Reading · Character Limitations

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I listened to The Moth on and off for years. It’s a storytelling podcast: people have five or so minutes to tell stories on a theme. The theme can be broad (“Disappointment”) or specific (“This guy ruined Christmas”) but the goal is to open up a variety of stories from a variety of people.

They started doing one in Montclair, the town next to me. (It helps to live driving distance from a cool town.) I wanted to go — I’d never seen one in person.

And of course I also wanted to be one of the storytellers. Who wouldn’t? Listening to the stories really kicks up what your particular take on the theme would be. A

nd this isn’t a whodunit or a sci-fi epic where you stand agape at the creativity of the writers, unable to imagine how you could possibly write something like this. These are stories about your life. Everyone’s got a life, everyone’s got stories.

There are classes on storytelling for this format. if you listen to enough of the stories, you might osmose some of the lessons. It’s not quite how you’d tell a story to a friend.

—If you story begins with “let me tell you a story” and ends with “and so that’s the story” you can probably come up with a strong open and closer

—Something interesting that happened to you is not necessarily a story in and of itself

—Something important that happened to you is likewise not necessarily a story. Stories are more about the how than the what.

—There needs to be a narrative twist of some kind. What you think might happen can’t be what actually happens. Adding that twist into a real-life story can be done by either making it up, or by examining your life story and seeing your own charatcer development, or by widening the scope of your story to cover more of your life than you intended.

I found out there are people who make this their primary art form. Who’ve told dozens of Moth and StorySlam stories. (What’s the difference between The Moth and StorySlam? I’m not sure.) Who might thrill at a particularly Kafkaesque DMV appointment or bad food delivery, knowing they’re now getting a good story out of it for next month.

Some people have only one story — the one story that is their life — and any micro event is explained by the macro story of their life. Others can make a story out of the most mundane little detail. Some have had extraordinarily things happen to them, others are poets of the ordinary.

What really appealed to me was that these were not supposed to be written down or memorized word for word. They’re supposed to be orally told, a little different each time, a bit like a comedy routine except without the jokes. (Or with more naturally occurring humor: some are hilarious.)

If I got in, I’d adhere to that, I decided. I’m rehearse my story, but I’d only bring a little Post-It note with a dozen or so words reminding me of the sequence of events.

So I applied for the first story, fully intending to not get in and to simply watch, and wonder how my untold story would have done against all the ones that were chosen.

But I got chosen! So my first time attending was as a “storyteller” as they call it.

That first month’s theme was Do You Remember? My story starts at the 16-minute mark.

I remember not feeling overly nervous; it’s the most accommodating and supporting crowd you can imagine. Want to tell a long, involved story? They’ll be patient. Want to tell a funny, raucous story/ They’ll laugh. Sad story? They’ll cry.

But all the moisture left my mouth the moment I started to talk.

After the stories, I chatted with one of the people who ran it. Next month’s theme was real-life scary stories. I’ve been blessed to not have any axe murderers ever chase after me, so i assumed this was a one-and-done thing for me.

I joked to her the only scary thing that every happened to me was carrying a baby up the stairs after watching a Final Destination movie. She said they didn’t actually have that many people who’s applied that month.

So next month I told the Final Destination story My story starts about 23 minutes in.

I applied a third time, for what I felt would be my best story yet. I’ve told it int he newsletter before — it was when I applied for a college job whose only description was “Dignified work.” (Hint/spoiler; I did not consider it dignified work.)

But then something happened, and I couldn’t go. What happened? I don’t remember. that’s the way things go: the impediments are always forgotten. Or rather, that fact that they were impediments were forgotten. I remember whatever event I had to go to well, but don’t remember it as an impediment to anything else.

I wrote to cancel, and they were gracious in letting me leave the roster. But I’d surely let them down. Surely if I ever had another idea, I’d be rejected as a flake.

I watched some months via YouTube, tried to attend others. One month it was cancelled due to bad weather. The variety of experiences was always astounding. It made me think about how we’re all both living individual lives and universal lives.

The final month’s theme was “And the Award Goes to…” for a time when you could have won an award but didn’t. I thought and thought, and had nothing. I’ve won things, and I’ve not won things, and both were things that happened but not necessarily stories worth telling.

The day after the deadline, I had a brainstorm. Within barely any second thoughts I dashed off an idea. I ended up being the first speaker that night. It starts about 8:30 in.

One aspect of StorySlam I haven’t talked about is the judges, and the awards. There are three judges, and they give out first, second, and third prizes. What you may be thinking about competitively judging stories is what the judges invariably say: this is an impossible task, there’s no fair way to do this, all of these stories are remarkable in so many ways.

But I got second prize for the award story. I don’t know if that means my story was better that the first two: maybe the fact that I was first was helpful. But I like telling these sorts of stories. And I want to be there for next year’s StorySlams, and hopefully I’ll get the honor of being able to tell some more.

And I guess this is its own story about telling stories. Maybe next week I can tell the story about writing this newsletter, and the next week about writing THAT newsletter, and so on, until I turn into some David Foster Wallace/Getrtude Stein meta-monster just examining my own navel in a series of mirrors.

SPIDER-MAN OF THE WEEK

Storybook week!