The Art of Storytelling
People have heard and listened to tales since the earliest ages, for storytelling is one of the ways men share their experiences. By explaining an occurrence that we have experienced, we will replicate something that occurred in another time or place in other people's minds.
Good stories have captured men's
imaginations since ancient times.
Brought to life by the skill of the
storyteller-who may combine the
roles of historian, critic, and
prophet-they have always provided
a unique source of entertainment
and instruction. Today, the art of
the storyteller remains essentially
the same. Like the great 19th-
century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy,
who is seen here telling a story to
his grandchildren, he must be able
to hold his audience spellbound
from beginning to end.
But recording incidents isn't the whole narrative process. For example, a list of Alexander the Great's conquests will have nothing on a story's enchantment. Yet when we are told that the renowned philosopher Aristotle was his tutor and that Alexander fought his first fight before he was 19, our interest is sparked and we want to know "what happened next." It depends on the storyteller's art that our attention is retained until we actually learn how Alexander became ruler of the whole Eastern world. It is his ability to select and present incidents and characters that make for us the tale of Alexander, or any tale, true. The tools used by the writer derive from individual thoughts and perceptions that we all recognize: happiness and sadness, love and hate, good and bad. These can form the base of fictional tales, or help to revive the past.Since a story offers the hearers joy above all, it can be used for other reasons with great success. It has developed into an incredibly flexible instrument from basic beginnings. It was used by people to educate, inform, and moralize; to formulate views, to mock, and to foretell the future. The story's multiple types have evolved patterns of their own, which are still evolving. In this segment, we will discuss some of the various aspects of storytelling, particularly those written forms such as the novel and the short story, and say something about biography and autobiography.
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