GUIDE FOR A GOOD STORYTELLER

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Preface The project AESOP is centered on the innovative combination of youth work and the valorization of intangible cultural heritage in order to increase the employment of marginalized youth. Included in the framework of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage, AESOP aims to develop the capacities of youth workers to utilize story-telling techniques and local community assets related with oral tradition in order to promote local development. It is recognized that intangible cultural heritage (and especially oral tradition) is a very significant potential source of development which is usually underused and underestimated. In the same time youth unemployment is very high especially among young people that have recently inhabited urban centers. In this framework, the consortium focus on issues as storytelling, entrepreneurship, theatre techniques, social entrepreneurship, community based tourism, cultural management, marketing of cultural heritage related projects etc. The project organizes three capacity building seminars, addressed to youth workers, this guide for youth workers, research for the identification of the relevant cultural heritage assets and a platform where each young person that will participate in the activities will publish its activities.

The project implements by 5 partner organizations from 4 countries and 3 continents (Greece, Spain, Brazil, Vietnam) which represent theatre and cultural organizations and organizations active in the field of youth bringing in this way together the two groups.. All activities are based on a variety of non-formal educational methodologies, including seminars, study visits, debates, as well as a certification course on community reporting. Local performances are going also to be organized in each country in cooperation with a story-telling activity which is going to be organized at the end of the project in Brazil. The project is going to develop a number of open educational resources for the youth workers. At the end of the project, it is expected that youth workers and young people are going to develop significantly their skills in relation with the use of intangible cultural heritage as a source of local development and social inclusion for marginalized people.

A Guide to be a good storyteller Method in Narration Aesop Project

A few words for the beginning

Professionally and creatively working on a subject that derives from the national tradition or the local history of a person, is a very complex yet interesting process.

It is quite different from the commercial activities across different sectors, as in this case, in addition to knowledge, experience and intelligence, a person uses multiple other elements related to his/her psychology and consciousness. And when the subject of his/her work is oral tradition i.e. fairy tales, legends and myths of the place he/she belongs to, he/she easily transforms the material into visual events and expresses it out to the public quite interestingly. The target audience would be visitors, tourists etc. who not only might ignore the tradition of the place but also might have the chance to get to know it through events involving these kinds of performances.

We are here talking about telling tales, which more often is perceived as a theatrical performance that includes all the activities concerning this term namely acting, good articulation, text, music, dance, stage, costumes etc.

Who

It is obvious that the one who will attempt this, will not just be any random professional. He must come from the field of art (field of performing arts being an added advantage) and have the need for expression and possess appropriate physical skills and mental endurance supplemented the willingness to practice them enough because narrating a fairy tale requires abilities complemented with repeated practice to entertain the public and win over their hearts. “Psychagogia� is a Greek word which literally translates into "soul-leading�. It means education and entertainment of the soul. It of course is evident that not everyone can educate and entertain the soul of other people.

It requires expressions that are practiced technically (orthophony, motion) & internally (transformability, in identification with fairy tale materials etc.). The storyteller is a 'multiplied' actor with the roles he/she is called upon to play. What differentiates him/her from the theater is that he/she plays more than one role, and all the other roles he/she is involved with are in accordance with his/her narration. Therefore, to make the narrative interesting and keep the public interested, the narrator must employ a variety of expressive means and creative functions such as concentration, imagination, sensitivity, emotion, memory etc., all in the same time. A very distinguishing factor that separates this art from the cinema is that the entire act is occurring in the same given time without any other intermediaries involved between the actors and the audience while in case of cinema, there are multiple intermediaries between the actors and audience and it takes quite some times until the final product reaches the audience (viewers) such as the machine, editing and a series of other procedures involving many other mediators. A very crucial comparison to give further insights into the act would be that film artists, musicians or painters

have their own tools to produce the final piece of art, but the storyteller is himself/herself a "tool" as well as a piece of art at the same time. His/her tools are his/her voice, body, soul and the material he/she generously offers to the public for their amusement and entertainment.

Where

Where will the narration take place?

The space in which the narrator will receive the public is not chosen by accident. Storytelling can obviously occur anywhere. Nevertheless, when we are referring to the public, the space needs to be structured.

What does this mean?

