> **STORYTELLING:**
>
> **THE THREAD OF HUMANITY**

##### By Alex Bennet, 2001

**STORYTELLING:**

##### THE THREAD OF HUMANITY

## Abstract

This paper explores the unique relationship of man and his stories,
looking at various aspects of storytelling and differences between
written and oral stories. Myths, folktales and transformational tales
are discussed before exploring story as knowledge, the value of personal
storytelling, the moral purposes of stories, and the use of story in
healing. Finally, we look at the use of stories in organizations before
considering the future of storytelling.

**Introduction**

Through the ages, as long as man can remember, and possibly longer, the
telling of stories has shared a unique relationship with man. In the
dictionary, story is defined as a narrative account of real or imagined
events. But storytellers generally agree that a story is a specific
structure or narrative with a specific style, a set of characters and a
sense of completeness. The three simple basics in every story are a
beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning sets the routine. In the
middle, something happens to upset the routine, going on until a new
routine is established at the end.

Dr. Daniel Taylor says, "A story is the telling of the significant
actions of characters over time." (Taylor, 1966, p. 15) He notes four
aspects of story. The first is the *telling* aspect of the story that
first marks its humanity, sending it out into the world as an act of
faith. The second aspect is *something to tell*, something worth
telling, that matters to the teller, to the listener. The third aspect
is the *character*, what Taylor defines as "a bundle of values in
action." (Taylor, 1966, p. 18) Character is what persists in an
individual, the "habits of choice that shape who we essentially are even
as what is not essential about us is in a constant process of change
and, eventually, decay." (Booth, 1988, p.8) Thus character is what we
are at our core, our essence, that which is remembered long after a
story is forgotten. Taylor's fourth aspect is the telling of significant
actions of characters *over time*, which can be thought of both in terms
of the duration of the action in the story itself, or the time it takes
in the telling of the story. The aspect of time relates to change (this
is the middle of the story) in order to move to the ending.

Looking at storytelling through a different lens, McAdams says that
readers/listeners of stories have set expectations that a story will
have certain consistent features. The first is a *setting* of some sort,
which is discovered early on. The second expectation is that a story
will have *characters*, human or humanlike. These characters begin at
some point, then there is an *initiating* event, motivating the
character(s) to attempt to achieve a *certain goal*. This *attempt*
leads to some sort of *consequence*, which promulgates some sort of
*reaction*. As tension builds across a story, or episodes of a story,
there is the expectation of eventual resolution, a solution of the plot,
what is called the *denouement*. (McAdams, 1993, p.25-26)

Mellon says the best plot is a plot that follows your pulse beat. "A
plot that is based on your pulse beat -- a regular flow of fours --
unfolds in a regular pattern." (Mellon, 1992, p.178) The central
character(s) set out on a journey, and overcome three obstacles, ending
with a radiant sense of unity and well-being. This blueprint has an
infinite number of variations. If you double the basic four-beat rhythm,
then seven tests or obstacles, or perhaps rewards, come to your hero.

Another time-honored story sequence is built on three sets of four
(twelve). The zodiac uses this power of twelve. Mellon says:

> "Uniting story imagination with the power of one, two, three,
> resolving in four, a story ground becomes firmly formed out of the
> complex numerical wisdom that courses continuously through you. Every
> effort you make to circulate these pulse-beat heart rhythms in your
> stories affirms some of the most fundamental laws of your nature which
> ... form the foundation of all lives. Whatever your purpose for making
> a story, if you summon patterns that have been stored within you from
> the story imagination of past aeons and work with these carefully,
> your story will contain transformative energies." (Mellon, 1992,
> p.178-179)

Stories teach us how to live, how to act. Alasdair MacIntyre says we can
only answer the question "*What am I to do?"* if we can find the answer
to the question "*Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?"*
MacIntyre asserts:

"We enter human society, that is, with one or more imputed characters --
roles into which we have been drafted -- and we have to learn what they
are in order to be able to understand how others respond to us and how
our responses to them are apt to be construed. It is through hearing
stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, wolves that suckle twin
boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own
way in the world and eldest sons who waste their inheritance on riotous
living and go into exile to live with the swine, that children learn or
mislearn both what a child and what a parent is, what the cast of
characters may be in the drama into which they have been born and what
the ways of the world are. Deprive children of stories and you leave
them unscripted, anxious stutterers in their actions as in their words.
Hence there is no way to give us an understanding of our society,
including our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute
its initial dramatic resources. (MacIntyre, 1981, p. 216)

Isabel Allende thinks that stories are to the big audience, to readers,
to society, what dreams are to individuals. Repeating plots that have
been told over and over, stories clear up the fog of our minds. Allende
states:

"Dreams somehow unclog you mind and help you tune into the unconscious
world from where you can draw experience and information. I think that's
what stories do. There are hundreds, thousands, but we are always
repeating the same stories. All the great plots have already been told
innumerable times. We can only tell them again in a different way, but
every time we do that, we tune into the myth. Somehow we make the
society dream, and maybe that's why stories are important. ... The power
of storytelling is amazing. (Allende, 1997, p. 98)

##### Written and/or Oral?

Stories in printed form have a very different reality than those told
orally. Printed stories are set in a firm context that may be explored
again and again and again as the reader thinks about the work in
different modes and explores the meaning of the writer. Steve Denning
looks at this availability as a kind of logarithmic table, "scarcely
more alive than the abstract reasoning for which we have set them
aside." (Denning, 2000, p. 137) Denning feels that the force of the
story is not in the story itself, but in the telling of the story, with
the teller expressing understanding and eliciting understanding from the
listener.

"A focus on the story alone, to the exclusion of the interaction between
the storyteller and the listener, misses the point of storytelling. It
is the interaction of the storyteller with the listeners and the
communal meaning that emerges from the interaction." (Denning, 2000, p.
137)

Long agrees with Denning. He thinks that stories work better and are
more fun when they are shared verbally.

"This is not to diminish the power of the written word, but storytelling
was originally an oral art, and stories traditionally were passed on by
word of mouth for generations. There is a qualitative difference that
can easily be detected when a story is read to instead of told to
someone." (Long, 1986, p. 5)

Sven Birkerts would not necessarily agree with Denning and Long cited
above. In his work *The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an
Electronic Age,* Birkets describes the reading of a story as a virtual
journey into a different world, a different mental location, the place
where the story is occurring. This imagined reality is elicited by the
author, who uses linguistic tools to stimulate this world into
existence. The reader enters into the role of co-creator with the
author, with the conjuring up of the image taking on flavors of the
reader. The more effective this transition, the more effective the story
is as a story. When fully engaged, Birkerts argues that reader's minds
are working in concert with the storyteller, generating a cooperative
virtual world of story in which the reader can come and go at will, and
feel a sense of connectedness that is often difficult to achieve in the
outside world. Inside the story, readers' lives make sense, as they not
only determine and inform the actions of the characters of the story,
but remap their own lives in relation to the story. The readers'
participation in a story can change their perceived relationship to all
other things. (Birkerts, 1994, pp. 80-82) This change has to do both
with the content of the story and the process of the storytelling.

