And yet there is this surge in people looking for the "authentic experience" of listening to true stories. Witness the rise and rise of the Moth (with its annual $US6million budget) where people bare their secrets on stage or on podcast, or in spoken word nights where they do pretty much the same except with an emphasis on intonation and rhyme and a pittance of a fraction of the budget.
It is said that if you are in New York, hometown of the Moth, you can have a choice of competing, themed, prize-winning or not storytelling evenings any night of the week. Oh, New York. But we’ve got it going on here in New Zealand, too. From the Book Council’s True Stories Told Live to the Natural Born Storytellers in Christchurch to global family tales Once Upon a Sunday at the Dunedin City Library, to NZSA salon readings, to Smashing Story nights here in Wanaka, to the Tall Tales & True I have somehow gone and got myself mixed up in next week.
Some of these are story times told by professionals, but far and wide the trend is now to give open-mike-style audiences an opportunity to stand and share.
True stories are the new landlines, perhaps. They tether us, connect us — OK, wait, you’re right. That metaphor is too tenuous to push too far. And anyway, stories have always been important. Not just for us sweaty-palmed participants on a stage. But let’s say you’re trying to wriggle out of an assignment, keep alive a memory, run a country, drum up some empathy, understand a history, market or brand a thing or instil a morality; if you need to contend with any of that, then stories are where it’s at. And since that’s all of us, and the stories we tell ourselves make us who we are, here are five things to keep in mind if you’re ever passing through New York (I wish!) and/or thinking about telling a true (enough) story.
• There is a difference between true and accurate
You can get very lost down an internet hole of people discussing the semantics of this. Suffice it to say that it is accurate that the sun is going to set at 17.50 today. It is also true. It is also true that the mountains look (to me, at least) like they are folding in on duplications of themselves with a hazy shutter of mist a few minutes before the sun dips behind them. But that’s a subjective truth and probably the better sort in true (enough) stories. Just ask any politician.
• People are like fixed-up Japanese pots
Kintsukuroi is a way of repairing pottery by highlighting the flaws to make it appear more beautiful. Sometimes we’re afraid to let ragged edges into our stories, but it makes them more relatable and, therefore, more believable. People in real life and true (enough) stories don’t talk in real grammar and make congruent moves and decisions. Not even half as much as we’d like to think we do. It’s OK to be a bit broken. To jump around. Stories can be more powerful when they honestly reflect that.
• We are all the special (as "The Lego Movie" dudes said in their story)
One person’s ordinary is another person’s extraordinary. Even though we’re doing a fine (by which I mean terrible) job, generally speaking, of cultural homogenisation, there is still nobody else in your head with exactly your thoughts and turns of phrase that makes this exactly your truth to tell. But don’t take it from me. Listen to the late Alan Rickman, who said, "The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible."
Also, we have more in common than we think and stories bring that out between us. #metoo. Need I say more? Well, probably not. See below.
• True stories very rarely need to start at "Once upon a time" and end "happily ever after"
You can often start after the start and finish before the end.
"Lose the last two lines," as poet workshopper extraordinaire Jo Bell says. Or loop back. Whatever. Remember, you’re the boss of your story. And your audience are intelligent beings.
• The adrenaline
It’s better than a Gold Coast roller coaster. Even when, like me, you’re powering it on dodgy metaphors. Be like the goddess of victory, match fixing and running shoes. Tell your story. Just do it.
