I was lucky enough to go along to this last night. What a tremendous evening. I felt a bit of a spare part. Didn't know anyone there. But as soon as the stories started everyone just became audience so that was OK. Some were funny, some moving, some funny and moving. It was a brilliant way to spend an evening.
It's a simple premise, inspired by The Moth; people tell stories about their lives. Four were simple stories, one was a musician who talked about the song-writing process and sang a couple of songs.
I couldn't help thinking about it all the way home, some things occurred to me:
Malcolm Gladwell, (in this word backstage podcast) suggests that the people with the best stories are those whose jobs involve lots of sitting around with their colleagues; cricketers, for instance, or pilots. I'd suggest it's not just the sitting around, it's sitting around while half paying attention to something else (the match, the automatic pilot). This leaves enough room for proper story-telling, for holding court, not interrupted by sniping, conversation or one-up-person-ship. I don't seem to have that kind of life. The world I move in hasn't carved out that space. People would be embarrassed to be that central to everyone's attention, and it probably wouldn't be allowed by the group, we're all too competitive. That seems a shame to me. I might try listening for longer, encouraging people to luxuriate in their stories a bit more, not trying to top them all the time.
Musicians are much better at eliciting applause than story-tellers. The clapping for each of the Pugwash songs was way more enthusiastic than for anyone's stories, not, I suspect because they were naturally more applause-worthy (though they were great) but because musicians have naturally learned how to get people to clap. They put more energy into the room, they have really obvious endings, they raise their eyebrows and their arms. You almost can't help but clap. People telling stories haven't discovered the equivalent cues.
And I'm still not sure that story is that important to stories. You know, all that beginning, middle, end stuff, narrative arc blah, blah, blah. Games people go on about it all the time, and ad people are convinced they're masters of story miniatures. I think, very often, story is just something to hang all the important bits on. And not in a significant, meaningful way, like a backbone or a scaffold. It's more of a coat-hanger. The actual stuff that connects isn't about plot or narrative; it's texture, observations, images, jokes, juxtapositions, felicitous phrases and little moments of aha. That seemed true last night, all the stories were about something that had happened, but that wasn't the important bit. What sticks in the head is how the story was told, not what the story was.
That's what I'm telling myself anyway. Because I'd love to have a go at this and nothing like a proper story has ever happened to me.
