Welcome to the edge of autumn…

…at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. The leaves that normally wave outside my window have dropped to the ground, leaving their branches bare. They still wave in the wind, but everything has taken on a distinctly spooky tinge – a sense of darkness and coldness that encourages you to curl up inside with a blanket near a warm flame.

We are moving to the season of the Cailleach, of stormy weather, of cold mornings and bonfires and burnings. A season of treats and tricks and jack o’ lanterns (or neeps if you’re traditional and/or determined).

People often say the veils between the worlds are thin right now and it’s not hard to see why. If you look to the skies, between eclipses and full moons, things may seem closer than usual.

 My storytelling journey continues, with experimentation in different formats. It has and continues to be an education. I am blown away by the difference in styles that need to be applied for different types of storytelling.

 I have had many thoughts while learning about this process and I hope by sharing them they will continue to develop my own practice. However, these are my thoughts alone. Please take anything said here with a pinch of salt!

1.     Medium

Storytelling demands that the storyteller cultivate their presence, but the medium deeply impacts how that presence may be felt. Whether online or in-person, over the phone or in writing, the means by which you are telling a story should be a major consideration. A storyteller should adjust their performance with this in mind.

For example, in-person, a storyteller’s presence can be developed through pausing, silences, the creation of space within the story.

In-person is a freer form of storytelling, closer to the oral tradition which has been passed down for years. It is a more forgiving medium.

Online storytelling truly requires skill. The presence of the storyteller is flattened into the two-dimensional. A phone cannot communicate the intricacies of the craft to the audience and as such a storyteller must be aggressive – they must truly push their performance through other means, like tone, pitch and the use of other effects like photos, music, videos. Many storytellers now do sessions on zoom, and while I have not had this opportunity yet I hope to have some in the very near future.

Online storytelling truly requires skill…A phone cannot communicate the intricacies of the craft to the audience and as such a storyteller must be aggressive – they must truly push their performance

2.     Current Practice

My current practice is using online storytelling to find the “niggly bits” in my stories. I appreciate the immediacy of the medium, the mixture between practicing in the mirror and seeing the performance played back to me. It shows me where things are working, and where they are not. Perhaps my perfectionism is showing in this use of the medium!

That being said, there is a magic only discoverable through in-person storytelling, an exchange between storyteller and listener that cannot really be described.

I can’t wait until my skill and confidence grows so that I can begin to have more sessions in-person, because they are so exciting and enlivening.

3.     Development

 This time of year is a hard one to engage in hardcore self-improvement. There is a reason why everyone joins the gym in January after all! However, I am still looking at how I can move forward my storytelling and begin to develop my repertoire more fully.

 Firstly, I am on the lookout for as many stories as possible. One of the best ways to ‘capture’ stories in my experience so far is to practice speaking them – your brain reads in one part and speaks from another, so I need to develop that ‘muscle memory’ to cement more stories in my brain.

 I want to continue my online development. Currently it is very unstructured, as I attempt different styles and themes, to see what works for me and what doesn’t. It’s so fun to experiment!

 And finally, my goal is by the end of the year to have had at least one storytelling session in-person. This is an intimidating goal, purely due to my own self-doubt, but I look forward to the challenge and aim to create more opportunity for myself instead of less.

I hope this season brings you opportunities as well, for even though the new growth of spring may seem far away, these dark months are some of the best for laying solid foundations when everything is a wee bit clearer in the bright light at the end of the year.