The two main factors - the narrator and the audience - have their own space in order to achieve the desired relationship amongst them.

Narrator’s space

Audience’s space

The narrator's space is where the narration will take place and the text will be heard. There will be a stage which will stimulate the viewer and sway him on a journey to "somewhere else", where the narrator, all suited up will be under spotlight, so as to create the appropriate atmosphere for the event to take place.

The audience will sit in the stands opposite or around to the narrator with dim lighting and concentrate on the narrator, while forming a silent treaty with him/her to accept the power of the narrator-actor. They will quietly listen to his narration, get involved emotionally and travel with him to "somewhere else", thereby accepting his disguise and enjoying his transformations.

Additionally, there would be other spaces around this structured space (like dressing rooms, reception area etc.) for supporting the event. More or less, the

space will look like irregular theater. Maybe smaller, maybe less demanding but still a theater.

What comes before

Research

The narrator must choose which stories to tell and communicate with the audience. And this requires thorough and in-depth research.

Research, that will provide the storyteller with a comprehensive knowledge of the whole spectrum of the fairy tale along with the narration in three broad dimensions: theoretical, sociological and historical.

The storyteller needs to do are search of the fairy tales as well in order to find and choose what will fit more to him/her, also considering the interest areas of the audience that they can relate to and get moved with. In case of fairy tale and storytelling, communication between the audience and the narrator is an absolutely necessity. For this, the research must be as detailed and thorough as possible, thus gaining a deep knowledge of the subject as the act would need to be very profound and multifaceted so as to keep the audience engaged in the entire duration of the narration. The narrator should ideally have one or more fairy tales ready to tell in his hands by the end of this entire research procedure.

Interpreting the means of expressions: If you want to start preparation, your work must have at least three directions.

1. On text 2. On expressive means and abilities of the

actor 3. On technical practical area.

The brief description of the three important elements listed above are as follows:

The text

The text of a fairy tale that we find in a book, an anthology etc. is not ready to be "enacted". It is usually ready to be read. But the storytelling process is a completely different thing. "Orality� is completely different from "legibility". The text must be easily understood and must have the structure, the composition, the rhythms, the poetry and the melody of the spoken word. .

Structure  In Greek tradition there are many other way for the narrator to start the narration. The same with the ending phrases

The text must have a beginning, a middle and an end. The tradition over the centuries has given itself a structure to the narration. When all the fairy tales start with "Once Upon a Time� or other starting phrases" * and end with "...and they lived happily ever after", it already frees us from finding a beginning and an end. So, it is up to us to choose a major theme which is nothing more than the fairy tale we have chosen and to give it the development that will be of interest to the viewer.

The structure of the narrative text is different when the text is meant to be read and different when it is meant to be told orally. In narration, the text should bein small sentences that is meant to be "addressed".

To be addressed from the narrator / actor to the recipient / viewer. In general, it should be a text that promotes the adventure of the heroes rather than the description (landscapes, characters, etc.).

The rythm

The delivery of the speech or the lines by the narrator / actors should be 'exciting'. So, he/she must be able to use a variety of

rhythms and speeches. For instance: A battle scene of adventure should generally be said at a fast pace and a tragic scene at a slow, sad and heart-melting pace. The narrator / actor holds the viewer's interest by using a wealth of rhythms while conveying his/her speech.

Poetry and Melodiousness

The narrative speech used by the narrator / actor is not only intended to arouse the viewer's interest in the events of the fairy tale itself (what happened after the king had married Snow White, if the "good" had defeated the "evil"), but also aims to arouse his emotions, depict his emotional world and stir up and awaken old, well forgotten and repulsed memories. Depicting childhood in fairy tales refers not only to the text and the adventure but also to the fact that the viewer should be swayed back to the time of his/her childhood and relate to it immediately without wondering what is possible and what not.

This is achieved with a text that contains imaginative and dreamy elements. A transcendence achieved with poetic phrases and words, and a narration that sounds in our ears like music from a warm voice (of the narrator) that the viewer is pleased to listen to. The storyteller with these characteristics in his narration, achieves to sensitize the viewers and enables them to travel in the world of his fairy tale, to see his images and feel his emotions.