An oral story cannot be recorded accurately on paper. So much of the
telling depends on other things -- the background of the teller, the
interpretation of emotions, the way the listener responds, the teller's
and listener's thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and/or the teller's
abilities. Storytelling, then, is defined as an oral art form that
provides a means of preserving and transmitting ideas, images, motives,
and emotions that are universal. (Cassady, 1990, p.5)

In *Oral Cultures Past and Present: Rappin' and Homer*, Edwards and
Sienkewica, who studied the oral tradition from ancient Greeks through
the contemporary era, present the argument that oral storytelling and
literature are poles of a single continuum. But instead of presenting
the oral and written as dichotomous, they look at them as two parts of
the same whole. They go on to say that an understanding of the social
context of the story is vital. The issue becomes "not only oral versus
written but also how to preserve the vital elements of culture when a
folk tale is retold -- whether on paper or in performance." (Leotta,
1997, p. 41)

Oral folklore is always moving and changing, while written form captures
a moment in time. When a story is put on paper, the words and way they
are juxtaposed must carry the message. When a story is told verbally,
there are subtle nuances of eye contact and body language that tell a
tale richer than the verbal language itself. This also says that each
time an oral tale is told, there are differences. Stories told out loud
are living experiences that are transformed by the heart and soul and
experience of the teller and listeners. This, however, is not always
considered a benefit. Barbara Walker, a renowned folklorist and writer,
warns that storytellers must not get carried away with technique so that
their histrionics overshadow the story itself. (Leotta, 1997, p. 43)

Stories from Native American tribes form a large number of tales from
the oral traditions of North America. These stories serve as a cultural
foundation for their tribes. They are meant to be repeated over and over
from generation to generation.

"Now I will tell you stories of what happened long ago. There was a
world before this. The things that I am going to tell about happened in
that world. Some of you will remember every word that I say, some will
remember a part of the words, and some will forget them all -- I think
this will be the way, but each man must do the best he can ... You must
keep these stories as long as the world lasts; tell them to your
children and grandchildren generation after generation ..." (Feldman,
1965, Preface)

At the root of Indian stories as Indian culture, are the concepts of
"reciprocity and the right relation to the earth." (Bruchac, 1997, pp.
12-15) Native American tales are not only memorable, but have exciting
details that attract both storytellers and audiences alike. For example,
Iroquois stories are filled with such wonderful creatures as stone
giants, monster bears, flying heads, magical dwarfs, and vampire
skeletons. But with the telling of these stories comes a responsibility
to ensure an understanding of the *context* of these stories. These
stories are not meant to exist in isolation from the culture of the
people to whom they were addressed. They have a strong relationship with
the sacred, and were intended to serve as lessons and communication
tools.

Bruchac believes the storyteller of Native American Stories must also
have an awareness of the place and proper use of these stories. There
"appears to be a continent-wide tradition that all Native American myths
and legends are to be told only at certain times and in certain ways."
(Bruchac, 1997, p. 14) An example is the Anishinabe medicine woman and
storyteller who begins every story with an offering of tobacco to the
ancestors, and then begins each story in song.

Stories were to be told only during winter months in most North American
tribes, and, in many cases, only at night. Also, to mention the names of
certain characters in the stories outside of the story itself was
considered bad luck. For example, some California Indian tribes say that
if you mention the name of Coyote outside the story he will come visit
you and cause mischief. Enforcement of these traditions is not through
human means, but through the powers of nature. For example, the Iroquoi
say that if you tell stories in summertime a bee will fly into your
dwelling lodge and sting you. In like manner, the Abenaki believe that
if you tell stories during the growing season, snakes will come into
your house.

##### 

##### Myths

Perhaps the best-known writer on myth is Joseph Campbell. Campbell
believes that throughout the inhabitated world, in all times and under
every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished. They are the
living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the
activities of the human body and mind. In his words, "It would not be
too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the
inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural
manifestation." (Campbell, 1949, p.3) To Campbell, everything boils up
from the basic, magical ring of myth. That everything includes religion,
philosophy, the arts, and prime discoveries in science and technology.

A myth is a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some
superhuman being or some alleged person or event, with or without a
determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially a
traditional or legendary story that is concerned with deities or
habitants. (Webster, 19 , p. 946) The word can also be used to denote an
imaginary or fictitious thing or person; any invented story, idea or
concept; or a collective belief that is accepted uncritically and used
to justify a social institution.

For Campbell, myth is a philosophical text, one in which truths are
revealed symbolically. It is an adventure in three phases: departure,
initiation and return. The mythological hero sets forth from his common
home (or a castle), and is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily
proceeds to the threshold of adventure. At that threshold he encounters
a shadow presence that guards the passage. At this point the hero either
defeats or conciliates this power and goes, either dead or alive,
through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces. At the end
he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. While these myths
continue today, Campbell points out that these same journeys are no
longer undertaken in the mystical and symbolic context of cosmic law, in
bright moments of the tribe's great victories, but in the silences of
personal despair. Campbell sees the mythical journey of man today as
understanding man, coming to terms with himself, but the hero plays a
larger role in the universal cycle of growth, dissolution and
redemption. Ultimately, we each move from the microcosm of the
individual to the macrocosm of the universe. Myth opens us to the
unalterable truths of human existence -- its joys and sorrows, its pains
and pleasures -- which are the same for all people. (Campbell, .... P.
391)

Stories come in different forms, generally divided into comedy, romance,
tragedy and irony. These forms provide a scema to help understand the
narrative tone of stories. Simply put, comedy and romance have an
optimistic narrative tone while tragedy and irony suggest a pessimistic
tone. In constructing personal myths, we draw on a mixture of narrative
forms. No single life is pure tragedy or pure comedy. Nor is there a
simple correspondence between narrative tone and life history. "Personal
myths involve an imaginative reconstruction of the past in light of an
envisioned future. They are subjective creations -- illusions, in a
sense, whether they be positive or negative." (McAdams, 1993, p. 53)

McDaniels asserts that we do not discover ourselves in myth, but we
*make ourselves* through myth. He believes that human lives are much too
complex for a typological approach, and too socially inflected to
support an argument that truth resides solely within. Quite
dramatically, he makes the case that:

"Truth is constructed in the midst of our loving and hating; our
tasting, smelling, and feeling; our daily appointments and weekend
lovemaking; in the conversations we have with those to whom we are
closest; and with the stranger we meet on the bus. Stories from
antiquity provide some raw materials for personal mythmaking, but not
necessarily more than the television sitcoms we watch in prime time. Our
sources are wildly varied, and our possibilities, vast." (McAdams, 1993,
p.13)

## 

## Folk Tales

Folk tales are true stories of the folk that migrate from culture to
culture, often having mythical aspects, and often picking up elements of
different cultures as they progress around the world. For example,
Cinderella and Rumpelstiltskin have similar elements but subtle
differences when told today in cultures around the world. Briar Rabbit
stories came from Ghana, but the moon under which they are told is
perceived as that which each of us sees from our own location. Puss in
Boots comes from the Crusaders, but has changed considerably from its
original Persian tale.

