There’s a storyteller in all of us

Being faced with a brand new blog is almost as difficult as facing a blank page. With the page, sometimes, you feel you can’t think of anything to write. A new blog is slightly different in that there is so much to write, but where do you start?

I’ve decided to begin at the very beginning. All writing comes from a need to tell a story. It does not matter whether this is a true story or a piece of fiction, a piece of advice or a report. In essence, they are all telling stories.

If you ask a room full of people how many of them would describe themselves as storytellers, you might find one or two hands raised in response. Yet, what few realise is that we are all storytellers. It is the basis of most of our conversation.

If you’ve ever complained about your horrendous journey into work; if you’ve ever explained why you can’t make it to a social gathering; if you’ve ever shared your feelings about that great film you watched last week; if you’ve done any of these things, you’ve told a story. It may be a true story, it may be slightly embellished or exaggerated, it may even be an outright fib, but it’s a story all the same.

So, if you have an urge to tell stories, but think that you don’t know how, just begin by writing down the little stories of your own life. It might be something you did, a thought, an opinion on something that happened in the world, a note about the people you have met during the day, or an event on the way to work. It doesn’t really matter as long as it gets you writing.

All humans are storytellers: if you think, if you talk, if you use social networking, you are telling stories. So now that we’ve cleared that up and you know you can tell stories, what’s stopping you?