How to unleash writers` storytelling abilities
Storytelling is deeply embedded in our human DNA. Our brains are wired to relate to a story with a good beginning, middle, and end.
In the beginning, there were Cantadoras
Long before the written word, humans connected, socialized, and survived by way of storytelling.
“Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags, and crazy people,” writes renowned cantadora and Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Cantadoras were the keepers of history and the old stories and modern-day cantadoras do the same, wishing to instruct and heal with stories. Writers of memoirs and biography are in a sense the storytellers of our time.
Why are they considered so important?
“Although some use stories as entertainment alone, tales are, in their oldest sense, a healing art,” explains Estes.
Growing up with stories
My mother Reneé brought us up in a house filled with books and stories. The dinner table was the gathering place for family and friends, and the ideal setting for storytelling. Who also remembers getting lost in the studies and bookcases of your grandparents and family members, where there was an abundance of books?
As children, we could let our imagination run riot. Because we were so enthralled with stories, we even enacted versions of them with our friends, the Wolvaardts, during hazy summer afternoons in their garden.
How did my mother instinctively know to guide us? The necessity of stories and storytelling is explained by Reynolds Price:
“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.” (Price, Reynolds (1978). A Palpable God, New York: Atheneum, p.3)
How To Unleash Writers’ Storytelling Abilities
So, we understand and give meaning to our lives through the construct of stories. In the beginning, you have the tales and memories of your parents or those who raised you, about who and what you were when you were but a babe. As you mature and gain experience, you construct your own story versions of journeys, the people you encounter, and the magical places you visit.
Precisely because of this, a writer must be brave. You must venture out and let stories happen to you because, from those bounties of images and experiences, you weave a new tale. Your story needs blood and bones and sustenance to thrive.
A Last word of advice for aspiring authors
“I encourage people to do their own mining of story, for the scraped knuckles, the sleeping on the cold ground, the groping in the dark, and the adventures on the way are worth everything.”
(Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women who Run with the Wolves).
Whether your mission becomes writing your memoir for your family as a legacy, for your company as a testament to your achievements, or for the whole wide world to read – the storytelling you are about to undertake will be a journey like no other!
Remember that, as an author coach, I am available to assist you.
https://www.koorsboomstories.co.za/contact/