The patterns of cause and effect, and good and evil are indigenous to
all cultures and run through folk tales, recasting generation after
generation's experience and exploring areas fundamental to every human.
Because they are repeated over and over again through generations, they
are honed to concise models of narrative, building blocks of the
imagination, a promise to fulfill our dreams.

> "For what folktales give us, is a language of wish-fulfillment. In
> these stories we can make what we wish to happen finally happen. In
> the mind. In the imagination. We can see and feel what we may have to
> strive all our lives to bring into actual being. But in the folktale
> it is complete and we live and feel it in the unique terms of our own
> images." (Martin, 1999, p. 22)

These are the tales of Cinderella, the reward of good and the punishment
of evil. These are the stories of the soul, repainting the traditional
tales of our ancestors. Martin believes folktales are the nourishment of
the soul. "Without them we are never quite ourselves, never who we might
have been. And they must be recast in words. Only then can they come
alive in our own interior images, only then can they live, become us,
enter our bloodstream, hearts and bones and empower our lives."

## 

## Transformational Tales

Transformational tales are the single largest thematic topic in
storytelling. Both myths and many folk tales fall into the thematic area
of transformational tales. Children's author Jane Yolen says this is
because they (1) speak to the condition of duality that we all feel; (2)
hold out the promise of a fresh start, a new life; and (3) bring us
closer to nature. Yolen further suggests that transformation tales are
endemic in storytelling today because of early peoples belief in
transformation and a cumulative effect in storytelling history, "Early
cultures, preliterative cultures, whether Native American or African,
all the totemic religions, really believed that a person could become an
animal." These beliefs have survived in transformational stories.
(Godown, 1996, pp. 22-23)

The use of animals to present truths is used in many forms of
transformational stories. For example, the beast fable has a long
history. The well-known Aesop fables from the Greco-Roman world are of
this genre. The use of beast stories became a major literary form in the
Middle Ages with the rise of interest in allegory, a literary form where
there is an intended second-order meaning to the events occurring in the
story. Animals of the forest and barnyard played the parts of men and
women in these tales. Beasts of all sorts figured prominently on crests,
shields and banners of notable people. For instance, the English lion
appeared on the shield of England's kings. The white boar formed part of
Richard III's personal coat of arms.

This use of animals as symbols was also employed in the religious art of
the period, particularly Christian art in Western Europe. For example,
the dove indicated the presence of the Holy Spirit, the whale symbolized
the devil (tempting sailors and luring them down to hell) and the
leopard represented the sin of pride. Today much of this symbolism
continues, though meanings have evolved. The dove has grown to become a
symbol for peace around the world.

In literature today, the tradition of use of animal in allegory is
prevalent in such works as George Orwell's Animal Farm, taking political
allegory to the barnyard, and Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books, who used
wolves as symbols of civilization and the wild dogs of India and the
great lame tiger, Shere Khan, as symbols of savagery.

Sacred stories are transformational stories. According to Yolen, sacred
stories are stories that tell us "who we are and how we relate to the
world and our gods." (Simpkinson, 1997, p. 24) They work very much like
dreams, long after the details and meaning have slipped away, there is a
new awareness. Writer Joe Bruchac believes that sacred stories carry an
"energy -- a truth, a lesson, an insight, an emotion -- that can enter
our being and connect us to a distant past and to powerful primal
forces." (Simpkinson, 1997, p. 25)

In the 18^th^ and 19^th^ centuries, Hasidism transformed Eastern
European Judaism and brought with it a revival of Jewish storytelling.
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, stated that:
"Telling stories praising the *tzaddikim* \[saints\] is equivalent to
the most profound mystic study and meditation." (Buxbaum, 1997, p. 52)
*Rebbes*, Hasidic leaders, praised storytelling as a divine commandment
and spiritual practice, often telling stories and also instructing their
followers, the *Hasidim*, to do likewise. Teaching storytelling as a
holy activity equal to the study of Torah or prayer, these rebbes
actually developed a theology of storytelling that answers such
questions as what is the place of storytelling among spiritual
practices? Why do stories captivate and charm us? How should they be
listened to and told? What effects do they have? Storytelling became a
natural and integral part of a person's religious life. Ordinary people,
everyone in the community, began understanding the value of stories, and
began telling stories.

Hasidic stories are in the oral tradition, coming alive in the telling
with the expectation that listeners will visualize themselves in the
action. Stories are the most real thing in the world. They have
inspirational power and teach practical lessons. In the Hasidic
tradition all stories have a "therefore", or a lesson, and the teller of
the story may stretch out the story by discussing its meaning, and
listeners are encouraged to share their insights.

Since the Hasidics believe nothing happens except by Divine Providence,
there is a reason for every story, and a reason why each person is
listening to that story. Stories are attributed with the ability to
bring about miracles, and even "telling stories of former miracles can
cause similar miracles to occur." (Buxbaum, 1997, p. 54)

What are called *pourquoi* stories, part of the American Indian oral
tradition, are transformational stories. *Pourquoi* stories, named after
the French word meaning *Why*, are transformational stories that tell
the how and why. These stories, passed on from generation to generation
in the oral tradition, center around the creation, naming and
characterization of almost everything in nature. They are instructive,
teaching lessons in a gentle, non-threatening way. Animals and
unspecified settings are often used to provide a comfortable distance
for the listener.

These tales provide moral instruction on how we should and should not
behave. For example, an Algonquin story tells about a very hard-working
man who had a lazy wife who never cleaned their home. One day, Wakonda
(one of the Great Spirits) is going to visit. The man begs his wife to
clean. When she didn't, the man was told to take some dirt and throw it
at his wife. These specks of dirt became the first mosquitoes.
*Pourquoi* stories are also used as a means of conveying survival
information.

The transformational aspect of *pourquoi* stories often involves
supernatural or magical elements. Specific characteristics of the
*pourquoi* story include:

-   Settings that are unclear as far as time and place.

-   Characters defined by only those elements that are essential to the
    story.

-   A dilemma that is common to the listener.

Candace Miller believes pourquoi stories have survived because of their
usefulness.

"Stories make lessons easier to remember through simple truths and
justice, without pointing a finger at anyone. They also satisfy a need
to know -- to make sense of the unknown. And, perhaps most compelling of
all, they are our connection with people who lived thousands of years
ago, who walked the same ground and marveled at the same wonders of
nature that we do." (Miller, 1996, p. 19)

The *springboard story,* a new term coined by Steve Denning in his
recent book *The Springboard,* is a type of transformational story that
enables the listener to take a personal leap in understanding how an
organization or community or complex system may change. Denning purports
that the intent of this type of story (told in oral tradition) is not to
transfer information, but to serve as a catalyst for creating
understanding within the listener.

