Last month I jumped on to the free webinar on ‘Storytelling’ hosted by Wendy H Jones and her friends at Auscot publishing.  She encouraged us with a timely reminder of how often we instinctively tell stories even when we don’t write them down.

Storytelling has come a long way from the days when families would gather around the fire and hear about Papa caveman’s hunting day.  Doubtless he told how he had tracked, pursued and speared a ferocious mammoth, carrying home the carcass with a formidable hunting party of cave buddies.  Like many of us, he probably added some colourful details and embellished the story to maintain the interest of wide-eyed children and impress Mama cave lady too.  Later, they might have illustrated the tale and the cave with a new wall painting.

The oral tradition stretches over millennia, of course.  Written language came much later.  Even if we don’t write our stories, or aim to have them published in some shape or form, we tell them every single day.

How many emails have you sent or received today?  Even those electronic messages seldom consist purely of bare facts.  There’s often a sense of narrative; a flow; an unfolding of events or a progressive conversation that includes references to other people or situations, dramatic or otherwise.

Many writers keep a journal or diary of some sort.  Samuel Pepys has given us great insights into life in mid-seventeenth century London.  Jane Austen’s letters have filled in some gaps and left tantalising glimpses of her life.  The recent BBC series, Miss Austen was based on her sister Cassandra’s letters and kept us entertained over four wonderful episodes.

Perhaps you told your family or work colleagues a joke today.  Stories in miniature.  ‘Shaggy dog’ stories can keep an audience entertained and entranced for an extended period, if told well.  The punchline, of course, is all in the timing and that’s a learned skill.

I’ve taken to recording voice notes on my phone to send to people which saves the hassle of correcting my typos and having to re-read a piece of text to ensure that auto-correct hasn’t made a complete nonsense of it.  The snag is that verbal processors can who reply in kind can take a long time to get to the point, which can be frustrating to listen to if you’re looking for the bottom line on a topic. On the other hand, it’s a more personal communication and there’s almost always the bare bones of a story of some sort involved.

Most of us recount episodes from our day over an evening meal with varying degrees of accuracy and veracity.  Some of us enjoy what, in our household are always called, ‘evangelastic stories’ in which exaggeration for the purpose of emphasis or impact are considered acceptable.  Literature calls that hyperbole; purists call it lying.

Maybe you left a note for your family on the kitchen table today, scribbled as you were dashing out of the house, or you might have been the person who read such a message.  Inevitably, it would have been short on adjectives but again, the skeleton of a story was probably encapsulated within that brevity.

In the light of all of the above, we can conclude that we all tell stories every day.  They’re not all very interesting but, if we put our minds and imaginations to it, we can inject all sorts of drama if we develop our characters, create credible motivation, shape a sub-plot, pay attention to pace, write choosing using emotive and evocative words, immerse ourselves in the world we conjure, allow for moments of tension, conflict and restoration, and begin and end with punchy, satisfying sentences.

It’s good advice and a useful creative writing challenge to take the bare bones of a story and add some dramatic meat in order to bring it alive in a way that makes it stick in the mind of listeners and/or readers.  So, thanks to Wendy and friends for this helpful reminder which may encourage you to shake off writer’s block and push through too.

NB: Apologies if a few paragraphs above are in italics.  I've tried a number of solutions but none of them seem to work so I've raised the white flag of surrender.

Jenny Sanders has spent the last twelve years living between the UK and South Africa. She writes faith-inspired non-fiction: Spiritual Feasting (2020) asks how we can ‘feast’ when life serves unpalatable menus; Polished Arrows (2024), explores the allegory of  God shaping us to be fired effectively into our culture and contexts.               

  

Jenny also has two published collections of humorous short stories for Key Stage 2 children: The Magnificent Moustache and other stories, and, Charlie Peach’s Pumpkins and other stories. She is available for author visits and creative writing sessions in primary schools.  She loves walking in nature, preferably by a river, and has a visceral loathing for offal, pineapple and incorrect use of car indicators on roundabouts.