Story Telling - Getting Started

Are you someone who loves telling stories? Amongst your friends and family, are you the one spinning yarns for their entertainment?  Do you know how to hold the audience’s attention and enthrall them with an anecdote?  If storytelling has been a passion, a talent or something you think you’d want to do, then now is the time to make it into a career.

In the recent years, there have been a burgeoning number of professional storytellers. These are people who have taken the age-old art of storytelling and have brought it into the professional arena.  They have studied, practiced and now are using their storytelling skills in various settings—from the corporate to classrooms, from training sessions to community building.

Where to begin? So now that you are intrigued by the idea of becoming a storyteller what can you do? For starters, you could look for storyteller groups in your city. Most metros today have groups that are into storytelling.  If you are from a smaller city and don’t find an existing group that does storytelling, you can research and find online resources that will help you hone the art of storytelling. Ted talks are a great resource for some phenomenal stories and for masterful storytellers. Observe how they deliver the story, where do they pause, what is their body language. Read different stories and find stories that you relate to and want to share. 

Do I have it in me?  But how do you know that you have it in you to become a good storyteller? There are three hallmarks of a good storyteller, first is that they connect with the audience. They know how to bond with the audience emotionally so that the audience feels engaged in a story. The second is they know how to keep the audience hooked, how to entrance them and keep them a command on their attention. And finally, they know how to respond to the audience. Storytelling is a dialogue between the narrator and the listener. A good storyteller knows when the audience likes something and when their attention is flaying off. They know how to improvise and twist their story to keep the audience with them at all times.

Some other helpful attributes of a good storyteller are that you have clear enunciation and can modulate your voice so as to engage your listener. You use lots of gestures and facial movements to compliment the story. You are comfortable speaking to a group of people and have stage presence.

What can I do? Once you have brushed up on your storytelling skills, you need to then identify what type of audience you want to work with. Do you want to be a storyteller in the corporate arena and be part of soft skill or behavioral training? Or do you want to work with children and apply storytelling as pedagogy? Do you want to use storytelling for community building? Or do you consider it an art form and prefer to do dramatic performances? Storytelling is making its presence felt in varied fields, from marketing to public relations and you have a wide choice of the areas you can work in. 

Once you have decided to become a professional storyteller, go ahead and spin your tale for everyone loves a good story.