"It can enable listeners to visualize from a story in one context that
is involved in a large-scale transformation in an analogous context. It
can enable them to grasp the ideas as a whole not only very simply and
quickly, but also in a non-threatening way. In effect, it invites them
to see analogies from their own backgrounds, their own contexts, their
own fields of expertise." (Denning, 2000, p.xix)

The stories that Denning felt were successful in this transformation had
specific characteristics. They were told from the perspective of a
single protagonist who was known to the audience and actually in the
predictament being told; there was an element of strangeness or
incongruity to the listeners which could capture their attention and
imagination; the story had a degree of plausibility and a premonition of
what the future might be like; and there was a happy ending. "\[Happy
endings\] seemed to make it easy for the listeners to make the
imaginative leap from the explicit story that I was telling, to the
implicit story that I was trying to elicit in their minds." (Denning,
2000, p.xx)

## 

## Story as Knowledge

Knowledge is experiences and stories, and "intelligence is the apt use
of experience and the creation and telling of stories." (Shank, 1998, p.
16) Shank states that our knowledge of the world is more or less
equivalent to our experiences. We understand experiences in terms of
those experiences already in our memory that we understand, so that new
ideas are dependent on old ideas. Context helps us relate incoming
information to those experiences already in our memory, and stories
provide that context.

These stories are not static, they are invariably the result of
authorial aspect, changing every time they are remembered and retold.

> \[J\]ust as the novelist is selective with respect to character
> development, plot, etc., so the person who seeks the connective
> threads in the history of his life ... has singled out and accentuated
> the moments which he experiences as significant; others he has allowed
> to sink into forgetfulness. The result of this process is narrative
> unity as something akin to *fictionalized history* ...\[The\]
> narrative unity which results from this process is not discovered; it
> is the result of selective attention, emphasis, dim remembrance, and
> possibly even forgetting. The person makes choices about the
> importance of persons and events, decides of their meanings, though
> there may only be a minimal awareness of the resulting order as a
> partially created one. These choices and decisions -- like those of a
> novelist -- are not arbitrary; they are guided by the desire for the
> "good story." The finished product is the "fictionalized" history of a
> life, neither a lie nor "the truth," but instead a work of
> imagination, evaluation and memory. (Long, 1986, pp. 75-92)

Human memories themselves are story based. While all experiences are not
stories, stories are remembered because they come with many indices,
multiple ways that the story is connected to memory. "The more indices,
the greater the number of comparisons with prior experiences and hence
the greater the learning." (Shank, 1998, p. 11) In order for memory to
be effective, it must have not only the memories themselves (events,
feelings, etc.), but memory traces (or labels) that attach to previously
stored memories. These indices can be decisions, conclusions, places,
attitudes, questions, etc.

Denning agrees that we live in a soup of narratives. "Why narratives
permeate our lives and understanding is that resorting to narratives is
the way in which we have learned to cope with our world of enormously
complex phenomena." (Denning, 20000, p. 112) Denning sees the narrative
language of stories as the most appropriate instrument to communicate
the nature and shape and behavior of complex adaptive phenomena. This is
because stories capture the "essence of living things, which are
quintessentially complex phenomena, with multiple variables,
unpredictable phase changes, and all of the characteristics that the
mathematics of complexity has only recently begun to describe."
(Denning, 2000, p. 113)

Shank says, "wisdom is often ascribed to those who can tell just the
right story at the right moment and who often have a large number of
stories to tell." (Shank, 1998, p. 14) This, of course, is the
appearance of wisdom, or intelligence, and is not necessarily an
indicator of what the teller truly understands about what is being said.
An example is a computer that has thousands of stories and the ability
to carefully select those directly related to specific patterns, but, of
course, has no understanding of the stories it is telling.

Shank measures intelligence in terms of the number of stories an
individual has to tell, and in terms of the size of an individual's
indexing and retrieval schema that provide a mechanism for determining
what is relevant to current experiences and the ability to search and
find what is relevant. Shank outlines seven dimensions of intelligence:
data finding, data manipulation, comprehension, explanation, planning,
communication and integration.

[The first dimension of intelligence is data finding]{.underline}. Data
finding goes beyond the first memory traces of reminding, conversations
that recall already-processed stories, and on to the ability to *get
reminded*. While labeling it not a conscious process, thinking about an
experience is, and mulling over an experience builds additional indices
for future recall. A special kind of reminding (what we would call a
good memory) occurs when the conscious is able to pull up past
experiences not obviously connected to current experiences. This good
memory is based on attentive labeling during processing and good search
techniques. Attentive labeling is very dependent on the number of
interests an individual has; the more interests someone has; you can't
remember as well what you don't find interesting because you have fewer
indices to bring it into recall. Search, in turn, is dependent on the
complexity of the labeling system in place.

"In sum, then, we can say that it is a normal part of intelligence to be
able to find, without looking for it, a story that will help you know
what to do in a new situation. It is an exceptional aspect of
intelligence to be able to find stories that are superifically not so
obviously connected to the current situation. If you have labeled a
story in a complex fashion prior to storage, it will be available in a
large variety of ways in the future. Higher intelligence depends upon
complex perception and labeling." (Shank, 1998, p. 224)

[The second dimension of intelligence is data manipulation]{.underline}.
Once again, partial matching is part of everyday intelligence. An
example is when you see someone who has just had a haircut. You may
recognize something is different, but you still recognize the person. We
do something similar in matching stories, when we pull stories stored in
memory that have similar elements to current events. This process of
recall can extend itself to where very partial matches can add value to
a new situation. An additional extension occurs when an old story is
adapted to create a new story. This is the high end of intelligence,
where old stories are used as resources for creativity to cope with new
situations.

[The third dimension of intelligence is comprehension]{.underline}. Once
again, there are levels of comprehension. We automatically connect new
stories to old stories, but the mind can go beyond this connecting to
figure out meaning in a new story even though there is no old story it
is related to, finding coherence where they is no obvious coherence.

[The fourth dimension of intelligence is explanation]{.underline}. As a
matter of course we can explain our failures, but beyond that is
recovering from these failures and using them to prevent future
failures. This entails finding the predictive rules within a failure and
having the ability to apply these to future scenarios. Since no story
has one possible rule, this discovery process is both repetitive and
innovative. Shank contends that

"the more intelligent you are the more you will fail. Ultimately the
value of failure and the explanation of failure is to come up with new
rules that predict how events will turn out. ... Thus, the task for an
intelligent system is to be looking for failures that it can use its
stories to explain in order to create new rules to be tried and
considered again." (Shank, 19 , p. 232)

[The fifth dimension of intelligence is planning]{.underline}. On a
day-to-day basis we execute plans that are copies from others. At a
second order level, we adapt these plans to current situations. At a
higher level of intelligence we create and execute plans of our own.
These plans do not need to be new to society, but new to the individual
who is creating and implementing them.

