Quote

The special skills necessary for being a storyteller are really very simple. I actually talked about them in a book of mine called 'Tell Me a Tale.' Those basic skills are to listen, to observe, to remember, and to share.

Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.

In order for a narrative to work, the primary character should have a concrete desire - a need that drives her story - and the story's writer should make this goal known to the reader pretty early in the narrative.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

I wanted to hold onto and exploit the power of narrative. This is not only a book about a great storyteller, but there have to be stories about the storyteller.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

Your job as a writer is to find storylines, narrative structures, and characters to show the things that you believe rather than saying them or telling them.

To me, the writer's main job is to just make the story unscroll in such a way that the reader is snared - she's right there, seeing things happen and caring about them. And if you dedicate yourself to this job, the meanings more or less take care of themselves. That's the theory, anyway.

The key is to work with people who are passionate about storytelling and who have a similar sensibility of the type and nature of the stories that you want to tell.