Rethinking a Storytelling Workshop
A few reflections about Visual Storytelling in the light of what I’m learning from Manga.
In time, I put together a number of workshops “ready to go” at any time. Among them, the Visual Storytelling one is the most popular.
In my journey through the magic world of Manga, I realized that the contents of that workshop needed an update. Not that it wasn’t effective, but I definitely wanted to slightly change its structure.
Today I would like to share the main points of the new workshop’s structure.
A Story has a Rhythm
Stand up Comedians are the masters of this.
Now we want to understand what are the elements of a story that we can use to create a rhythm, those pieces that, once ordered and spaced, define the pulse.
The Elements of a Story: Facts
A Fact is the foundation on which the narrative unfolds. It allows the storyteller to trigger the “IF THIS then THAT or ELSE” mechanism that creates the beat.
However, despite the fact that we can probably tell a story only depicting Facts (no pun intended), there is something that “transforms” the THIS into THAT or ELSE in the eyes and minds of the audience.
The Elements of a Story: Events
An Event is that something that happens on the base of facts.
Depending on the “tempo”, there is a distance between Events and Facts, they must be close enough to catch and keep up the attention, and yet, far enough to avoid a boring over detailed narration.
Ok. There is one more thing: the connection between the two. What makes sure that the narrative follows the right path? What creates the interwovenness?
The driver of a Story: Transitions
This is the most important point: no matter what you tell or draw, the transitions only exist in the mind of your audience.
You can depict the THIS, you can tell the THAT, but the then is the unspoken effect of the juxtaposition of Facts and Events. A Transition fills the gaps between the pulses.
A Transition is the result of a kind of “organic alchemy” where you wisely combine the elements of your story and guide your audience along the path of the narrative.
Let me try to “walk the talk”
This is one of the first experiments I did to test my theory.
I must admit that it doesn’t always come naturally and it needs some practice.
Even though the result is not what I expected or planned, the best part is that now I have a kind of system you can use as a reference.
Take a moment and a piece of paper, just try to draw your story by creating a rhythm with events and facts.
Try to add accents and syncopation, just notice how your mind flows between the steps of your story. Even better, show/tell your story to someone else to test your rhythm.
Am I taking the effect of an event for granted?
Does the space between 2 facts leaves space for ambiguity?
Where is the accent?
Take your time to work on the rhythm before starting to draw/write.
A few links you may find interesting
Speaking of storytelling, https://playedgar.netlify.app/ this is EXTREMELY COOL (IMHO). I don't want to spoil anything and ruin the surprise for you so, just trust me and click. Let me know if you like it.
Drive & Listen : this is one of those mesmerizing and addictive, kinda useless yet a must see things: a website that lets users virtually drive around different cities in the world while listening to their local radio stations.
For the Love of Cats in Turkey : from the website “On a visit to feline-friendly Turkey, an anthropologist considers what long-standing practices of caring for cats reveal about human societies.” This is a super interesting article from the anthropology magazine https://www.sapiens.org/ .
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Until next time, take care and be happy!
Mauro
PS: a kind of Colophon
Just a few words about where you can find some of the things I do/did:
I’m inspired by this and am working on a visual story, hopefully with some of these elements.