Last Thursday, every single story made me smile. We started the night with what happens when you get too close to the wrong end of a hippo, and ended the evening with a sweet, ethereal story of a father fading away from Alzheimer’s. We also had our first story duet with Bob and his sister Kate, taking turns on the mic, telling different parts of the same story from their own perspective. Such a night!
Special thanks to all the newcomers in the audience that night. I know most of you had no idea what you were getting into. I hope each of you heard at least one story that touched you.
When I got home, I saw that I had enough left in Mr. Coffee to give one more person a free annual membership to the Swedish Club. The first person to email me will get it!
Our next show is July 17. The theme is “It’s Never Too Late.” I’ll get the invite out as soon as I can. Themes are just suggestions, and you can tell a story on any theme as long as it follows our usual rules and guidelines.
If you don’t want to wait until our next show to tell a story, there are a couple of great shows coming up that would love to have you 🙂
Our friends at 7 Stories have their show this Friday. Suggested theme is “Rude Awakenings”
I’m always happy to help you work on stories if you can’t make the monthly workshop. Send me a direction email at freshgroundstories@gmail.com, and we can set up a call.
I hope you’re all excited about next week’s show and working on some stories to tell. The theme is Tiny Acts – Little things that meant a lot. Themes are just suggestions, though. You can tell any story you want as long as it follows our usual rules.
Here’s a story I just stumbled on that I find inspiring in a writerly, storytelling kind of way. I’m pretty sure the teller started working on the story with nothing in mind except the last moment of the story and then went backward to add in just enough elements to bring the audience to that final moment.
It’s usually easier to start working on a story from a single moment and flesh everything out from there, going backward and forward as necessary. This is especially true if the story takes place over the span of months or years. If the story happens all in a couple hours or one day, you probably already know where it begins and ends. But when we’re working with months and years, it takes a while to figure out which moments and memories to use to build out the story.
The story below takes place over at least a few months, so the teller had to think of all the things that happened during that time that had anything to do with the final scene and then choose 3-4 memories that would best get him to where he needed to be. I think he did a great job.
Hope to see you all on the 19th at the Swedish club!
Email me if you have any questions or need help on a story.
≈ Comments Off on FGS: Tiny Acts – Stories of little things that meant a lot
I’m standing in the doorway of the bathroom, staring at the last thing you want to see. Water on the floor. Lots of it. Like an inch at least, which seems impossible since the bathroom isn’t an inch lower than the living room. But there it is. A tiny lake in my tiny bathroom. A few feet away, I see a stream of water coming out of the toilet tank. I have no idea how long it’s been draining, but it’s clearly been a while.
I run to the toilet to turn off the water and prepare myself for step #2. Going into the basement. I splash out of the bathroom, squish to the kitchen, and run down the stairs to the basement, where water is pouring out of the ceiling.
I am the least handy person in the world. I can build a lot of things: an argument, a pillow fort, a wall around my heart. But I can’t build or fix anything regarding a house. So all I know as I look out across this sunken sea is that I can’t afford to hire someone to fix this, and that a lot of my guy friends would be able to repair all this in a weekend.
Just then, my phone rings. I see it’s my buddy Ruben, who I’ve known for 20 years and who also happens to be my insurance agent. I pick it up and say, “Hey, I’m doing the backstroke in my basement. I think I might have to file a claim.”
Thirty minutes later, Ruben’s at my door with a ShopVac. In the meantime, my friend Zac called to see if I want to go to dinner, and I tell him I can’t cause I’m bass fishing in the basement. Twenty minutes later, he’s over with a ShopVac. While he sets up his Suck-O-Matic, Ruben goes upstairs, removes the toilet, and throws it in the front yard. Then he comes downstairs and says, “Go to Home Depot and get a toilet. Me and Zac will take care of Lake Currington.”
Zac and Ruben have never met each other, but now they’re brothers in flood mitigation. Neither of them mentions that they know more about what’s happening to my house than I do. When I tell Ruben I don’t know how to install a toilet, he says he knows and that’s why he’s going to do it.
So I buy a toilet. Ruben installs it. Zac walks up and down the stairs to my basement, tossing buckets of water into the front yard. It’s 9 pm. The toilet exploded around 5. They’ve been here three hours and have no plans to leave. And nobody mentions that if it wasn’t for them, I’d still be waiting for a $200/hour plumber to come by.
It’s been two years since that happened, and neither of my buddies has ever mentioned how helpless I was that night. They’ve never teased me about not knowing a ShopVac from a TicTac. And they haven’t criticized me for buying an 80-year-old house when all I’ve ever lived in is apartments with landlords to take care of things. The gift they gave me that night wasn’t home repair, it was dignity.
