized the need—and the benefit—of collaborating and trusting a wider range of people.
[Phillips, Deborah R. "The transformational power of networking in today's business world." Journal of Property Management, Mar.-Apr. 2017, p. 20+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link-gale-com.libezproxy.broward.org/apps/doc/A490719005/EAIM?u=broward29&sid=EAIM&xid=a2cece77. Accessed 14 Feb. 2020.] Today, networking is the subject for more than 100,000 books, seminars and online conversations.
Storytelling helps networkers showcase their expertise. “Using examples and stories to teach contacts about expertise, experience, talents, and interests” is one of 8 networking competencies the Association for Talent Development has identified, saying that networkers should “be able to answer the question, ‘What do you do?’ to make expertise visible and memorable.” Business storytelling begins by considering the needs of the audience the networker wishes to reach, asking, "What is it about what I do that my audience is most interested in?" and "What would intrigue them the most?"
Within the workplace
![Summer school Berlin School of Economics 2013-01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Summer_school_Berlin_School_of_Economics_2013-01.jpg)
In the workplace, communicating by using storytelling techniques can be a more compelling and effective route of delivering information than that of using only dry facts. Uses include:
Using narrative to manage conflicts
For
managers
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
storytelling is an important way of resolving conflicts, addressing issues and facing challenges.
Managers may use narrative discourse to deal with conflicts when direct action is inadvisable or impossible.
Using narrative to interpret the past and shape the future
In a group discussion a process of collective narration can help to influence others and unify the group by linking the past to the future.
In such discussions, managers transform problems, requests and issues into stories. Jameson calls this collective group construction storybuilding.
Using narrative in the reasoning process
Storytelling plays an important role in reasoning processes and in convincing others.
In business meetings, managers and business officials preferred stories to abstract arguments or statistical measures. When situations are complex or dense,
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...
discourse helps to resolve conflicts, influences corporate decisions and stabilizes the group.
In marketing
Storytelling is increasingly being used in advertising in order to build customer loyalty. According to Giles Lury, this marketing trend echoes the deeply rooted human need to be entertained.
[Plain Language at Work.]
The best story wins
." Mar 25, 2012. Retrieved Dec 19, 2012. Stories are illustrative, easily memorable and allow companies to create stronger emotional bonds with customers.
[
A Nielsen study shows consumers want a more personal connection in the way they gather information since human brains are more engaged by storytelling than by the presentation of facts alone. When reading pure data, only the language parts of the brain work to decode the meaning. But when reading a story, both the language parts and those parts of the brain that would be engaged if the events of the story were actually experienced are activated. As a result, it is easier to remember stories than facts.
Marketing developments incorporating storytelling include the use of the trans-media techniques that originated in the film industry intended to "build a world in which your story can evolve". Examples include the "Happiness Factory" of ]Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
.
See also
* Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and schola ...
* Story arc
A story arc (also narrative arc) is the chronological construction of plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, vid ...
* Storyboard
* Storytelling festival A storytelling festival is an event that features local, regional and/or nationally known oral storytellers. Each storyteller will have a scheduled amount of time to share a story (or stories) with an audience. The featured storytellers are often p ...
* Storytelling game
A storytelling game is a game where multiple players collaborate on telling a spontaneous story. Usually, each player takes care of one or more characters in the developing story. Some games in the tradition of role-playing games require one pa ...
* World Storytelling Day
World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling. It is celebrated every year on the March equinox, on (or near) March 20. On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many la ...
References
Further reading
*
* Bruner, Jerome S. ''Actual Minds, Possible Worlds''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
. 1986.
* Bruner, Jerome S. ''Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...
. 2002.
* Gargiulo, Terrence L. ''The Strategic Use of Stories in Organizational Communication and Learning''. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. 2005.
* Greiner-Burkert, Barbara ''The magical art of telling fairy tales: A practical guide to enchantment''. Munich, Germany: tausendschlau Verlag. 2012.
* Leitch, Thomas M. ''What Stories Are: Narrative Theory and Interpretation''. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press
The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Un ...
. 1986.
* Lodge, David. ''The Art of Fiction'', New York: Viking, 1992.
* McKee, Robert. ''Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting''. New York: ReganBooks
ReganBooks was an American bestselling imprint or division of HarperCollins book publishing house (parent company is News Corporation), headed by editor and publisher Judith Regan, started in 1994 and ended in late 2006. During its existence, Rega ...
. 1997.
{{Authority control
Folklore
Oral literature