September, 2015
CREATIVE STORYTELLING: HOW TO CONNECT INTO YOUR OWN CREATIVE STORY!
Trust me, you are creative! You are connecting one creative memory to the next for each of your day’s stories.
The big story these days is “story”. So how is story defined? Most of us know story has a beginning, middle, and end. That is the structure of a story.
What makes one story so much more memorable than another story? It is the WAY a story is told as well as if the story has emotional truth or evidence. “Evidence” in this definition has to do with a resulting pull on emotions rather than a body of items or things that point to solving an event. The mystery and pull of great stories is in the way content connects with emotional effect…and that is where your creative resource, your imagination comes in.
Creativity turns a transcript into a story.
Great story is a creation of See, Connect, then Create. This is the way creative folks and artists process their stories. You see something, store it away until you find another item that connects to your previous memory, put these together and create a new thing, story, product. It’s connecting the experiences and synthesizing them into new possibilities, creations…or story. We all do this, it is becoming aware of what our “gut” memories are doing and let it create rather than cancel out the connections. This “connection” is called imagination. It is real because your experiences are real!
In the business world, we often encourage the listing of connections without the synthesis of experiences, which in turn creates a transcript; not good story. This is shutting down imagination and is the difference between listing “features” rather than unique benefits!
Change is a necessary component of a great story.
The heroine is tied to the railroad tracks and in the distance you can hear the train’s whistle as it barrels forward, on its way to the same spot our lady is tied tightly. What if there is no dashing hero racing to save the day…no change in sight…splat. Change can be the healer and the creator of tension in our stories. In a great story there is a need for change (to release tension), for positive action that helps find a happy ending. Change is merely a process of tension and release. Creative change uses some fun via imagination to tell the story of both.
In business (and in life) if you are feeling safe using your creativity and imagination in ways to both tell and establish your story of process, new ideas, teachings…then your story will have the ebb and flow of great communications and dazzling outcomes. Stories can take creative risks throughout their telling, esp. at the end. The creative part is being able to be comfortable with making some mistakes (tension), to try different “stories” in order to get to the story that is your “just right” (release).
What we call mistakes are all part of being a creative storyteller. As Scott Adams mentions: “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
The art of storytelling.
From time beginning folks have been recording their stories with art from the cave man showing a good hunt (all hunters back safe into the cave), Egyptian records of deeds, wealth, and gods inside their temples and pyramids, da Vinci drawing out his flying machine and showing folks the mathematics of movement in his Vitruvian Man, to present day rotating and blinking building tall giant billboards and messaging. People seem to HAVE to tell their story in visual form!
Metrics, efficiencies, analytics are actually support characters in your story…and tend to hang out in the “middle”of the tales told. These are what I call the chart and graph children. Some rise to imaginative proportions with relevant subject matter making up their visual description (like a pizza pie chart for fast food consumption numbers).
The real memory and influencing parts of a story are the beginnings and the endings. That’s where “key” visuals come into play…visuals that express either the emotion or context of what is being told or written. And this is NOT “See Dick Run” illustration…it is illustration that tells a story without needing words. Great book cover art tells a story to tease or express the story line of what is inside and give the title some wonder and mystery…you have to read the book to find out more!
That is where my passion comes in…quick sketch visual storytelling. Turn your message into creative storytelling with the storyteller being visual communications that have universal translation for any language, any situation. Connect up and use your imagination and express your creativity, genius, success by communicating in visual story! My purpose is to ignite your stories, to build heart bonfires by drawing out what fuels and celebrates your heart’s story.
Does your story have a sequel?
Yes, it does! All great stories leave you wanting to have more. And yes, your imagination can add the creative pull that will make your stories radiate their brilliance.
Give me a call and let’s get started on your storytelling.
Thanks for your time and sharing!
I’m Paula Brown; Visual Scribe / Feng Shui practitioner / Author / Animal Communicator. I am a visual storyteller showing you how to IGNITE YOUR STORY, YOUR ENERGY, YOUR WELL-BEING for both business and home. My site is: www.chilightful.com Connect on: LinkedIn, Twitter. and you can “like” my facebook page at: www.facebook.com/ChiLightful