[The sixth dimension of intelligence is communication]{.underline}. For
humans, communication is very case dependent, intended to make a point
the teller wishes to communicate. The extension of this ability is in
the creation of new stories and the elaboration of old ones. Shank sees
the ability to go beyond simple, direct descriptions of what has
happened as a higher level of intelligence. "\[Intelligent people\] have
learned how to *generalize*, *crystallize*, and *elaborate* so that they
tell stories that express insights not obvious in the original story."
(Shank, 19 , pl.234) While Shank sees this
crystallization-generalization aspect of intelligence as a learned
skill, it is very dependent upon having stories to tell in the first
place.

[The seventh dimension of intelligence is integration]{.underline}. At
the first level, we all understand stories that we have been told. This
element deals with not only what is remembered but what is forgotten,
since integration is involved in the selection of what will be rememberd
and what will be forgotten. The higher level of this intelligence
includes curiosity, where an individual goes beyond integrating the
current with the remembered to seeking new understanding. The
significance of integration to perceived intelligence, however, is very
environmentally driven. For instance, a child who embraces everything
new about computers and consistently works to integrate the current and
remembered will be considered more intelligent in today's world than a
child with similar capabilities who is focusing on motorcycles.

In summary, intelligence is measured by the stories we know.

"So the issue with respect to stories is this: We know them, find them,
reconsider them, manipulate them, use them to understand the world and
to operate in the world, adapt them to new purposes, tell them in new
ways, and we invent them. We live in a world of stories. Our ability to
utilize these stories in novel ways is a hallmark of what we consider to
be intelligence." (Shank, 19 , p. 241)

## The Value of Personal Storytelling to the Individual

There are innumerable benefits that accrue from personal storytelling.
Maguire presents a set of what he calls the blessings of personal
storytelling (Maguire, 1998, p. 13-30)

-   Personal storytelling invests our lives with more meaning.

-   Personal storytelling connects us more vitally with others.

-   Personal storytelling develops our creativity.

-   Personal storytelling strengthens our humor.

-   Personal storytelling increases our courage and confidence.

-   Personal storytelling renders our lives more memorable.

[Storytelling invests our lives with more meaning]{.underline}. The
greatest human desire, even beyond that of happiness, is to have our
lives mean something. "This desire for meaning is the originating
impulse of story. We tell stories because we hope to find or create
significant connections between things." (Taylor, 1966, p. 1) The act of
storytelling is an act of organizing, making sense out of, our memories
thoughts and emotions. Because stories have a beginning, middle and end,
a wholeness is created from disparate parts. They teach us that there is
a place where we fit, suggesting our lives can have a plot. "Stories
turn mere chronology, one thing after another, into the purposeful
action of plot, and thereby into meaning." (Taylor, 1966, p. 2)

McAdams says that we each seek to provide our scattered and often
confusing experiences with a sense of coherence by arranging the
episodes of our lives into stories. His thoughts invoke the power of
myth described earlier.

"This is not the stuff of delusion or self-deception. We are not telling
ourselves lies. Rather, through our personal myths, each of us discovers
what is true and what is meaningful in life. In order to live well, with
unity and purpose, we compose a heroic narrative of the self that
illustrates essential truths about ourselves." (McAdams, 1993, p. 11)

Stories also validate experiences. Negative experiences transformed into
stories help us to learn from those experiences. Because we are the
heros of our personal stories, the focal point, there is a building of
self-respect in sharing them. Simple experiences can become charged with
wondrous moments and meaningful themes, almost miraculous.

[Storytelling connects us more vitally with others]{.underline}. Stories
and storytelling do not occur in a vacuum. We are characters in the
stories of others, and others are characters in our stories, leading to
shared commitments and shared understanding. The words "*let me tell you
a story"* are an invitation to human relationship. To tell a personal
story to others, we must relate to them and they to us. We are literally
engaging others in our personal experience, sharing our thoughts,
feelings and emotions. Through this sharing, a bond, a relationship is
built with others, often reciprocated by the listener and resulting in
the exchange of stories. In addition, every time we repeat a story we
are building deeper relationship with the individuals within our story.
Taylor sees this an important element of "finding myself."

'Finding myself' is less a matter of uncovering some supposedly pristine
and genuine self within, or uncorrupted by outside influences, than it
is discovering my role in various stories in which I am only one of many
characters. Being one character out of many in a larger story does not
diminish me; it enlarges me and my possible significance. I am not an
isolated individual desperately searching for an illusory self and
plaintively insisting on my needs and rights; rather I am a character in
a story with other characters, making choices together that give our
lives meaning. (Taylor, 1996, p. 69)

O'Halloran sees this power of storytelling to connect as one of
storytelling's greatest assets, moving beyond the teller and the
listener. "The power to connect is one of storytelling's most remarkable
gifts. Storytelling can inspire us to see our country and us as mosaics
of strength, strong and large enough to hold everybody's story."
(O'Halloran, 2000, p. 26)

[Storytelling develops our creativity]{.underline}. "People create
because they can't help it." (Cassady, 1990, p.9) There is joy in
creation. In telling stories, we reflect again and again on our
experiences, remembering them in the new light of what we have learned
since last we remembered them. We transform these stories into new
meanings and new realities in the context of the communication and in an
attempt to influence the listener. This does not make the stories less
authentic or effective, for the story told is inevitably based on the
story teller's perception and interpretation of experience. Storyteller
Donald Davis sums this up by saying "Think of storytelling as painting a
picture instead of taking a photograph." (Maguire, 1998, p. 24)

[Personal storytelling strengthens our humor]{.underline}. Humor is the
ability to delight, laugh and smile at the wonder of life. Telling
personal stories builds the capability of putting things into
perspective, as we weave into words our own interactions with life. The
word *humor* is from the Latin word *umor*, which means fluid. Maguire
states:

By calling attention to the many different ways that people related to
each other -- be they foolish or wise, amazing or commonplace,
deliberate or accidental, hilarious or horrible -- personal storytelling
helps restore our equanimity, our sensitivity to the right proportion of
things, our "humor," so that we can be more humane. And it tempers our
feelings of self-importance, superiority, self-righteousness, and
smugness, so that we can be more humanely humble." (Maguire, 1998, p.
26)

[Personal storytelling increases our courage and
confidence]{.underline}. The very telling of personal stories values the
stories told. If they are important enough to be remembered and shared,
they denote value in our lives. As we become more and more conscious
about our stories, and our roles as characters in those stories, we have
more clarity about who we are, why we are here, and how we should act in
the world. (Taylor, 1966, p. 2)

In addition, since personal stories rely on our remembering and our
effective expression of remembering, they remind us of our own
capabilities and creativity. This builds self-confidence and courage,
which extrapolates to every aspect of life.

