How to Prepare a Story for Telling (Part 2)

Growing your story by pondering and imagining

Last Saturday, I described how I started preparing a story for telling.

Let’s continue.

In this email, I want to tell you how I am growing the story and allowing it to take root in me.

Why is that important?

Well…

There once was a master puppeteer. In his signature play, there was a scene where two puppets delivered a letter to the main character, a knight.

The content of the letter was not at all relevant to the play. Yet, each time, children approached the puppeteer to ask him what was written in the letter.

At some point, the puppeteer got tired of not having an answer and sat down to write the actual letter.

He changed nothing in his subsequent performances.

And yet, after having written down the letter, no children ever again came to ask about the letter's content.

True story, according to the storyteller who was friends with this puppeteer.