Transcripts
1. Introduction: Have you ever peeked
behind the curtain that vales your favorite
writers and directors? Have you ever found that an explanation for
how a story is made is sometimes more interesting
than the story itself. Have you ever wondered how your favorite creators
find and develop ideas? Well, they probably do it
in many different ways. And this class is to
get you thinking about diverse ways of finding
and combining ideas. I'm Theodore Lowery. I'm
a multimedia artist, author, graphic novelist,
videographer, educator. I've helped many clients develop
and present their ideas. I've also written my own
books and short stories, film, documentary,
and graphic novels. If you choose to come along
for the ride in this class, I'm going to bring you through a potent and playful idea
generation techniques. I'm excited because teaching this is also a creative
process for me. And I love to see
the different ideas that people come up with. You're probably going
to make something that I could never
have imagined. This just shows me how
wonderfully different we are in our worldviews and our
ways of approaching life. In this class you'll
work with ideas, nimbly, engaging in
process and flow. You'll sketch tails quickly, breaking apart and
recombining they're elements. Definitely reshaping a story
until you're satisfied, then you can decide
where you want to spend time developing
the details. This is how visual
artists work with sketches and combinations
of sketches. And this way of working
can help us writers and storytellers tell Paul
tails with deep resonance. In fact, we'll be doing
some drawing ourselves, not as a craft in and of itself, but as a tool to help us
developing our story. This class is for you, if you're new to
storytelling and you wanna get rolling in a fun quick way. It may also be for you if you're an experienced
storyteller. And you want to try
out some different way of finding and
working with ideas. For supplies, you'll just
need a blank pad of paper. That of a larger
one is good if you have it, work with
what you have. Colored pencils or colored
markers, some scissors. And of course, your imagination
see you on the inside.
2. Class Project: The class project
in this class will involve finding and
recombining ideas. But hey, wait a minute, I thought we were
creating ideas. It's called creativity, right? Well, I'm gonna be bold and say that creativity
is recombination. Hear me and they say there's
nothing new under the sun. Or if you're from a
neighboring solar system, you might say in a
broader sense that there's nothing new
orbiting the galactic core. The elements of our planet came from stars going supernova, atoms being rearranged
into new forms. So recombining things might
not seem like a big deal. But it's how we remained and
it's how we create ideas. Ideas don't usually come together neatly,
like puzzle pieces. It's more like people coming
together to create children. E.g. let's look at the
recent film Pinocchio, directed by Guillermo del Toro. Now, this is an old
story of course, but he's combined it with ideas that weren't
there in the original. It takes place in Italy
ruled by Mussolini. And he's added a greedy
circus master as a villain. These ideas come from somewhere. Greedy circus master,
villain, dictator, or a being who is like a boy, but also like a doll or a marionette being who
has been animated, who wasn't alive before. It's not new ideas but
combined in a new way. And it's not just remakes
that rework existing ideas. Take another recent film, everything, everywhere
all at once. It's considered to be
quite an original film. But it draws heavily from
the matrix, from Hong Kong, action films, from
quantum physics, and also the experience of
immigrants coming into the US. It matches all of these
together into a novel story. Now, full length
stories like these, they combine many ideas. Even a single scene might
combine many ideas. But to practice the principle, we're going to find
a handful of ideas, boil them down to their
basic components, and then recombine
these components into snippets of stories. And then combine these
snippets into whole stories. From there, you could
combine those four stories together with other stories
to make a larger story. And we're just going to start small in our little
story laboratory. We'll begin with a short
guided meditation to find ideas existing within you already in the form of memories. And use these as
a starting point. Then using words and
drawing will represent these ideas in a way that you can tangibly have
in front of you. This isn't a drawing class, but we're using drawing as a tool for the thinking process. Totally fine if you're
not a pro artists. In fact, it may be better
because we're not trying to render out beautiful scenes. We're using drawing and
simple symbolic ways. Then we're going to
cut these drawings out so that we can break them apart and move them around and manipulate them with our hands. This is really helpful to have your ideas there in a way
that's not so abstract, but it's something
you can touch, something you can
relate with physically. We'll combine those and use a simple but powerful
storytelling recipe to create stories from
these constellations of ideas I invite you to
share as you go along, to inspire others and to look at others as they share
their process. This is not meant to be anything polished is very
much a work in progress. Learning how to work rough, sketchy, just be
in the flow of it. And what you can do
is you can start a project and one of
the earlier stages, and then you can add to that
project as you go along. And it's quite a quick process. If you want to circle around
and go through it again, you can go ahead and just add more to your existing
class project. It doesn't matter
if it gets big. So this is a fun, playful class. So I really encourage you to
move while you're working, to go down to the river or to
listen to the sounds of it, to sing to yourself. So listen to great music. Let this energy
move through you. Let yourself be foolish, absurd, trial,
ridiculous things. It's all free and welcome here. And very much encouraged. Creativity isn't
just in our brains, but in our bodies and the
space between us and the world around us with its
blooming flowers and its volcanoes
and waterfalls. It's in the whole universe with its planets being
created and destroyed. We live in a creative Cosmos. Now, let's go prospecting
for ideas in our minds.