Providing a guide on how to write or form a tale that the narrator is going to tell could be dangerous. Its risk lies in the fact that it will necessarily omit many things and secondly, the writing of a fairy tale that a storyteller is going to present to the public contains many personal elements in form of narration and writing that cannot be included in a guide.

However, we will try to describe some key features that a fairytale text must contain in a story meant to be told by an actor / narrator.

Once Upon a Time

The Hero's Call to Action

Fairy tales often begin with "once upon a time" because a successful story begins by somehow setting the scene. It's important to establish the main character that your story will be about by showing where he/she is at the beginning of her journey. If you think that it is very common predictable and boring to start with the “Once upon a time” you can try other starting phrases like "Once there was a princess who ...", or “Long, long ago ...", or with where "In a distant land ...". However you begin, your main character should be a normal, everyday person he/ she will become more extraordinary as she goes through her fairy tale journey.

Your main character begins his fairy tale journey when he gets a call to act and go on an adventure. Like Jack, who chose to climb the beanstalk, or Cinderella, who chose to get into the magic pumpkin and go to the ball, fairy tale heroes have to say yes to the challenges that are presented to them.

Usually a journey involves an event or person who invites the hero forward, and the hero accepts and moves into unknown land. For example, if you begin your story with a servant boy going into the woods every day to gather firewood, he could begin his hero adventure by one day running into an old woman who asks him to follow her, or by finding a mysterious key. The hero's curiosity moves him forward.

The Hero's Trials

Your Own "Ever After"

Your average main character has to experience trials in order to grow into the hero he/she will be at the end of the story.

You can make these trials physical, like fighting a dragon or wandering through a strange forest. The trial might be outsmarting a villain, such as a witch, wicked step-mother or evil king. The trial might also be inside the character, as when the ugly duckling has to feel good about being different from his duckling siblings. Even if she doesn't consider herself a hero, your main character becomes the hero of your story when you write that she is strong enough to survive the trials.

End your fairy tale by showing where the heroes and villains end up at the end of the journey. Usually, good and brave characters are rewarded, and villains are punished.

According to Scholastic Inc., readers enjoy tales "in which truth prevails over deception, generosity is ultimately rewarded, hard word overcomes obstacles, and love, mercy and kindness are the greatest powers of all." As the writer and creator of your own fairy tale, how you end up at your own "happily ever after" is completely up to you.

Whether you're narrating a folktale professionally (or reading a poem) out loud for audience, how you deliver a story makes all the difference. You'll need to get comfortable with the material and understand what makes for a great, engaging narrative. Once you do so, you'll bring the story to life and leave your audience perched on the edge of their seats.

The 15 necessary steps

1. Get comfortable reading and speaking at the same time.

This is really important if you're telling a story by reading it from the page. It is better to memorize the text, which can help, and make the narration more immediate, vivant and spectacular.  Read it more than once. Especially when you're going to be performing in front of people, you want to read over what you're narrating multiple times, so that you are accustomed to the words and you can look up at your audience.  Catch the rhythm of the words. You'll notice for stories and even stories that are only verbal, that the length of the sentences and the words used create a sort of rhythm. Get yourself accustomed to this rhythm through practice so you can render the story or poem well, out loud.  Try to avoid simply reading the story off the page. Narration means that you're taking an active part in engaging your audience and performing the narrative.

Look up while you're reading so that you meet the eyes of your audience.

2 Modify your tone, speed, and volume.

To tell the story in an engaging manner you will want to vary your voice in terms of speed, volume, tone, cadence. If you speak only in one tone (monotone) you'll bore your listeners, no matter how interesting the story itself is. 

You want your tone to match the tone of the story. For example, you don't want to speak confidingly when you're telling an epic tale but you wouldn't want your voice to get all

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epic if you were narrating a humorous scene of the folktale, or a light fluffy romance.

Make sure that you're narrating slowly. When you read aloud, or tell a story to an audience, you want to speak more slowly than you would if you were simply having a conversation. Speaking slowly allows you to capture your audience and allows them to fully appreciate the story.

You want to project your voice, but you don't want to shout. Breathe and speak from your diaphragm. As an exercise to help you figure out how to do this: stand up straight with your hand on your abdomen. Breathe in and breathe out, feeling your stomach rise and fall as you do this. Count up to ten as you inhale, then count down from ten on your exhale. Your abdomen should start to relax.

