Storytelling

I could easily relate to all the basic concepts of storytelling as in India we grow up listening and telling stories. Storytelling is an inherent part of Indian culture. While listening to the students I could relate to some of the mistakes that people were making because I had made all those mistakes at some point in my life. During my early schooling years, I had a fear of speaking in front of people. Whenever I was put under spotlight, I used to get nervous and my voice broke but the only lesson I learned every time was to keep going. Storytelling is an art and like any other art it requires practice to develop it. As the years passed, I was able to overcome my fears and was good at public speaking but I soon realized that telling stories effectively requires you to build a connection with audience in a very short period. Hence, this session reminded me of my experience and all the things that I learned to tell good stories.

Telling a short story is a little more difficult as you need to organize your thoughts and choose the details that are relevant and also keeping in mind the details, which acts as linkages in your story. When I was thinking about my story, I found it difficult to organize my thoughts and be able to tell a story as effectively in 2 minutes as I would have done in maybe 10 minutes. My major learning from the session was to structure a short story so that you do not loose the main theme of the story and also deliver your thoughts in line. Another learning was to be calm and passionate about your story otherwise the audience would not give you the required attention.