Above all, storytelling gives us love and courage for life: in the
process of making up a wonderful story, new spirit is born for facing
the great adventures of our lives and for giving wise encouragement to
others, of any age, along their own pathways. Every storyteller collects
and arranges vital inner pictures; behind these live universal ordering
principles." (Mellon, 1992, p. 123)

[Personal storytelling renders our lives more memorable]{.underline}.
Quite literally, through drawing on our memory to tell stories, we are
enhancing old memories and building new memories. This exercise of our
memory carries over into all aspects of our lives. From a symbolic
viewpoint, the gestures and images used in the telling ennoble the
story, making it more important, more memorable. The repeated story
becomes an individual cultural ritual, bearing witness to who we are.

In summary, personal stories are who we are as humans, defining both the
way we understand ourselves and the way we relate to others and the
world around us. Steve Denning says: "Each time we enter the word-woven
magic of a story, our lives are enlarged, as we given ourselves to
another mode of knowing." (Denning, 2000, p.xxii) We shall now explore
the moral purposes of stories.

## 

## The Moral Purposes of Stories

In looking at narrative approaches to ethics, Nelson identifies five
categories, each interacting with stories in a different way. The first
category is as a receiver, as a *listener* or *reader*. Listening to and
reading stories gives the receiver the opportunity to pay attention to
the complexities and nuances of the story, sharpening the moral
sensibilities.

"One does this by allowing the author of the work to direct one's
attention to the rich and subtle particulars of the narrative -- the
moral, intellectual, emotional and social nuances. When the author has
set these out with skill and imagination, overlooking no meaningful
detail, the reader can see what is morally at issue in the narrative:
she becomes 'finely aware and richly responsible'. ... Political
reasoning, too can benefit from the emotions evoked by the literary
imagination." (Nelson, 1997, p. x)

Riffaterre looks at narrative truth as a linguistic phenomenon since it
is experienced through enactment by reading.

It is a performative event in which participation on the reader's part
can only serve to hammer the text's plausibility into his experience.
Because of this, the verbal nature of mimesis, since the transformation
of the given into synonymous representations corresponds to the
conventions of a society or of a class, these also serve as guidelines
for the positive or negative interpretations the reader is led to adopt.
(Riffaterre, 1990, pp. xiv-xv)

This approach leads to the understanding that while fiction emphasizes
the fact of the fictionality of a story it is simultaneously stating
that the story is true. It is what Riffaterre calls an artifact since it
is a verbal representation of reality rather than reality itself.

A second approach is the *telling* of stories, where the teller makes
moral sense of something by choosing the particulars and experience
through the light of moral ideas. This is what Margaret Urban Walker
calls *strong moral self-definition*, where a morally developed person
turns to personal history to help make a decision in the present. The
decisions made set precedents for the future, so are geared not only
toward who we are, but who we want to become. The power of stories is
clear in the work Nelson did looking at stories that dominant members of
a community tell about oppressed others to keep them in their place.
Counter stories emerge to combat this oppression. "I have been exploring
the conditions under which counter-stories -- stories of resistance and
insubordination told or enacted by the oppressed or on their behalf --
exert pressure against these stories of domination, allowing the
oppressed to decline the identities their oppressors have constructed
for them, and so to gain access to more of the good things their
community has to offer." (Nelson, 1997, p. xi)

A third approach is to *compare*. This was a medieval Christian
practice, where moral guidance was sought through comparing cases of
conscience. A fourth approach is *literary analysis*, where literary
criticism is applied to either explicit narratives or to a social
practice. This is a hermeneutical approach grounded in some form of
literary criticism.

A fifth thing to do with stories is to *invoke* them, using them to make
or illustrate a moral point. This is often the purpose of our myths and
fables, parables and anecdotes. We hear about this approach often in
legal cases, where legal precedents are invoked to provide guidance.

It is clear that Nelson's concept of five things to do with stories look
at them through a moral lens are closely aligned with the values of
story discussed earlier in the paper.

## 

## The Use of Story in Healing

Dr. Daniel Taylor clearly states that we are our stories, the product of
the all the stories we have heard and lived and many that we have never
even heard. Stories have shaped how we see ourselves, how we see the
world, and our place in it. The first great storytellers in our lives
are at home and school, in the popular cultures, and, perhaps, at
church.

"Knowing and embracing healthy stories are crucial to living rightly and
well. If your present life story is broken or diseased, it can be made
well. Or, if necessary, it can be replaced by a story that has a plot
worth living. (Taylor, 1966, p. 1)

But stories, and lives, can be broken. Whole societies, as well as
individuals, struggle to live by stories that cannot sustain them.
Taylor calls the stories that can no longer provide meaning and a sense
of purpose failed stories. "If you cannot convincingly articulate a plot
for your life, you are living a broken story. If our society as a whole
is directionless, it is because we have abandoned many of the defining
stories of our past without finding adequate replacements." (Taylor,
1966, p. 3)

In therapy, the story provides a bridge between the healer and the
patient.

"... vicarious experience \[that serves\] as a means of sympathetically
participating in the lives of others ... But cultivating experience
through imagination, through metaphor, through creative reading, a
bridge can be established between the world of the patient (the other)
and the world of the nurse or the physician or ethicist (the self).
(Radey, 1992, p. 40)

Storytelling has been actively used in therapy for nearly as long as man
has existed. There are specific terms of art that have emerged which
define the use of story in healing, terms such as psychotherapy, the use
of story to depathologize life, and bibliotherapy, the use of literature
to help individuals with emotional problems. A major goal in these
therapies is to develop a coherent life story. Some psychological
problems, and a great deal of emotional suffering, stem from our
inability to make sense of our lives through stories.

> "Human life is, ideally, a connected and coherent story, with all the
> details in explanatory place, and with everything (or as close to
> everything as is practically possible) accounted for, in its proper
> causal or other sequence ... illness amounts at least in part to
> suffering from an incoherent story or an inadequate narrative account
> of oneself." (Taylor, 1966, p. 4)

Thom Bristow, a 30-year veteran psychotherapist, feels that storytelling
is a powerful alternative for emotional problems. "As you tell a story,
you can make choices about what your hero does and what will happen as a
result. You have control of your story. If you transfer this to real
life, you'll find that you do have choices and that by making these
choices you can take control. Telling and living a story aren't all that
different." (Bristow, 1997, p. 18) When working with patients, Bristow
invites the participant to become the hero of a story, which puts the
participant in control, bringing a sense of security and building self
esteem. Bristow goes on to say that it is important to find the right
story, the story that makes you laugh or cry and teaches you something.

