Notes on Why Stories are Essential

Julie Leung is up on stage now to present her keynote Starting with Fire: Why Stories are Essential and How to Blog Effective Tales. Julie always has an interesting presentation so this should be good.

Just as she did at Gnomedex, Julie has started by sharing a story from her past, using pictures to illustrate her words. I’ll pick out some of the key quotes from her story.
“We are surrounded by stories. Nature reveals why stories are important.”
“It is in our nature to seek stories. We are our stories.”
“Stories can be indirect, yet powerful. Stories are perfect for complexity.”
“Stories are tools of change.”
“Stories heal us emotionally.”
“We come together around stories. They continue culture, and they change culture.”
“Stories are essential because stories are essentially human.”

Julie is now sharing some of her principles for blogging stories:

What is a story? They usually have a beginning, a middle, and an end. However “one way”, is for traffic signs! She highlight’s Robert McKee’s book “Story”.
Change the familiar! Avoid cliches, but also try to take the ordinary and give it new color and new meaning.
How to begin? When beginning a story, listen and link to others.
Take notes. Include sensory details.
Use the power of pause, blank space, etc.
Blogging has a freedom you can’t find in other places – a story can be any shape or size. You can break a story into many pieces, and each can become a blog post.
Hiding! Make it suspenseful, as in life, we don’t know all of the story until the end.
Experiment to continue growing as a blogger.
Voice comes naturally, and you’ll find it as you experiment and share your stores.
Have fun, be creative, and play.
It’s the raw and sometimes the imperfect that speaks to us the most.
Linking and commenting make stories real. The story is corrected, confirmed and can lead to collaboration. It takes two to make a story, the teller and the listener.
Blogging is transforming story telling.
Be generous and creative with links; they can add another dimension to stories.

Now Julie is sharing some examples of blogging stories:

Julie says: start with fire, start with the hearth.

Published by Mack Male