the fallen storyteller

it is good to recognize ones strengths and weaknesses. it levels you. it makes life more realistic, amidst this crazed world of illusions. I know now, for sure, that I do not make a good storyteller, not an oral storyteller anyhow. I can’t really tell stories. the presence of a physical audience inhibits. me. the one who has never really been good with people. a social butterfly with clipped wings. the method of the oral storytelling inhibits my thought process, that which is usually left loose during the moment of its construction. all is jumbled up and there is no Goffman’s ‘back’ stage for me to run to, for all becomes part of the theatrical performance. i then leave it up to my medium to provide for its own 'front' stage.

a story requires a multi-dimensional layered perspective, one that does not give up its inner secrets instantly. the moral of the story should only be revealed in the end. elements of climax or the crescendo to a plot are narrative tools to be properly crafted by the narrator to deliver a story that sustains the interest of the audience- an audience who has been spoilt by the bombardment of the visual enterprise. and so, the revelation: I am not a good oral storyteller. I am however, better with the written and visual media. this is because they are secondary media that exists, in itself, as a coded form. a picture is a story already told, as it has been captured out of the series of happenings that we call life, events. and so, it is already packaged. it only has to be delivered, viewed, to fulfill its purpose as narrative. the form of the written word mirrors the latter. the clever and painstaking choice of words, each after the other denotes the process inherent within- masked. and so, like the photograph, it estranges the storyteller from its audience, to a certain extent. I am not dismissing oral storytelling as being a one-dimensional narrative form that requires no coding process, for it certainly does. I’m just saying that I suck at it, or to put it nicely, i am not well-versed with its method.

I started with the form of the written word, and then onto the visual and perhaps, that is where I should keep myself parked in, for now.