3. Guided Meditation: Now there are many places to
prospect for story ideas. You could go do some
people watching. Some research on animal behavior and personifies some
of the animals. You could think of the nature of different planets and their
relationship with each other. And personify that you might look at inspiring
books and films. Today, we're going to go inside and look for
inspiration in memories. If you haven't already
get your pad of paper, some colored pencils or pens, and just have them ready
there in front of you. Now take a few deep breaths
and let your thoughts settle. If it's comfortable,
close your eyes. You might feel yourself
rooting down into the earth, through the floor,
into the ground, deep down to the core of
the earth, very stable. Grounded. You might feel yourself at the
same time reaching upward, up to the sky, out
to the cosmos. Stretching between
ground and sky in a most comfortable,
expansive way. This is your time to
be present. Peaceful. Still. Full. Dangling bits of life fall away and you
arrive fully here. In this present moment. To your breath, your pulse, your body sounds around you. And from here, I
invite you to go in and enter the
realm of memory. Where the events of
your life dwell. Turn from facing the
future and instead, face backward toward the past. You might visualize a
string beginning just in front of you and going back
out into the distance, back in time toward your
childhood. Maybe beyond. And memories hanging
on this string. Like dangling land. In each lantern. A miniature seen as playing out. An event from your life. People place. Each one complete. Little seen. Some scenes, some memories may bring
up pleasant feelings, others unpleasant, or a
mix of these and more. Each scene is full in and of itself and connected
with all the others. Some of these lantern memories may be major turning
points in your life. Others every day events
that burn bright, or some are steeped in shadow. Some might be births and deaths, and unions and partings. Others might be small, but no less remarkable. Like an amazing sunrise or
a deep talk with a friend. Let your attention move
between these memories. Little illuminated scenes,
getting a sense of them all. Notice which ones draw your attention and how
they make you feel, what they bring up inside you. You may find that there's
not one but many strings, each hung with lantern memories. Perhaps there's a web
of strings leading in different directions
with lanterns strung along their length. Memories intersecting with each other where the
strings intersect, these lanterns may be brighter. This may be where the major
events are in your life. This may be where you moved one possible path and
switch to another. These memories can be long ago. Recent. Big events are small. And in all this, you're looking for
those memories at, particularly call you those that have more
emotional resonance, more power than the others. Notice them. And you can crack open your eyes just enough to jot down some
words on your paper, mentioning the memories in
just two or three words. Very brief enough. So you'll remember later on, just to anchor them
there on the page, close your eyes,
find another one. Anchor it on the
page with writing. Find another one. Put it on the page. Small or big, serious or silly, moving or whimsical or
whatever they may be. Just keep jotting them down. Whatever the memories maybe. Just keep jotting them down. If you have a law
where you've run out extracted just that, sorry, wait there for a
little while. Just wait. Sit with any discomfort. They may be there. And gradually
more memories may come. Such as keep doing
this until you feel that you've written down. And memories that are calling to have emotional weight. Now.
4. Creative Ups & Downs: Alright, so now you've
got some memories jotted down on a piece of
paper in front of you. At this point, you
might be feeling excited that you've got
these memories out. You might be feeling like, Jeez, I've had some
pretty heavy things happen to me in my life. You might be feeling, man, I've got a pretty boring life. How's this going to make
an interesting story? Whatever it is you're
feeling is totally fine. Learning to whether
these ups and downs of the creative process might be as important as
finding the ideas themselves. And I want to pause for
a sec and just give some thoughts about
the creative process, how it often works, and the sequences of it, which I found really helpful, especially when I
get to a part of the process that difficult. I know that it's there
in this bigger context and it helps me sit with it
and helps me move through it. Because we've each got
these inner editors or inner critics and they
can be really helpful after the brainstorming in a later stage of the creative process when you're trying to refine something. But in the
brainstorming process, we really want to give
them the day off. And if they're still
hanging around, maybe come up with some ideas
that are deliberately bad, just to give them the, show them who's boss. So here's what many studies
have shown about the process of brainstorming
or creating ideas. So let's say we're
brainstorming patterns for curtains right out the gate. I can think, well, it's polka dots or stripes
which checkered. There's a plane pattern, different kinds of cloth that could be
considered patterns. Then I might start to hit
a low where I'm like, You know, I haven't come up
with anything interesting. The same old boring
curtain pattern ideas. I'm a boring person. I'm not a creative person who
knows how far I'll take it. There's been some easy ideas out the gate and then there's this low where I've run
out of the easy ideas. In the case of this class, I might have run out of memories
that I find interesting. So at this point in the process, this law, we often get
bored or distracted. We want to quit. Inner criticism can come
