Storytelling through Design - Essay Example

The Art of Storytelling One of the most enduring forms of entertainment is storytelling. We know that, even before people developed a system of writing, they told each other stories around the campfire – a tradition that is carried on today in various forms (Sametz and Maydoney, 2003). Even today, the most popular forms of entertainment are television and movies – both of which present well-developed stories in visual form. Why has the idea of story as entertainment persisted through the centuries? Because stories tell us about ourselves by helping us connect our stories with the experiences of others (Butler and Sorenson, 1998; Wadley, 2003). They can even be therapeutic – giving us an outlet to express ourselves and deal with emotions that might otherwise be threatening or unpleasant (Parker and Wampler, 2006). The common bond of all stories is the narrative aspect – how the story is written, or told. According to Arlov (2005), there are six aspects of an effectively written story. These are: using chronological order; having a conflict that must be resolved; showing the action, instead of just telling what happened; making a clearly defined point – the theme of the story; placing a greater emphasis on the most important details; and using examples from everyday life (Arlov, 2005). In this paper, the art of storytelling – the successful incorporation of each of these aspects - is examined in the work of Obafemi Carr. Carr’s story, “The Game of My Life,” is (on the surface) about his participation, as a 29-year-old man, in a YMCA basketball game. A deeper analysis, however, reveals that it is about his relationship with his father and, perhaps to a greater extent, about his ability to overcome his own youthful insecurities. The beginning action starts at the present moment – in the basketball, but then the story flashes back to the “beginning” - the narrator (Carr)’s childhood. From there, Carr progresses in chronological order to his teenage and college years, and then he takes the reader back to the present with him – back to the ball game. This flashback-flash forward device works because it only displaces the reader chronologically for the first three paragraphs in order to better set up the story’s tension. Carr’s story has one main conflict that needs to be resolved. From the story’s text, the reader gathers that Carr grew up feeling distanced from his father because of his lack of sports involvement. As Carr puts it, “My father hadnt taught me the game, probably because he had grown up in the hills of east Tennessee and had had me late in life, when he was in his mid-forties” (Carr, 2005). As the story begins, the reader notices this tension in the narrator’s mind: I looked around in anticipation, scanning the sparse crowd for his face. No show. Maybe telling him about the game just three hours earlier had been too short a notice. Maybe he was busy at home. Maybe it just wasnt important enough to come to (Carr, 2005). However, just before the game starts, his father shows up, and the narrator plays his heart out. The story ends with the narrator feeling closer to his father than ever before when his father utters the words, "You played a good game, son." This statement also resolves one of the minor conflicts in the story – that of the narrator with himself. Even though this is actually a very serious matter, it is a minor conflict in this story because it is not the main focus of the action. It is not the main motivation for why the character thinks what he thinks, says what he says, and does what he does. The reader gets a sense that the main character was able, for the most part, to resolve his conflict with himself in college – where he first was introduced to the concept that he “could do anything” (Carr, 2005). But it is still present, to a certain extent, because his perception of himself is inextricably linked with how his father sees him. At the end of the story, when his father give his affirmation of Carr’s playing, Carr is able to fully give himself the affirmation he has been seeking for most of his life. Carr struggles a little with the third aspect of good storytelling – showing, and not just telling. His first sentence, “The atmosphere was tense,” is a great attention-grabber, but it doesn’t really leave anything to the imagination (Carr, 2005). Instead of telling the reader that the atmosphere was tense, he could show the reader – by describing the players’ sweaty brows or palms, or antsy, fidgeting behavior. Further into the story, he appears to do better with the “showing” aspect, when he talks about how meeting his fellow African-Americans in college helped to instill a new-found confidence in himself. Instead of saying this, he writes that they, “put some funk in [his] soul” (Carr, 2005). Also, instead of saying that he was excited to see that his father finally arrived, he described it in the figurative sense, as his heart leaping (Carr, 2005). Then, at the end, the narrator shows that his conflict with his father has been resolved, rather than telling, by saying that he walked toward the locker room “carrying an odd air of victory” (Carr, 20005). Carr does a