Angela Klingler, a retired registered nurse, has spent much of her
professional and private life telling stories to children. She believes
that stories work in a number of ways to evoke positive emotions and
attitudes, positively influencing the healing process. They can provide
distance from stress and anxiety, improve a patient's state of mind by
evoking joy and humor, and, through imagery, speak to the conscious and
unconscious mind. (Klinger, 1997, p. 22

In *The Healing Art of Storytelling*, Richard Stone writes that hospital
settings and other healthcare environments should:

"... make room for institutional models of healing that incorporate
storytelling and other art forms ... even traditionalists are opening
themselves to the possibility that the quickest route to healing the
body is through the psyche and the soul. Like shamans in tribal
societies, storytellers may soon be walking the halls of hallowed
medical institutions dispensing their remedies one tale at a time."
(Stone, 1996, p. 14)

Long uses the term metaphor and story interchangeably, thinking of
metaphor as an altered framework for novel experiences. This direct form
of treatment involves protagonists, character development, dramatic
devices, a storyline following one of several specific protocols, and
some form of a conclusion. (Long, 1989, p.1-4) The treatment strategy is
designed to frame the presenting problems against a backdrop of the
interpersonal/developmental demands surrounding the patient. It works
through a series of identified goals dealing with affect, attitude,
behavior, family structure, self-image, identity development, and
discipline/enjoyment. Three stories of used as focal points to
addressing these goals.

Stories are often a part of the healing rituals in Native American
nations. For example, in the Navajo tribe figures from stories are
created in colored sand on the earth, and the individual who is to be
cured is placed on top of the sand painting to become part of the story.
This ritual may go on for days at a time.

The healing discussed above is built on community, a community of two or
more, the teller, and the listener(s). At an even larger level, story
can embrace the entire human community. "Whether small or large,
community is healing because it both requires something of us and give
us something back. In story, both teller and listener have
responsibilities to the other, responsibility being the fair price we
pay for the many benefits of sharing a story with others." (Taylor,
1966, p. 114-115) Taylor goes on to say that although the boundary
between the teller and the listener is far more fluid than we usually
realize, it is only the story that affects how we actually live that is
significant.

The larger healing power of stories also derives in part from partaking
in the character of ritual, *voluntarily*. In a sacred context, we are
tied to the transcendent, everlasting things larger than ourselves.
(Taylor, 1966, p. 121) There is a strong link between ritual, story and
health. Leslie Marmom Silko, a multi-cultural mixture of Laguna Pueblo,
Mexican and white and raised on a reservation near Albuquerque, writes
about the effects on Native Americans of broken stories.

### *I will tell you something about stories ...*

*They aren't just entertainment.*

*Don't be fooled.*

*They are all we have, you see,*

*all we have to fight off*

*illness and death.*

### *You don't have anything*

*if you don't have the stories.*

#### Their evil is mighty

*but it can't stand up to our stories.*

#### So they try to destroy the stories

*let the stories be confused or forgotten.*

*They would like that*

*They would be happy*

*Because we would be defenseless then.*

*He rubbed his belly.*

*I keep them here . . .*

### *Here, put your hand on it*

*See, it is moving.*

### *There is life here*

*for the people.*

### *And in the belly of this story*

*the rituals and the ceremony*

*are still growing.*

(Silko, 1997, Preface) When stories fall apart, whether for an
individual or for a culture, both are left defenseless, without, quite
literally, knowing who we are or what we should do.

## 

## The Use of Storytelling in Organizations

The Institute for Knowledge Management defines organizational story as
"a detailed narrative of past management actions, employee interactions,
or other intra-organizational events that are communicated informally
with the organization." (Swap, 2000, p.12) These narratives include a
plot, major characters and an outcome.

There are a variety of story forms that exist naturally throughout
organizations, including scenarios and anecdotes. Scenarios are the
articulation of possible future states, constructed within the
imaginative limits of the author. While scenarios provide an awareness
of alternatives \-- of value in and of itself \-- they are often used as
planning tools for possible future situations. The plan becomes a
vehicle to respond to recognized objectives in each scenario.

An anecdote is a brief sequence captured in the field or arising from a
brainstorming session. To reinforce positive behavior, sensitive
managers can seek out and disseminate (true) anecdotes that embody the
value desired in the organization. The capture and distribution of
anecdotes across organizations carries high value.

"We have discovered that once a critical number of anecdotes are
captured from a community, the value set or rules underlying the
behavior of that community can be extracted ... Understanding these
values allows us to start to utilize informal as well as formal aspects
of the organization." (Snowden, 1999)

Healthy organizations are filled with anecdotes. "If there are none,
this tells the manager a lot about the socialization and internalization
going on in the organization!" (Swap, 2000, p.20)

Corporate storytelling seeks to create purposeful and goal-directed
activity. Earlier in this paper we discussed the springboard story, a
type of transformational story described by Steve Denning. Springboard
stories are intended to generate imitative examples so that listeners
can discover new knowledge and capabilities that they possess but do not
use. The springboard story is what Denning successfully used at The
World Bank to move that organization to a knowledge organization. These
stories have proved a powerful method of communicating knowledge about
norms and values. Stories are used because they are more memorable, and
because they are more memorable they are more likely to be acted upon
than other information that remains in the unconscious.

Snowden says that evolutionary failures often teach us as much if not
more than successes. This is also generally true in organizations. He
says negative story of someone else's failure spreads more quickly than
one of success. This is because we, as humans, are highly attuned to
failure as a survival characteristic. Snowden explains, "It is more
important to avoid failure than to imitate success if we are to evolve."
(Snowden, 1999, p.3)

Stories have the capacity to increase our descriptive capabilities, a
strength in this age of uncertainty where we must be able to describe
our environment and the self-awareness to describe our capabilities.
Description capabilities are essential in strategic thinking and
planning, and create a greater awareness of what we could achieve.

Fictional stories can be powerful because they provide a mechanism by
which an organization can learn from failure without attributing blame.
Some organizations actually create characters from archetypes extracted
from a large number of organizational anecdotes. These characters are
used over and over again. Once established, they become a natural
vehicle for organizational learning and a repository for organizational
memory.

Stories, when well constructed, can convey a high level of complex
meaning. The use of sub-text can convey this meaning without making it
obvious. Sub-text is a term that refers to an unstated message not
explicit in the dialogue of the story.

Finally, because stories communicate common values and rule systems,
they provide a mechanism to build organic organizational response to
emerging requirements. This means that as new situations and new
challenges arise in response to an every-changing world, a common set of
values will drive that response at every level of the organization.
Snowden explains,

> "The higher the level of uncertainty at which we either have to
> operate, or more beneficially at which we choose to operate requires a
> concentration on common values and rule systems that allow the network
> of communities from which our organization is formed to self organize
> around a common purpose. In this world, old skills such as story and
> other models drawn from organic rather than mechanical thinking are
> survival skills, not nice to haves." (Snowden, 1999, p.7)

## 

## The Future of Storytelling

With the advent of the Intenet, a new style of digital storytelling is
emerging. In this new medium, computer graphics and animation turn
storytelling into a multimedia event, with dynamic sounds and pictures.
What is new about storytelling via the web is the opportunity for story
to reach untold numbers around the world. This form of storytelling
"forces people to write down their life stories and tell them to
strangers as well as friends," says Joan Wolff, a master storyteller.
"It enhances human communication and enables us to reach out." (Wolff,
1999, p. 24-25)

Perhaps this is why an Internet search of storytelling sites yielded
site after site, with storytelling societies and associations around the
world. There is first and foremost
[http://www.storyteller.net](http://www.storyteller.net/) launched in
1997 that includes photos and voice clips and interactive story-building
pages. There is the Storytelling Home Page at
<http://member.aol.com/storypage/> and the Jonesborough Storytelling
guild at <http://www.preferred.com/storyteller> and the Northern
Appalachian Storytelling Festival page at
<http://www.mnsfld.edu/deps/storytel> and the Timpanogog Storytelling
Festival page at [http://www.timpfest.org](http://www.timpfest.org/).
Each of these sites lead onward to a plethora of storytelling
connectivity. All this activity certainly purports that storytelling is
alive and well.

