The Art of Storytelling

I have inevitably been thinking about stories and storytelling this week. 

This amongst keeping my 3 boys occupied, fed and alive. Getting to the end of each day with them all safely tucked up in bed is me winning at life, always.

Art as we know it, came about because of storytelling. 

The art of storytelling came through verbal communication and visual art. I’m thinking of the pictures drawn on cave walls and on clay pots. Humans want and need to tell and hear stories. It’s very much part of who we are from infancy. Through the written word, images, sound and textures etc. stories have become as we now know them; novels, film, photography, artwork, art installations, fashion, music etc. It’s all storytelling and it’s all art. Frankly it leaves me in awe but that might be the geek in me talking.

I’ve been reading a lot about writing. I’ve been reading a lot for pleasure too. 

I will say this, I haven’t a clue when it comes to being a good storyteller. 

It takes characters and a story that hooks you in, but the magic that’s created is certainly not a paint by numbers approach, and I have been awestruck by some very different books. 

I’ve read some fabulous fictional short stories by Claire Keegan that still leave me thinking days, weeks and months later. I really recommend Foster and Small Things Like These. Short story writing is such a different writing skill. Every sentence counts to inform and to move the story forward. There is a lot you accept as a reader as there is no time to cover background. You are thrust into a situation and are transported within it. Done right it’s very powerful. I also enjoyed Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw a sci-fi short story concerning an unhappy couple.

Other fictional books I’ve read this year that I give high praise to are, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. A dystopian novel, that follows a travelling Shakespearean troupe after a flu pandemic decimates the American population. In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan pushes boundaries in quite believable ways, where a human detective works alongside an AI detective to solve a murder. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai is set in Chicago 1984 and Paris 2015 (if I remember rightly). It follows the early days of the AIDS pandemic and the gay community. Even though I’m very much aware of it all, it still centred me again. As time moves forward I think our memories and the information we know becomes softened somewhat. This book brought back into sharp focus the prejudice and the terrible effects the disease had, before effective treatments were discovered.

I’ve also read some amazing non-fiction this year. Somebody I Use to Know by Wendy Mitchell is phenomenal. She was able to document her dementia through her blog and that was used to create this amazing insightful look into her life with early onset dementia. It’s a book of hope, of fight and of spirit. If she can soldier on as she did, then I can also give it a jolly good go, without the difficulties she faced. It’s an extremely inspirational read. Then there was the totally unbelievable autobiography of Danny Trejo. An ex-convict who broke free from his criminal, drug fuelled background to make a new life as a drugs rehabilitation counsellor and Hollywood actor. What can I say about Rob Delaney’s A Heart That Works? It’s a truly heartfelt, emotional gut punch about Henry, his son who died of a brain tumour aged 2. It’s a story about love, death and grief and it, for me, was phenomenal. I technically read it last year but I still think of it often. Follow the link to my Goodreads reads.

These are diverse stories, told in incredibly different ways. Some real. Some fictional. What brings them together is their ability to make the reader want to turn the page and learn more. Whether it’s empathy, love or care for the characters, the subject matter or just in the story itself. There is a hook, tangible or not. At the end, it’s also about what you are left with. They have all left me wondering. They have changed my perspective or shifted my emotions or something else I can’t ascertain. I’m left different, changed perhaps. I’m not the same as I once was when I first opened the cover and I think that in itself is good storytelling. 

To shift a person, spiritually, mentally, emotionally or otherwise from one point to another over the course of a novel is a sign of a good story and storyteller.

So yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and what makes a good writer. 

I’ve read all these different ways to plot out stories using different methods such as the plot based approach, the scene based approach, the themes-based approach and Freytag’s Pyramid (see writers.com for more information). I also read this very insightful blog post in The Paris Review called Why Write? by Elisa Gabbert. 

What I have learnt is nothing and everything. 

There is no one way or approach or motivation that brings a story into being. It is merely by sheer will and determination that a story is borne. For some it comes neutrally but often times there is love, joy and / or pain in the process of creation. I think that sums up art. Art is toil, for creation involves a giving up of part of its creator to the art itself. Art is an extension of its’ creator.

In my head I have the opening scene of my novel in pictures, like a film reel. 

On my phone I’ve jotted down who the protagonist is, the main antagonist and the conflict that is faced. Otherwise I haven’t much else. It’s definitely fantasy fiction and set in a completely different place, time and world. This gives simplicity in some ways in terms of research but in other ways it increases potential complexity with world building and setting.

Am I as ready as I could be to write? No. Never. Come Wednesday, after a very, very emotional school run I will begin writing. I will continue to, to keep the loneliness of losing my littlest shadow at bay.

Next weekend, I will update this blog on my progress. Wish me luck. I’m hoping it will be a joyful process of exploring my imagination and allowing it to wander and take me places I have yet to imagine.

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