April 2010

• 2010-04-30

  Natural storytelling II – Hierarchy and meshwork

  This is part two of a four part post on natural and purposeful storytelling. To read the four parts in order, see: The wicked attractions of hierarchy Okay, so now (if you haven’t read part one of this post, you’d better do so now) I’ve primed the pump with two stories about the seductive power Read more

• 2010-04-30

  Natural storytelling IV – Solutions

  This is part four of a four part post on natural and purposeful storytelling. To read the four parts in order, see: I’ve been pondering a long list of possible solutions to the problem (of people not believing their stories are real stories) for months and years now. My online software Rakontu is an attempt Read more

• 2010-04-30

  Natural storytelling I – The sweetness of disgrace

  This post is part one of a final (probably) wrap-up to the issue of natural versus purposeful storytelling in contemporary society. The essay turned out to be so long that it overtook Blogger’s capacity to keep up with my typing, so I’ve split it into four parts (even though I posted them all at the Read more

• 2010-04-30

  Natural storytelling III – The authorities of story

  This is part three of a four part post on natural and purposeful storytelling. To read the four parts in order, see: The authorities in the story world, the keepers of the hierarchy, have always managed the official stories and decided what was a story and what was not. Several hundred years ago these were Read more

• 2010-04-07

  The best questions about stories – more

  This is a follow-up post to “The best questions about stories” with a few more thoughts. I said in that post that I’ve observed four dominant factors that make questions about stories work. Since then I thought of two more factors (and also at the end I have a little more advice on reducing the Read more

• 2010-04-05

  The best questions about stories

  This is another “came up in conversation” post, based on several recent conversations about asking people to reflect on stories they have just told. At this point I’ve seen people ask questions about stories (and then watched the responses come in) more than a few dozen times, and some fairly predictable patterns are starting to Read more

• 2010-04-03

  Transparency in story listening: when to say what

  In a conversation the other day the issue came up of what to tell people about a story project in the planning stages. That got me thinking that I have not yet written about the issue of transparency in story listening projects. What should you tell people when you want them to tell you stories? Read more