really good job at getting his main point across – the universal theme of searching for love, acceptance, and a sense of pride in himself. He starts off the story (or at least the beginning of the chronological portion, when he is talking about his childhood) having none of these. Athletic pursuits represent all three of these things to him. And he seems to feel that, because his father doesn’t participate in sports with him, then he must not love him. The fact that his father showed up at his play and choir concert seem to mean very little to Carr. Sports is all that matters because it is the one area where he feels unqualified and insecure. It is this area in which he most needs to feel his father’s love and acceptance. This theme is supported throughout the story in every statement Carr makes. Before the basketball game, Carr is thinking that maybe his father doesn’t want to come to the game because it’s not important enough to him – that Carr himself isn’t important enough to his father. He mentions other players on the team briefly, but they are not the main focus of the story, so he does not dwell on them. He also does not mention irrelevant details, like what color the team jerseys are, or how big the gym is, or even how many other spectators are present. Carr is not concerned about other spectators. He just wants to know if he means enough to his dad for him to show up at the game. The focus of the story is clear throughout. The narrator does not wander off on tangents. He stays clear and true to his purpose. Every detail that is mentioned is crucial to the story. The reader does not really know what color the narrator’s eyes are, or how big his nose is, or any non-crucial description like that. The reader does know, however, that he had a growth spurt when he was 19 years old, and this helped him to get to be the basketball player he is now. The reader is told this information simply because it adds to the credibility of the story. It would not be believable for a short, scrawny 29-year-old man to be able to play basketball with men almost twice his size. The reader needs to know the information about the growth spurt because it makes the character more “real,” and it gives the story a sense of being a real, true story. The narrator is not a man who, all of a sudden, gained superpowers and was able to fulfill his dreams of playing on the basketball court. He is a man who grew up naturally, like others do, and started training his body to respond to athletics in the way that other athletes do. There is nothing superhuman about the character, and this is what helps the story be as effective as it is. Also, the fact that the story is about what could be an everyday situation for some enhances its credibility and power. Many other people play basketball or other sports. Some of these may have actually been like Carr was when he was growing up – awkward and untrained and laughed at. These sorts of readers would be able to identify with Carr’s story on this level. But there is also another level on which to identify with this story, and that revolves around the story’s main theme, as mentioned above. Everyone longs for acceptance – maybe not necessarily acceptance in the athletic arena, or even from fathers. But everyone wants to fit in somewhere. Every human being wants to be able to say, “Yes. This is what I can do, and other people recognize me for it. I’m important, and I matter. I make a contribution to the world.” This is the level on which Carr’s story makes its greatest impact. According to Arlov’s six techniques, Carr’s narrative actually does a very good job. There are a few problems, as mentioned before, with Carr telling something, rather than showing it, but that is not even a very noticeable flaw. The reader is drawn into the story from the very beginning. The reader can identify well with the main character and the conflicts, and the reader is unhampered by myriad little details that do not mean a thing to the narrator, the reader, or the story itself. Carr’s story is a great example of storytelling at its finest. It does exactly what a story should do. Its themes of love, acceptance, and pride in seemingly out-of-reach accomplishments that are finally attained resonate with every reader – young or old, male or female, athletic or not. This is what a truly great story does – no matter what its other faults may be. References Arlov, P. (2005). Wordsmith: Guide to College Writing, 3rd Edition. Upper Saddle Rover, NJ: Prentice Hall. Butler, A.M., & Sorenson, G.W. (1998). Patching the past: Students and oral history. Frontiers, 19(3): 200-213. Carr, J. O. (2005). The game of my life: An aging YMCA gymnasium has become my field of dreams. In P. Arlov, Wordsmith: Guide to College Writing, 3rd Edition (p. 508). Upper Saddle Rover, NJ: Prentice Hall. Parker, T.S., & Wampler, K.S. (2006). Changing emotion: The use of therapeutic storytelling. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 32(2): 155-166. Sametz, R., & Maydoney, A. (2003). Storytelling through design. Design Management Journal, 14(4): 18-36. Wadley, C. (2003, July 24). Mothers and daughters. Deseret News (Salt Lake News), Deseret Morning News. Read More