In a newspaper article entitled "The Story of You" that appeared in the
April 26, 2000 edition of *The Washington Post*, reporter Weeks cites
Bernstein as saying "The future of literature lies on the screen" and
Greco as saying "Books will become objects of nostalgia." (Weeks, 2000,
p.C1) Weeks says storytelling is changing. More and more authors are
writing for electronic reading screens, and as the medium changes from
the oral tradition and paper to screen, the concept of story is
changing. This paper began with a simple definition of story as that
which has a beginning, middle and end. With the increased use of
hypertext on the Internet, even this simple definition is called into
question. Modern day Internet storytellers are experimenting with moving
images and music, and only the occasional sentence here or there. On the
Journal E Web site, storyteller Dorow asks visitors to post their own
stories or family photos, and invites readers/viewers to express their
own innermost feelings, building those feelings right into the story
being presented so others will respond to those and become part of the
story, "changing and shaping and expanding and making more rich the
story." (Weeks, 2000, p.C8-9) In short, the reader is becoming the
storyteller, and the storyteller is becoming the reader.

New skill sets are required for this new Internet world of story. These
skill sets require multiprocessing, the quick and sure assimilation of
and response to fast-flowing ;images and sounds and sensory assaults.

Questions abound. How does the Internet change man's relationship to
story? Does this new storytelling encourage or diminish creativity and
growth? Will the importance of story acquiesce to images and sound?
Whatever the answers, and whatever storytelling looks like in the
future, of this I am sure. Through the creativity of story our sense of
who we are and how we meet others in the world is evolving, for better
or for worse. And the future of storytelling is the future of man.

**REFERENCES**

Allende, I. with M. Tams (1997). "The Art of Storytelling" in Cameron,
J. et al, *The Well of*

*Creativity*. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc.

Birkerts, S. (1994). *The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an
Electronic Age*.

Boston: Faber and Faber.

Booth, W. (1988). *The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction*. Berkeley:
University

of California Press.

Bristow, T. (1997). "Finding the Healing Story" in *Storytelling
Magazine*, July.

Bruchac, J. (1997). "Storytelling and the Sacred: On the Uses of Native
American Stories" in

*Storytelling Magazine*. Special Edition, September.

Buxbaum, Y. (1997). "The Jewish Legacy and Storytelling's Modern
Revival" in *Storytelling*

*Magazine*. Special Edition, September.

Campbell, J. (1949). *The Hero With a Thousand Faces*. New York: MJF
Books.

Cassady, M. (1990). *Storytelling Step by Step*. San Jose, CA: Resource
Publications, Inc.

Coles, R. (1989). *The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral
Imagination*. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin Company.

Denning, S. (2001). *The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in
Knowledge-Era*

*Organizations*. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann.

Doyle, D. (1997). "People and Other Animals" in *Storytelling Magazine*.
Special Edition,

September.

Feldmann, S. (1965). *The Storytelling Stone*. New York: Delta Trade
Paperbacks.

Gardner, R. A. (1993). *Storytelling in Psychotherapy with Children*.
New Jersey: Jason

Aronson, Inc.

Godown, J. F. (1996). "An Interview with Jane Yolen on Tales and
Transformations" in

*Storytelling Magazine*, January.

Klingler, A. (1997). "The Storyteller in Healthcare Settings" in
*Storytelling Magazine*, July.

Lankton, C. H. & S. R. Lankton (1989). *Tales of Enchantment:
Goal-Oriented Metaphors for*

*Adults and Children in Therapy*. Bristol, PA: Brunner/Mazel.

Leotta, J. (1997). "Tongue or Pen: Which is the Way for Folklore?" in
*Storytelling Magazine*.

Special Edition/September.

Long, T. A. (1986). "Narrative Unity and Clinical Judgement."
*Theoretical Medicine* 7: 75-92.

MacIntyre, A. (1981). *After Virtue*. Notre Dame, IND: University of
Notre Dame Press.

Maguire, J. (1998). *The Power of Personal Storytelling: spinning Tales
to Connect with Others*.

New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Marcus, S. (1974). "Freud and Dora: Story, history, and case history."
*Partisan Review*, 41,

2-23, 89-108.

Martin, R. (1999). "Why Folktales?" in *Storytelling Magazine*. Vol. 11,
No. 1, January.

McAdams, D. P. (1993). *The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the
Making of Self*.

New York: The Guilford Press.

Mellon, N. (1992). *The Art of Storytelling*. Rockport: Element.

Mellon, N. (1992). *Storytelling and the Imagination*. Rockport, MA:
Element Books.

Miller, C. (f1996). "Pourquoi Stories: How and Wy Tales from Nature in
*Storytelling*

*Magazine*, January.

Nelson, H. L., ed. (1997). *Stories and Their Limits: Narrative
Approaches to Bioethics*. New

York: Routledge.

O'Halloran, S. (2000). "Compassionate Action Through Storytelling."
*Storytelling Magazine* ,

Vol. 4, Issue 4, July/August.

Radey, C. (1992). "Imagining Ethics: Literature and the Practice of
Ethics." *Journal of Clinical*

*Ethics* 3:38-45.

Riffaterre, M. (1990). *Fictional Truth*. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press.

# Schank, R. E. (1990). *Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence*. Evanston, IL: Northwestern

# University Press.

# 

# Silko, L. M. (1977). *Ceremony*. New York: Penguin.

# 

# Simpkinson, A. (1997). "Sacred Stories" in *Storytelling Magazine*, July.

# 

# Snowden, D. (1999). "The Paradox of Story: Simplicity and complexity in strategy" in *Journal*

#  *of Strategy & Scenario Planning*, November.

# 

# Snowden, D. (1999). "Liberating Knowledge" in *Liberating Knowledge*. London: Caspian 

# Publishing.

# Swap, W., et al. (2000). White Paper: *Transferring Tacit Knowledge Asseets: Mentoring and* 

# *Storytelling in the Workplace*. September. Cambridge, MA: Institute for Knowledge

# Management.

# 

# Taylor, D. (1996). *The Healing Power of Stories: Creating Yourself Through the Stories of* 

*Your Life*. New York: Doubleday.

Weeks, L. (2000). "The Story of You" in *The Washington Post*.
Wednesday, April 26, C1-9.

Wolff, J. (1999). "Digital Storytelling: Wave of the Future?" in
*Storytelling Magazine*. Vol. 11,

Issue 3, May/June.