You will want to speak from that relaxed state.

Speak clearly.

Plenty of people don't speak properly or clearly enough when they're trying to narrate.

You want to make sure that your audience can hear and understand what you're saying.

Avoid mumbling, or speaking too quietly. 

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Articulate your sounds correctly. Articulation basically means pronouncing sounds properly, rather than pronouncing words. The sounds to focus on pronouncing are: b, d, g, dz (j in jelly), p, t, k, ts, (ch in chilly).

Emphasizing these sounds will make your speaking more clear for your audience.

Pronounce words correctly. Make sure that you know what all the words in your story or poem mean and how to say them properly. If you have trouble remembering the pronunciation write up a little guide for yourself next to the word, so that you can say it right when you're narrating.

Avoid "umms" and placeholder words such as "like." Although fine for regular conversation,

these words will make you sound less confident in your narration and will distract your audience.

1. Stress the proper parts of the story You want to make sure that your audience understands the most important parts of the folktale. Because you're narrating aloud you'll need to show them these parts with your voice. 

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Sinking your voice into quiet tones and leaning forward to engage your audience for important parts of the story can be a great way to intrigue them. Make sure that you're still projecting even if you're speaking more quietly and carefully.

When your folktale is in a poetic, epic text with rimes, you have to take care of the specific stresses written into their structure.

This means paying attention to how the poetic text is formatted (what the meter is) so that you know what syllables to stress in your narration.

2. Pause in the appropriate places.

You want to avoid barreling through your narration. Reading or telling a story or poem aloud is not a race. Instead, make sure that you pause at appropriate points so that your audience can fully absorb what they're hearing. 

Make sure you pause after a particularly humorous or emotional part of your narration to allow your audience time to react. Try to avoid skipping over the important parts of the narrative without a pause. For example: if you're telling a humorous story, you might pause as you build up to the punch line, so people start laughing as they see where the story is heading.

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Many times punctuation is a good place to have a pause. When you're reading poetry out loud, make sure that you aren't pausing at the ends of the lines, but instead where the punctuation (comma, periods, etc.) designates a pause.

3. Set the mood.

When you're narrating something (a story, a poem, a joke) you want to make sure that you set the right mood. This means setting up the story's place and time, telling it so that the audience feels like they're there and giving the story immediacy. 

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Give a little background to the story. What is the setting of it? What is the timing (did it happen in your life? someone else's? is this is a story from long ago?)? All these things can help solidify the narrative in your audience's minds.

Tell from the proper point-of-view. Is this your story, did it happen to you? Someone you know? Is it a story people are going to be familiar with (like Cinderella, for example)?

Make sure you're telling the story from the right point-of-view.

If you're telling a story, especially one that happened to you, rather than narrating from a written story or poem, you want to tell it in present tense. This makes the narrative more immediate for your audience and sucks them into the story more easily.

4. Have the right story structure.

When you're narrating a story, especially one you've come up with yourself or has been related to you, you want to ensure you have a story structure that will interest your audience. People have been telling and narrating stories for thousands of years, so

there are a few parameters that can make your story better. 

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Your story should follow a cause/effect structure, no matter what the story is. This means that something happens and then something else is the effect of the cause, the first thing. Think about it with the word because. "Because of the cause, the effect happened."

For example: your comedic story is triggered by you spilling water on the floor. That's the cause, the effect is that you slip on it in the climax of the story. "Because you spilled water on the floor earlier, you slipped on it when you were playing tag."

Introduce the conflict early. The conflict and the resolution of the conflict is what keeps your audience interested in the story. Taking too much time introducing it, or veering away from it too often, will reduce your audience's interest. For example: if you were telling the story of Cinderella, you don't want to go on and on about her life before the step-family arrives. The step-family are the conflict in the story, so they need to be introduced early.

5. Share the right details.

Details can make or break a narrative. If you share too many details you'll overwhelm your audience, or bore them. Too few details and your audience won't get much of a feel for the narrative. 

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Choose details that are relevant to the outcome of the story. To use Cinderella as an example again: you don't need to give a minute description of every chore she has to do for the step-evils, but descriptions of the chores her step-mom gives her so she can't go to the ball are important because the hinder the resolution of the story.

