Catching up week 1: The Book

As promised, for the next several weeks I'll catch you up on the busy-ness of my life. You can read the whole list (though I may not cover each topic in a stand-alone post) here.

It's taken many years and several false starts, but I have finally published a storytelling book. From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great Story is a compendium of essays on a wide range of storytelling topics. I'm sharing my 25+ years of experience in a conversational, intimate collection that covers practical topics and some of the lesser known aspects of being a working artist. I am delighted with the way it's turned out, in no small part thanks to Sean Buvala and the Small Tooth Dog Publishing Group. Working with them was a terrific experience and I've learned so much about myself as storyteller, writer, and human being. At some point I will write about my own emotional journey with this book and the subsequent marketing (because writing it is only a small part of the work) but for now, I wanted to tell you about it.

From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great Story is unlike most other storytelling books. It's a cross between a dictionary with short, practical discussions on a wide variety of topics, and a storytelling memoir which includes many personal recollections to help illustrate different points of the craft. I was inspired in part by Anne Lamott's approach in Bird by Bird, which reinforced the idea that you cannot separate the teacher from the material. This seems especially true in an art like storytelling and even truer for a storyteller like me.

My great hope is that you will find From Audience to Zeal to be informative, instructive, and interesting. I wrote it imagining we were chatting about storytelling over a cup of tea; I want to be your storytelling ally. It is intentionally conversational and intimate. I cannot separate myself from the way I talk about storytelling and I didn't want to struggle to be less present in the text.

So how do you use it? There are several approaches and each has its own advantages.

1. Use it like a dictionary. As you continue your storytelling journey you will encounter questions, this is inevitable and good, since it means you're trying new things. When you do, pick up Audience to Zeal and look up whatever is puzzling you. You may not find an exact entry that addresses your concern, but I bet you'll find something related. For example, you may have an upcoming gig with elders in a memory care unit. While the forthingcoming workbook addresses exactly this scenario, Audience to Zeal does not have an entry specifically for this. 
Instead, you might read the entries for audience, interruptions, and set lists. Those three together will give you a good head start for your gig. You might be working on a presentation for your team. Again, while the forthcoming workbook will address this, Audience to Zeal does not. You could read the entries on applied storytelling, movement and gesture, anecdote, and sensory detail for a pretty good start.

2. Read it cover-to-cover. I suspect most readers will dive right in and start reading. Each essay is both independent and interwoven with other concepts from the book. If you read it cover-to-cover you may encounter the same illustrative story used several times, but in different ways. This was intentional, because it demonstrates how very flexible stories are and how important it is to take the audience and context into account. Reading it cover-to-cover will give you a mountain of resources, ideas, and exercises to use in your storytelling practice. It will also tell you quite a bit about me and my approach to the world. Reading it this way is perhaps more like sitting and chatting than using it like a dictionary.

3. Use it as a tool to become a better storyteller. You can think of Audience to Zeal as a kind of prompt book. Each week, or on whatever schedule works for you, open up to an entry. This could be at random or sequentially. Read it through, then spend some time working on that particular component of storytelling. Write an essay about it. Think about what you agree with or don't find useful. Try the exercises it may mention. Talk it out with a friend. See how this topic is already part of your storytelling practice, could be incorporated or may never be included. Ask yourself why.


Most of all, use the book in whatever way works best for you. I truly hope you learn something from it, maybe disagree with parts of it, gain clarity on what storytelling is for you, and that it helps you continue your journey. I'd love to hear your story about Audience to Zeal and how it affected your approach to the art and craft of storytelling.

Next week I'm going to spend some time musing on the challenges of being a working artist and tell you about some of my new projects. Thanks for coming along with me as I return to blogging.

----------------------------------
www.laurapacker.com
www.thinkstory.com
patreon.com/laurapacker
(c)2018 Laura S. Packer