There’s a Story I Know
Write a story to be read out loud, a family story you’ve told many times before.
Film still from Netflix series Ozark: Season One. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2021
There’s a Story I Know
Usually, I start with a picture first, then I write the words.
This week for some reason the picture isn't there. Not yet. It will be by the time I finish writing this piece.
Have you read The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Thomas King? If you're unfamiliar, the book is a collection of lectures King gave as part of the Massey Lecture Series, broadcast on CBC radio in 2003. You can read the book, of course, however, I'd recommend listening to the lectures if you can. The words King wrote for his lectures were intended to be spoken, the tradition of oral story-telling an important way of life for Indigenous Peoples.
When my kids were quite a bit younger, we took summer holidays to France in our camper van. During the long drives between campsites, we listened to two audiobooks over and over: A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond read by Stephen Fry and The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling read by Geoffrey Palmer.
If you've ever tried to read any of the Just So Stories you may have found it tricky. The rhythm of the words seems off-kilter, the sentences written in different times for children living in a Victorian colonial world. Listening to Geoffrey Palmer read them was a revelation. His wonderful narration imparts all the stories with enormous depth and humour. His intonation adding the perfect rhythm and nuance to every story. Now, when I read the stories I hear Palmer’s voice in my head. I understand the way the words are meant to sound. Some stories we are meant to hear out loud.
This week, think about a story you know, a story you know really well. Your story might be a family story, or one that's deeply personal or one that you might have told many times to friends or at school or written about on a blog or in a newspaper. Maybe it’s a story you’ve never told anyone before. Write that story. But first, write your story to be read silently from the page. When you’ve finished, write the story again but this time write it to be read out loud to an audience of one or one hundred. You decide.
How are they different? Which do you prefer? Is one way harder than the other? Do you prefer to read stories or listen to them?
The Public and the Private
“...I think of oral stories as public stories and written stories as private stories. I know I will generate disagreement on this point. After all, we are surrounded by books that can be read by anyone. We have public libraries, public bookstores. There would appear to be nothing private about Shakespeare or Jane Austen or Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Margaret Atwood. These writers and their works are known to the world. But the act of reading is a private act. And no matter how many people may have read a book or an article or a poem or a short story, each person reads that story themselves, by themselves, whereas oral stories generally have an audience in which there is a group dynamic. Though it could be argued that both reading and listening, in the end, are individual acts.
And then there’s television.
So I’m probably wrong.
Nevertheless, it’s a distinction I make. Oral stories. Written stories. Public stories. Private stories. Stories I can tell out loud. Stories I cannot.”p.153-154, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Thomas King
Do let me know how you get on. I'd love to know your thoughts.
Until next time.
