“Fusing art, politics, and history, Riefenstahl had composed a symphonic ode to domination. For the American filmmakers, living in a rowdy democracy, no such grand synthesis was possible, or even imaginable. But how do you create war propaganda in a democratic country? Do you just…
Category: Storytraining
In the Cracked.com article “5 Ways Modern Men are Trained to Hate Women,” David Wong proposes that the stories we tell teach men that society owes them a hot chick. He writes: We were told this by every movie, TV show, novel, comic book, video…
Mundane details ground a story, making it feel real and vivid. Food is one of the most versatile and fun of these mundane details to include. Here are a few things that descriptions of food can accomplish in your story: Pleasure: Just reading about good…
This article proposes that job seekers can make themselves more memorable and compelling by forming a (true-to-life) story out of their experiences. I suspect this holds true, but I would add that it’s crucial to make the company you’re applying for integral to the story,…
“This is your church,” the director said, gesturing to the stage. I was working as a stage manager at the now-defunct Bar Harbor Theater in Maine. We were on break, and the subject of religion had come up. My friend and coworker had asked whether…
A story, to be a story, must have some sort of tension, conflict, and ultimately fear. Beauty fears the Beast. We fear Cinderella will live out her life in servitude. Juliet and Romeo fear their families’ reactions, but also fear being torn apart. In The…
This post is brought to you in part by Mrs. B’s Haunted Blog Tour: Welcome, tour-ists! You can find a general introduction to Storytraining below. If you follow this blog and comment on this post, you’ll be entered into (or get an additional entry in)…
…to any who have found their way here from Mrs. B’s! Welcome to Storytraining, a blog full of techniques, news, and inspirations for all disciplines of storytellers: actors, bloggers, class clowns, conversationalists …and the list goes on. Please take a look around: I’d love to…
What does water have to do with storytelling? The short answer is that, surely, an element as integral to life as water has to do with pretty much everything. Another would be that water is often a symbolic element, but I prefer to use such…
Today, just a link. If you have a Facebook account, check out this note: Recently, I had dinner with some lovely people and the conversation turned, as it so often does these days, to politics and economics. I mentioned the importance of arts funding, and…