The landscape as a metaphor for context within a story

I have recenlty become interested in the work of Patrick Gedes because it shows the ways in which our environment, whether a rural landscape, or a city dwelling influences our creativity, whether in our manufacturing of technology or in the creation of artistic works. He had a tremendous influence on the development of the city of Edinburgh. The natural features of the city influenced his architectural work as well as his ideas about town planning.

As I was listening to all of this at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in a joint workshop lead by Donald Smith and Bob Pegg it dawned on me that most of my preocupation had so far been on finding techniques to sketch out the macrostructure of stories to the detriment of the context of the story. I resonated very much with the need we have as storytellers to get our audiences to "see" the location where the story takes place. How to use our voice, our gestures and our body language to aid this visualisation is definitely a whole area of inquiry but, and perhaps more poignately, how do we as storytellers work our stories and develop a sense for "seeing" for ourselves, the landscape of our stories?

The physical landscape map
During the workshop we were encouraged to visualise, smell and feel the scenery. We were asked to concentrate on particular elements of the landscape that could have an influence in the visualisation that the audience would have. I found this particular exercise very fruitful, since at the moment I am working on a story from the Aztecs and I needed to visualise the famous city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). I was taken as a child by my grandmother to Zocalo, (the central square, as it was rebuilt by the Spaniards after the fall of Tenochtitlan) however, I had not really thought about how the square would have looked at the time of the Aztecs.

We were then asked to draw a map of the physical landscape of our story. I found that exercise particularly powerful. I realised that a crucial element of my story would have to be a depiction of the central square of Tenochtitlan. Just as crucial would be the canals, circling the city and providing major commercial waterways connecting the city, which was built on an island on a lake, to the mainland.
I also realised that the market was crucial to the story because the smells and sounds of the market should permeate the story.

After I finished my physical map, I could actually see the central square, with the two main pyramids and the surrounding waterways with barges. The drawing of the map, embedded the square in my mind to the point that all I have to do now, is close my eyes and "see" it. I think that I can now tell what I "see" of this once great but destroyed city, to anyone that listens to my story.


The action map
We were then asked to use our physical map, and incorporate within it specific actions or sound elements (i.e. movements, music etc) that might help the audience to visualise the environment of the story. I used this opportunity to develop the idea of using clay flutes and perhaps small percussion instruments to introduce a feeling of mystery and hussle and bussle of the market streets adjacent to the ceremonial square.
I also thought of using scented copal or incense at a specific time within the story to illustrate the significane fo the religious activities being performed at the central square. the action map became a fantastic visual image helping me prepare and "own" my story.

CreditsThe photograph of the clay plaque of Patrick Geddes was taken by Gary Thomson. The photograph of a painting of Tenochtitlan was taken by Steve Cadman. The picture of a small representation of the market was taken by Senor Codo.


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Flesh & Bones: different types of macrostructures

I attended on Saturday at workshop at the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. The workshop was called "Connecting with stories". It was an interesting workshop conducted with Sarah Perceval. Throughout the workshop we were presented with different ways of connecting with the story which we had chosen to tell.

I have often been puzzled by the constant tugg of war between learning by heart every minute detail of the story or the opposite approach, which is to determine the basics of the story and then depending on your life experience and the audience, let your imagination embroider around the story. The workshop addressed these tow questions in a useful manner although the topics got explored somewhat indirectly.

Deconstructing the Story. The workshop leader distributed stories to read and then made us select what she termed "the bones of the story". "Bones" are those elements without which the story would collapse or make no sense at all". "Flesh" are those elements that add context, or meaning, or embellish the story. I find the analogy of bones and flesh rather confusing becuase a squeleton would not be able to walk if the muscles would not be there to prop-up the bones.... but... nevermind. Each team had to work together to select the "bones" and the "flesh" and to our amazement, there was often quite abit of controversy over what was considered "bones" and what was considered "flesh". Some people felt very strongly that some "bones" were actually "flesh" and vice-versa. It also became very clear that depending on the audience, sometimes, "flesh" would be turned into "bones". All this discussion exemplified very clearly to me the need to work throuogh your story quite thoroughly and adapt it before presentation to an audience.

Storyboarding. After the discussion of "Bones & Flesh" we moved into representing the story linearly through storyboards. It was quite interesting to have the linear representation converge (or not) into the skeletal elements of the story. Several elements of my story for example fitted into just one or two main skeletal branches. The discussion then centred on the extent to which a storyteller can tap into personal experiences in order to unpack these "fleshy-contextual-embroidery" elements to an audience. Some people felt that the story had to have fidelity to factual elements. For example, if the story takes place in an an onlive grove and we feel that this embellishment is appropriate to the story and we have never been to an onlive grove, is it appropriate to use experiences of a Scottish pine-forest? here is where adaptation comes into play. I tend to favour throughough research. Having been both in olive groves and Scottish pine-forests, the experience is quite different in both, so although we are speaking of masses of trees, both experiences are definitely not interchangeable.... None-the-less, I found the use of storyboarding and "flesh & bones deconstruction" quite useful in helping me connect not just to the story, but to an audience.

Visualisation. Finally, we worked on visualisation of one of the elements of the story. This helped quite a lot becuase suddenly the imagination came into play and sensory elements like sound, taste, and feelings came into play. All in all, I thought that visualistion provided an emotional way of connecting to the materials within the story, and storyboards and "skeletons and flesh" techniques provided an analytical way of connecting to the story and the audiences.

Credits. The picture of the skeletons was taken by Wonderlane.


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