How to tell stories?
You have been reading, listening many many stories from your childhood.
Story means nothing but sequence of real or fictional events. Some stories may be real , some may related to real incidents or some are totally fictional , imaginary.
Usually story starts with....Once upon a time, or there was one king . It is very simple to tell a story. It's very common thing, nothing special in telling a story. Isn't it?
So so ....Sorry.. but I am not agree with this sentence.
Yeah...its really tough work. Telling story is an art. It is not a easy task. You should have such potential to make the listener to feel that story. You have to engage the listener to experience it . You should tell the story in such a way that listener should not deviate or feel bored while listening your story.
If you are saying the well known story then also the way of telling story should attract the listener to listen to your story. Everyone should feel interesting to listen to your story.
Here are some points which will help you to narrate a story.
1. Create atmosphere- Before telling a story you can start with topic related to story.
Suppose you are going to say a story about any animal then speak about jungle, animals, birds...then come to your name of story. With such a start the listener develops an interest in the story.
2. Enthusiasm - Enthusiasm is vital part while narrating a story. It attracts everyone's attention to the story.
3. Energy- It is another aspect of enthusiasm, which shove off the boredom and brings happiness in listener's mind. So narration should be filled with energy.
4. Excitement and curiosity - Narrator should be able to create excitement while narrating the story. So use the phrases like ....then do you know what happened? Or ask the listener can you guess what happened? Try to place the listener in one of the characters of the story.
5. Easy language - Narrate the story in simple, easy language . This will help the listener to understand the story easily.
7. Expressions- The most powerful element of story telling is an expressive narration. Some time your face speaks more than the words. So according to the situation in the story change your facial expressions.
8. Body language- With the facial expressions the movement of your hands is also important
For example : make action of crying for sad situations. Give claps or high-five for happy situation.
9. Voice modulations- To make your story more effective, narrate it with different voice modulations. You can use different voices according to the characters in the story. Shouting, yelling, laughing, crying all these emotions you can add as per the content of your story.
10. Create fun - By all these aspects you can create more fun and gain listener's attention. Apart from that use properties to make your story vivid or live.
If your story telling is preplanned then gather the properties as per your convenience. And if you are telling without any plan you can create properties by nearby available things.
For example:
For simple crow story ..instead of pot you can get a glass or jar as a property. You can get stones nearby the house. If stones aren't available then take marbles from toys.
These are effective ways to make your story live and vivid.
Thank you