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What Works in Stories? Beyond Telling, Let’s do Storymaking

Alan Levine
November 09, 2017

What Works in Stories? Beyond Telling, Let’s do Storymaking

Presented in Melbourne, Australia at Chisholm TAFE https://cog.dog/roo/storymaking/

If I say say “Storytelling”, you may conjure the familiar metaphors- cave paintings, campfires, parents reading books. Often it suggests a mode of entertainment. Like most, I have my own internal conversation– “I’m not a storyteller” but I do know can create compelling narratives in teaching that do not give away the plot in the opening objectives.
Rather than defining, constraining storytelling, I share my experiences of creating digital stories and teaching to others of what “works” in formats we know well — books, movies, popular culture. Learn to deploy these elements hands on, with suggestions how you can think of it as more than just a magic spice you sprinkle on your work. A hook of interest, the shape of a narrative, a character to care about, suspension of belief, using less, media metaphors are story techniques that you can integrate into your work as educators.
We will explore storymaking with images, using principles of improv to enhance public speaking, a magic StoryBox, and deploying popular forms of media considered silly (memes and GIFs) for more more meaningful use.

Alan Levine

November 09, 2017
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  1. The Last man alive on Earth sat alone in a

    room. There was a knock at the door. "KNOCK" BY FREDERICK BROWN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock_(short_story)
  2. cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo by

    chuck_heston: http://flickr.com/photos/chuckheston/383386494/
  3. cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo by

    Pay No Mind: http://flickr.com/photos/paynomind/65010034/
  4. STORIES WE TELL TRAILER HTTP://YOUTU.BE/YTQ4VZ2NYXG “When you are in the

    middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.” — Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
  5. cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo by

    g-mikee: http://flickr.com/photos/g-mikee/5202927662/
  6. This American Life: EPISODE 206 Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/206/somewhere-in-the-arabian-
  7. http://www.ishmaelscorner.com/2014/09/07/budweiser-puppy-love-storytelling/ “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent

    your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” —Kurt Vonnegut
  8. "...a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows

    of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith." Samuel Taylor Coleridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief
  9. "When it's a simple as two things: arouse and fulfill.

    You need to first arouse your audience and then get them interested in what you have to say; then you need to fulfill their expectations"
  10. TECHNOLOGY IS JUST A TOOL creative commons licensed (BY) flickr

    photo by katerha: http://flickr.com/photos/katerha/5746905652
  11. “CLAUDE, IT’S JUST A PAINTBRUSH” creative commons licensed (BY-NC-SA) flickr

    photo by cavale: http://flickr.com/photos/cavale/5619905303
  12. “JIMI, IT’S JUST A GUITAR” creative commons licensed (BY-NC) flickr

    photo by wiserbailey: http://flickr.com/photos/25084516@N03/5331538409
  13. STORY OVER TOOLS creative commons licensed ( BY NC )

    flickr photo by kaje_yomama: http://flickr.com/photos/kajeyomama/4987968865/