Come out on the 19th and tell a story about a tiny act that someone did for you that changed things. Was it an act of kindness just when you needed it? Was it a helping hand at the right moment from someone who had no idea what it meant to you? Maybe it’s just a neighbor who always says hi and makes you feel welcome.
Remember, all stories need to have something at stake. Ask yourself what obstacle you’re trying to overcome in this story and go from there. Practice your story out loud on 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 8 minutes. Stories can be as short as you want, but not over 8 minutes. Stories also have to be clean in both language and content. Send me an email if you have any questions about that.
We had our biggest show yet at the new venue! Thanks to all 98 story fans who came out and helped create a great night. As always, we learned a lot from our tellers.
We learned…
It’s not always a bad idea to start a relationship with lies and deceit.
If you’re a good enough storyteller, you can talk your way out of an IRS audit.
Sometimes a bride will ask you to be a bridesmaid just out of spite.
When you’re traveling in eastern Europe, it’s a good idea to have everyone stamp everything if you want to stay out of the Czekoslovakian prison system.
How to get robbed on vacation.
How to order a small cup of potato salad in Japan.
How to choose an orthopedic surgeon (go for the cute one).
People lead double lives all over the world, and sometimes they want you to try on their lingerie.
The stuff you learn on a camping trip isn’t always about camping.
Giving a stranger a ride into town can be a wonderful experience.
Before you hire a lawyer, you might want to give a certain Wiccan divorce ritual a try.
Thanks to everyone who came out and supported the tellers, especially the first-timers. There’s no better place to learn how to talk to a room full of strangers than FGS 🙂
If you came to the last two shows, you know that I take all our donations and give them back to audience members as annual memberships to the Swedish Club. We usually get enough for 3 memberships but last week we had just enough money left in Mr. Coffee to give away one more membership.
So if you’d like to enjoy all the benefits of the Swedish Club, be the first person to email me directly at freshgroundstories@gmail.com (meetup doesn’t usually handle replies very well so it’s best to start a new email).
You want to watch seaplanes land gracefully (or not) on Lake Union? Come to the Swedish Club for the best view in the city.
Want to go somewhere nice on Fridays for dinner and dancing with live music? Come to the club.
Want to wake up on Saturday mornings and enjoy the best Swedish pancakes in the state? Come to the club. What’s in a Swedish pancake? I have no idea, but I promise you I’m going to find out.
So be the first person to write me and get your free annual membership.
In the meantime, think about tellling a story at our next show on June 19. The theme is “Tiny Acts.” Themes are just to jog your memory, and if you have a story about something else we’d love to hear it.
I’d love everyone reading this to check out our good friends who run 7 Stories in Burien, and Bar Stories Live kinda everywhere now 🙂 These are the shows I go to when I’m working on a new story for FGS. They’re both run by super friendly people who love stories.
Do you know what goes great with stories? Pancakes! Yes, if you wake up early enough tomorrow, you can go to the club’s Swedish pancake breakfast that comes complete with live music. I’ve never eaten pancakes with a live band behind me, but I’m planning on driving up from Olympia some time this summer and doing just that 🙂
Next Tuesday, our friends at Bar Stories Live are running their South Seattle show. I was there last month working on a new story, so I can say with certainty that this is a great place to work on your stories. They even let you use notes!
In my last thank you email, I didn’t get a chance to tell you about one of the most unique stories we’ve ever heard at FGS. It was from Micah, a first-time teller, who told a story about starting a human composting business. In the beginning, it was all about carbon capture and fighting climate change, but in the end, it was about compassion and giving people a place to say their final goodbyes. I gotta tell you. I’ve never looked forward to dying more than I did after hearing Micah’s story. Wait, that didn’t come out right. Well, you know what I mean.
Anyway, last week I sent Micah’s website to everyone I know who wasn’t dead but planning on dying one day: https://returnhome.com/ Are you dying? Do you know someone who might enjoy dying? If you do, tell them about human composting. Enjoy your next trip to the lawn and garden store.
Did you know that I work with people who geek out on urban planning? It’s true. I eavesdrop on them in the break room talking about roundabouts and multi-use housing. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but they sure seem happy sharing stories about the dog-eat-dog world of city council meetings. If you look forward to local planning commission meetings like the next episode of Game of Thrones, you’ll want to come to the club next Friday to hear Martine Kilday talk about community planning in Copenhagen. Afterward, you can talk about how much you want to move to Denmark while you dance to the Velveteen Lotharios 🙂
If you can’t make our free workshop, I’m always happy to help with stories over the phone. Write me at freshgroundstories at gmail dot com to set up a call.
Fresh Ground Stories 