Thread: Are you a good 'oral storyteller?'

For SOME reason, I've adopted the fallacy that storytellers are naturally that way and bleeds into their day to day lives, i.e. always sharing anecdotes with friends or being a 'people person' in order to get material. I think I may have gained this belief from Dorothea Brande's writing advice book.

Anyway, I am none of the above things. I am absolutely USELESS at telling stories or recalling events (My brain is too chaotic). Does this mean that I'm not that interested in 'telling stories' on paper?

I dunno. Are any writers here good/bad oral storytellers? etc.

My father was a pretty good oral story teller, but me not so much. Overall I'm a better listener than talker and a better writier than talker. Maybe that's why email is my preferred method of communication. And then, as far as I know my Dad never had the urge to write as I do.

I'm not great at it. A lot of oral storytelling has to do with vocal tone and body language, which is of course not an issue when writing at all.

And you definitely don't have to be a people person in order to write good stories.

I wouldn't worry about it either way.

I am better at it in print than in person. I find I stumble for words when I speak, less so when I write.

I would consider myself a pretty good oral storyteller if it's a story I'm familiar with. Making the story up on the spot is pretty fun, too. Having an audience of young children is great because their minds aren't so bound by logic.

I'm absolutely shocking when it comes to telling a yarn, I get my facts messed up really easily and by the time I've backtracked and corrected myself for the third time I see their eyes start to glaze over :/ Same goes for telling jokes, I always mess up the punchline. Maybe I'm not such a funny girl after all

Depends on how stoned I am.

I love telling stories, which usually surprises people because I'm a pretty quiet person. When there's an opportunity, I like to spin a yarn about whatever. My Dad and Grandpa are huge campfire-tale people, and I still feel like I'm in my Grandpa's shadow, because people to this day will come up to me and tell me what a great storyteller he was. Hopefully I've inherited some of his craft in written form, but we'll see. He had this quiet, severe way of speaking that made his stories very tense.

I do this with my children instead of reading them books. I make up stories. They usually involve whatever their interests are at the time. So we've had stories about dalmations, dinos, monster trucks, Pokemon, cats, flying, demolition... It certainly taxes the imagination.

I have been told that I am engaging. Whether I am telling a story or not. That works well for when I am trying to convince people to give up their time and/or money for my job.

Now does this translate over into my writing? I don't know. I feel that I am better able to convince people of whatever in person than in writing. My writing voice and speaking voice are very different.

I have a number of traditional stories by heart, that does not mean they come out the same every time, they get adjusted for the listener, some are ten-fifteen minutes long, some take an hour and a half to tell.
The technique is entirely different, for example I use repetition a lot in oral stories in a way that would look really naff on the page. Usually reading traditional stories they are rather dull, but once you have the plot line a good story teller can make them come alive. The two are chalk and cheese.