Art of Storytelling

by Marsh Cassady

Storytelling is a common form of communication that people engage in nearly every day. When elevated to an art, however, a talented storyteller has a spell-binding ability to bring a story to life. Now you too can learn the art and weave your own magic. The wonderful world of storytelling is revealed in this unique resource manual for both beginners and seasoned performers. Comprehensive in scope, it includes many ideas for finding, writing, adapting and presenting stories. The text is divided into three Choosing Stories to Tell , Developing Original Ideas and Presenting the Story . Story examples and exercises embellish the text throughout and make it very readable. Each chapter concludes with discussion questions and activities. This is a quality comprehensive textbook for oral interpretation.

(288 pages, 51/2 x 81/2, paperback)

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1992

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only issue I have with this book is how much of it is in bold print, to signify that this is a story that is being told. Ugh.

Other than that, there are some great ideas on developing the storytelling art, and I will go back to some of them when I teach my Storytelling class in May 2014. I liked the definitions and the section on using your body and voice, since the performance of the story will probably be the least natural element for my students.

Since my students will be telling their own stories, and only in oral form, the planning chapter seemed less useful, but then I thought about repurposing the same ideas into a feedback tool, in addition to the ideas contributed by the class as to "what makes a good story." I think that will provide a great mechanism for immediate feedback to each performer.

I'll have a speaker come in to talk about what stories do for the teller, and Cassady touches briefly on this concept as well.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoy giving speeches and I'm always trying to learn how to improve my speeches, so I picked up this book to help me. I already knew before I started reading this book that stories are very important to good speeches (and anytime you want to influence or persuade someone). Despite my interest in the subject, I didn't get far with this book. It is terrible! The example stories weren't compelling and there were LOTS of them. After reading a couple of uninteresting stories, I skipped a few and started reading Mr. Cassady's comments. They were few and not helpful.

I wondered if perhaps part of the reason the stories weren't compelling to me is that they seemed very outdated. I couldn't relate to some of the references and the word choices seemed odd.

Whatever the reason, I found nothing useful or interesting in this book. I can't recommend it at all!