One of my kids is a really bad storyteller. She tries to hold her own at dinnertime conversation, but even she agrees she’s got a particular talent for bad storytelling.
Bad Storytelling
This is what bad storytelling sounds like: “I remember when I was in fourth grade. It might have been fifth grade, but I think it was fourth. I was on the bus one day. Remember the bus driver Shonda? Was her name Shonda or Shondra? Oh my gosh, I might have been calling her the wrong name all those years! I was sitting next to a friend, or maybe I was alone. Maybe someone pointed it out to me, but I saw something….”
Her story goes on and on like this, meandering this way and that, and by the end, we are all baffled by what we just heard, more often than not, we’re in stitches with something that was mis-remembered, mis-heard, or mis-understood.
Like her sweet toddler voice that we have recorded on video and her bean-people drawings from her earliest art attempts, I know that she’ll get better at organizing her thoughts. Maybe she’ll even become an author or a comedian someday. Who knows?
How to Tell a Good Story with Photos
At any age, storytelling is hard. It takes a minute to string together a beginning, middle, and an end to a good story. You need to provide enough detail to tell the story completely, but not too much to bore or confuse your audience.
Organizing a story with photos can be daunting, but it’s the same skill: pick a theme, a time, or a character to define the story. Start at the beginning and draw a thread through the middle all the way to a satisfying end. Keep it interesting, and know when to wrap it up.
When you take a picture, you capture a snapshot in time. Gather 20-300 photos together, and you have a story. Add a few captions, maybe a few paragraphs, and the story becomes even more clear and engaging. A photo book with 100 pictures is a much easier way to tell your story than a 100-page book filled with text.
Creating a book takes time. You get better the more you create. It can be daunting to take a pile like this and make a great story out of it.
No story is perfect, but perhaps the only truly bad ones are the ones that are never told.
Can we help you tell your story In photos, words, and love?
Organizing Events
Wanna hang out with me more? Tuesday, October 18, 2022 I’ll be presenting a live program on how to How to Create an Upbeat, Organized Home Office. Register today to attend in person at the Tredyffrin Public Library or via Zoom. This is a hybrid event, so you can attend however works best for you.
If you need to get organized before you can tell your story, sort your photos, reach for your next goal, or get ready for the busy holiday season, then this is the free class you’ll want to take now. Register here. (last chance!)
Libraries are some of my favorite places, not only for the books, but all the services they provide. Tredyffrin library has recently started film plastic recycling, which makes me very happy! All the clean plastic wrap from grocery produce containers, plastic bags, and even bubble wrap can be recycled here. Plastic film can be recycled at many grocery stores now, but how convenient to have one more place to drop it off. Thanks Tredyffrin Library!
