This month we’re going straight for the heart. We’re looking for stories about love. Falling in love. Falling out of love. Finding love in strange places. Falling in love with strange things.
Did you fall in love with fishing and then get caught stuffing your walleye with lead weights in the 2022 Lake Erie Walleye Tournament? If you did, we would really love to hear that story.
Of course, our themes are just suggestions, so you can tell a story about almost anything as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines: https://freshgroundstories.com/2013/01/22/storytelling-rules-and-guidelines/
The easiest way to come up with a story is to start with a moment that meant something to you. Once you have that, write down all the memories that have something to do with that moment, both before and after it. Then choose 2-3 of those memories to be the story.
Remember that a story isn’t just a series of things that happened. There needs to be something at stake that you overcome by the end.
Practice the story out loud to as many people as possible and time yourself when you’re doing it. Please don’t get onstage if you haven’t practiced your story. The audience is giving you their time and attention. It’s not fair to them if you get up there and try to wing it.
All stories have to be under eight minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but no longer than eight minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
Our free monthly online workshop is a great place to get feedback on your story. Our next one is Sunday, October 11.
I’m also happy to help anyone with a story they’re working on. Email me, and we can set up a phone call.
See you Thursday, October 15 at 7 pm, on the top floor of the Seattle Swedish Club, 1920 Dexter Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109
Paul
Freshgroundstories@gmail.com
