The Possibilities of Storytelling + Visualization Exercises
Learning Objectives
- Participants get a quick overview of the history of storytelling as a tool for passing information, archiving the present, and ideological persuasion. By the end of the class, participants would have identified the core message and psychologies they have and how to convey them in storytelling.
The Possibilities of Storytelling + Visualization Exercises
Tutor: Tj Benson
Very useful advise. Thank you so much. Funny enough I recently made a short film/reflection in motion about the inherent timelessness of transits and in-betweenness. Although I think I’m a storyteller, I have struggled to find my voice as a writer for a very long time. For me, writing is just a vessel among many. I still struggle but I think I’m slowly starting to embrace my complex experience on and of paper. After going through my blog, I’m realizing that although I haven’t been able to properly articulate this in a piece (yet), I enjoy a mix of experimental writing and poetry. Recurrent themes revolve around strangerness, home, love, pain, and the beauty of abstraction. The limits and depths of my human experience in a beautifulugly world.
Dear Fanidh, we are very interested in talking about your experience with the short film and we believe you are in the right place. Please get in touch after the end of the workshop tomorrow, okay?
Thank you Eba, my short films are usually nonnarrative with no obvious characters and dialogue. I think so far, this has been the best way for me to express the complexities of human experiences as I often feel words can be limiting. Would be amazing to talk more and get some advice/feedback. How do I reach out? Through Janice?
Have learned something especially on identifying your voice.Through this it becomes very simple for me as a writer not loose meaning of my imagination.writing is in me .Have enjoyed the lesson short and sweet
I have learned a lot about the significance of storytelling, and how being authentic will make me a better writer.
🙂 !
Food for thought for me. looking at superstitions in my culture that have never been captured. Identifying my voice-the unique voice of me.
As with a fingerprint or a retina scan, only you can give a specific slant to your own African culture. The rest of ur are eager to read it.
This is timely to me. I have noted the reason as to why I sometime face writers block. I intend to put all these exercises into practice. I am usually drawn to writing on religion and the Kenyan culture, now I know why….Thanks
😀 The world is your oyster, Dorcas. Write those unexpected stories.
Totally enjoying this discussion, I have always enjoyed oral narratives, they form an amazing base for our african short stories. Most of the short stories I have enjoyed doing are based on stories told to me when I was a young girl by older relatives.
I am beginning to find my VOICE. Thank you Benson
😀
Quite a powerful start of the day. Understanding my voice is indeed important for me in curving up a niche for myself in the creative writing space. I personally am inclined to writing about politics and political events because I grew up in a highly politically opinionated household. I ended up studying politics at the University and the knowledge and experience has informed my thought processes and writing.
When I was growing up, oral narratives from our parents were so interesting and the moral implications were never discarded. It serves as an African traditional way of educating young ones. If these oral narratives can be put into writing form, it would be more exciting as another way to preserving our traditional method of education.
Correct. These memorable oral narratives were very organic and rooted, we must study them and re-tell, reinterpret them while telling our own new, organic, modern stories for the future.
That part about finding the writers voice has really spoken to me. Thank you for the very well articulated lesson and hope that I can be able to put it into practice
We look forward to the literary fruits of this lesson in the coming days.
Wow! Thank you so much for this. The voice. The voice should be allowed to speak. I’ll take that home.
The voice should be allowed to speak. Absolutely right, Mohammed Dikko.
That’s a really interesting class. Tj said so many things I have been longing to hear. Thank you. I now know my voice and have realised its uniqueness. I have always wanted to write a story telling the world about so many things they may not have known about my early experience at the emergence of insurgency in the Northeast, particularly Yobe and Borno, states that I am linked to by birth and by origin. From the class, I have realised even a stronger need to do so. There is a need to not only tell me experiences but to archive them for future generations. The class was really amazing. Thank you for the opportunity.
This comment has really made us very happy. We will convey this to the tutor. Thank you.
I find that I draw inspiration from love, nature and seasons and the everyday lives of ordinary people amongst others.
These are very rich wells to draw stories from, they give and give. . .
Lovely presentation, loved the parts about authors being in control and writing on our unrevealed cultural superstitions. I have always believed that creative writing is more about the reader than the writer because the greatest challenge as an author is getting the reader to see things from your perspective. Creating a psychological image on the mind of a reader that manifests your words is not easy. Thanks a lot Sir and see you in Module 2.
🙂
The possibilities of story telling are endless but majorly focusing on a different point of view away from the stereo types brings it back to life as we have been told that stories can also spread propaganda so maybe as writers we should do a little research or a whole lot pertaining the subject matter we are writing about .
I’ve tried the finding my voice exercise and here’s what I came up with:
“Why is it so cold yet it is sunny outside, I feel so light it’s odd, or maybe this is what peace feels like but wait I can’t feel a thing , huh! For a second I almost forgot that I’m not part of the living anymore ,I forgot that I can’t breathe because I don’t have to well that’s my life now rather my death”
Indeed, Mercy. Nuance and diversity are important because society at large and our communities are diverse and complimentary.
No video is displayed for me to see.
Please is this a general issue?
It seems to be just you, Joy. The video is there. Try refreshing the page perhaps? Or logging in from a different device?
With matters concerning my writers’ voice, well, I was able to do something like this:
“…In the end we will know,
Light never keeps a secret about its shine,
But it has also known darkness since it has no memory of shadows.
A shadow remains invisible in the dark,
Because it has seen the soul’s tug of war within the body,
Remaining in contact with the soul when we dream to experience the beauty a poisoned chalice has been taught to cloak…”
That came from the 3rd novel I’m currently polishing up, and some things were mentioned about finding your writers’ voice which I feel can help a great deal in keeping you focused enough to finish a story
have just realized have been writing about the same theme in nearly most of my scripts.And i think i know what my voice is,also bout being you,not writing the way some other writer does goes a long way.Thanks alot TJ
About the exercise ,spmething that draws me to that particular theme i realize is a connection i have with certain elements in my life and thank through you i have undertood my voice
Absolutely correct!
I have totally visualised my voice. What I’ve seen is totally unexpected. It isn’t what I’m inclined to usually. I hope I’ll be able to walk confidently in it.
Please do. We are hungry to hear you!
The episode is verily enlightening. Knowing who we are and living for who we are is true liberation for any writer.
The authorial voice is important no doubt thanks for shedding more light on it