Telling Stories

Finding Stories Students Want to Tell

Stephen Brandon
English Department

The tales are like rays of light, taking their colors from the medium though which they pass.
W. A. Bone, Children’s Stories and How to Tell Them To paraphrase what Aristotle said about learning how to argue, "If you want to find a story you want to tell, you go to a place where stories are being told, and you listen to the storytellers."

Somewhere behind each printed story stands a storyteller, but most of today’s printed stories aren’t meant for oral story telling. So, if you want to find a story to tell, go to collections of stories by oral story tellers, collections from traditional tellers, or, if you get the chance, go hear a live or recorded story teller. Some of your best stories will come from your own traditions, but most tales today are revived from print.

Advice:

Investigate the cultures whose tales excite you.
Think of digging up your favorite childhood stories and reviving it.
As you read or listen, start a list of stories you might want to tell. For each story, jot down the story’s title, book from which it comes, author, and publication information.
When you find a story that excites you, photo-copy it.
Think about your audience, and the work you want your stories to do for them. Note that you never want to reproduce the exact words of a teller; you want to reshape their words for your audience.

Sources and subjects useful to your search:

Ethnographers, ethnohistorians, and ethnomusicologists.
Folklorists
The National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS)

Below, I've listed a short bibliography of story collections. To find them, you may need to go to libraries other than Jackson—community libraries are often a good source. Chase, Richard. The Jack Tales. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.

Dorson, Richard M., general editor. Folktales of the World Series. U of Chicago P. [Offers a selection of folktales for individual countries.]

Jacobs, Joseph. English Folk and Fairy Tales. New York: The G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898.

The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folktale Library.

Robinson, Adjai. Singing Tales of Africa. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.

Tracy, Hugh. The Lion on the Path and Other African Stories. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1967.