You can also provide some interesting or humorous details sprinkled through the narrative. Don't overwhelm your audience

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with these, but a few can get some laughs or provide a deeper interest in the narrative.

Avoid being too vague with your details. In Cinderella's case if you don't tell the audience who is throwing the ball, or where the dress and slippers come from, you'll simply confuse your listeners.

6. Stay consistent within your story.

The tale you're narrating might have dragons and magic that can take a person instantly from one place to another, but as long as it's consistent your audience can suspend disbelief. Now, however, if you add a spaceship to the mix without previous hint of science-fiction, you'll throw your audience out of the story. 

You also want to make sure that the characters in your story act consistently as well. If you have a character that begins the story being super timid, they're probably not going to immediately confront their deadbeat dad without a lot of character development.

7. Have the right length.

It's hard to determine what the right length for a story or poem is. That's something that you'll have to decide for yourself, but there are definitely some things that you should consider about the length. These can help you decide how long to make it. 

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A shorter story is easier to carry off, especially if you're just beginning with narration. It still takes time to make sure you have all the details right and that you hit the right tone, the right speed, and so on.

If you are going to tell a long story make sure that it needs to be long and that it isn't boring. Sometimes you can cut details to make the long story shorter and snappier,

therefore making it more interesting.

8. Use your voice appropriately.

Two of the biggest problems that people make when they're trying to narrate are speaking too quickly and not varying their voice. These two problems tend to go together; since it's hard to vary you're voice when you're flying through your narration at the speed of light. 

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Watch your breathing and your pauses, if you're worried about speaking too quickly. If you aren't taking deep, slow breaths you're probably going too fast. If you aren't pausing, then you are definitely going to fast and your audience will have difficulty keeping up.

Make sure that you're using inflections on words and syllables, so that you aren't simply speaking in one tone. This is one of the biggest ways to keep your audience's interest, even if the story itself isn't the most interesting.

9. Get to the story.

Another problem is not getting to the story quickly enough and taking too many detours during the story. The occasional aside isn't a problem, especially if it's informative or humorous. Otherwise, stick to the main story, because that's what your audience wants to hear about. 

Avoid the "pre-ramble." When you start your narration, do the briefest introduction of yourself and the work as possible. Your audience doesn't want to hear how the story came to you in a dream, etc. and etc. They want to hear the story.

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Don't ramble during the story. Keep to the

basic bones of the story and don't go off onto other memories, or other immensely funny things that you just thought of. Too many side rambles and you're going to lose your audience. 

Whether you are telling a story to pitch a product or to entertain, consider adding a personal touch. A personal touch will give your pitch the “real” factor. This can be delivered in the form of a testimonial. If you are creating a story to entertain, draw on your own life experiences to add to the story.

This will make your story feel more authentic.

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If you find your story lacking, try changing your point of view. Third person point of views tend to be the most common. Try telling your story from a first person point of view. Maybe we are seeing things from the point of view of a small child or an animal who doesn’t fully understand everything that is happening around them. Experiment with point of view to bring an exciting edge to your story.

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Get your audience involved right away by starting your story with a bang. Try opening with a mystery, in the middle of your story, or from a distance. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t worry. You can always go back and tweak the beginning once you finish your story.

10. Don’t forget that before you start you have to answer some crucial questions What is the purpose of this story?

Is it to entertain?

To relay a message?

To teach a lesson?

Whatever your purpose of telling your story is, keep it in the forefront of your mind as you are going.

11. Avoid sharing too much opinion/insight /moral.

When you're narrating a story, whether it's your own or another's, your audience does not want your moral insight. Think about the stories that you remember from your childhood (like Aesop's fables). Most, if not all, had some moral. Do you even remember it, or do you remember only the story?

Stories are built on facts, the facts of the narrative. Following these facts will provide the moral or opinion or insight whether or not you articulate what it actually is.

12. Practice.

This seems like such an obvious step, but so often this is where people fall down when trying to narrate. You have to practice before you can effectively and entertainingly narrate something, whether it's a written poem or story, or a story you're telling that comes from your own life.

The more you know your material, the more confident you'll appear when you're narrating. The more confident you are in your narration, the more interest your garner from your audience.

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