up, It's all pointless. What am I doing? I
should get a real job. All this stuff could come up. That's good to
know that this low is just a part of the
creative process. And what happens there
if you stick with it for awhile and you keep
writing down ideas, even if they seem done. Then after awhile some out their idea may count
some absurd idea. Like with the curtains. What if we make a curtain
out of sheet metal? That could be considered a pattern because shiny, you know, of course it's
ridiculous to have curtains made of sheet
metal in my home. What am I like a robot? But that idea might
get me going. Now, what about something shiny? I hadn't thought of silk before. I hadn't thought maybe weaving
metal in with a cloth. Perhaps that would
even help hold in some of the heat
in the house just gets me going in
another direction and from there it
can take off again. And what you often see that that first idea that comes in
that low is kind of absurd, is kinda like useless. So this stainless
steel curtain idea of mine for a household use. Not that great,
but it's original. I've never seen one. It's certainly
more original than my polka dot beige curtain idea. And what you probably
looking for in ideas is some good relationship between novel and useful. Interestingly enough,
children tend to come up with ideas that are very novel
but not necessarily useful, like making a spaceship with
a paperclip and going to Mars and making space
suits out of chewing gum, we can blow a bubble,
we can breathe inside that very novel idea, not necessarily something
that's particularly useful. Whereas adults, we tend towards things that are useful
but not really novel. Like making a new car that's very similar to the car
that came before it. So on this graph, come out the gate with
a whole bunch of ideas. Usually not such a novel ideas. And then there's a law. And then some really
novel idea often comes. And that will kick you
out if you let it. If you don't mind the absurdity, if you'd let yourself go, that will bring you into
a new realm of ideas. And within there you'll
probably find ideas that are both novel and useful. In the case of writing stories, it can be possible that ideas are two novel in the
sense that people won't be able to
relate with them or to useful like they've come before. It's a story that's exactly the same formula as
the story that came before. What you're often looking for is something I invite you to remember this
as we move through into the next stages of
our creative process.
5. Drawing Moments: You've got your collection of memories jotted
down on your paper. So now let's do some drawing. Now I don't want to presume, but you might have taken on
the idea that you can't draw, maybe that you can't say. Unfortunately, these kinds of ideas are floating around and
it's easy to pick them up. But what if we thought
that way about speaking? I can't always speak
professional poetry, so I won't speak at all. No, we got to speak. We've got to draw. We gotta sing. Whether we're aspiring
to be professionals in these arts or not is immaterial. They're part of our
self-expression. So if you haven't
already reclaim them. So first let's warm up. Making circles, triangles,
making lines between them. Trying to make anything
in particular, just letting your hand
move over the page, doodling with a loose arm. Like if you're
gonna go for a run, you do a little warm up first. Now, let your eyes
peruse the memories that you've jotted down and
looking over them, see if some jump out at you. You can circle those ones. These may be the ones that feel most important to
you at this time. The next to one of these
make a drawing that's related to that memory
using simple shapes. I'm thinking circles, squares, lines, triangles,
other simple shapes. It's best that they're simple because we're not trying to make a drawing of what the
memory looked like. Not trying to imitate a camera. We're trying to boil down the memory to its
basic components. So a person could be a circle, e.g. or a triangle. A journey might be an arrow, maybe a curvy arrow. If it was up and down,
rough kind of journey, a revelation could be radiating lines, just
some suggestions. Keep your mind
light, move quickly, use whatever symbols
come to you. Feel free. Make some parts dark,
some parts light. Use your colors intuitively, making fluid choices without thinking too much about them. Whatever feels
like it fits best. Let that drawing energy
flow through you. My case, I've chosen
a memory of sitting on a bench with my friend
talking by a stream. The stream is a few lines and me and my
friend are circles. I felt the bench we
were on was important too because it was small, so we had to sit close together. I've made me orange because it's an expressive color and I
was feeling expressive. I'll make my friend blue
because he was more subdued. I'll make the river purple because I've used blue already. I'll pause for a
moment as you work, but just for a moment
because we want to keep moving swiftly
and intuitively. Now once you've finished
your first drawing, you can move on to the
next memory that you've circled and make another
drawing next to that, again, using simple shapes, working quickly, not worrying too much about what
it looks like. How can you represent
the scene as simply as possible with very
simple shapes. Only a handful of them just boil it right
down to its essence. Here's another
memory of mine, e.g. it's when I traveled abroad
by myself for the first time. I went from Canada to Europe. But I'm not making
any maps here. I'm going to draw myself
as an orange circle again. And I'm crossing over a line, going to travel on
one side of the line, I'll keep it light and
the other side is dark. Not bad, but a mystery where I'm going for
the first time. I'll add a little warm color
to where I'm coming from, something homey and
where I'm going, I'll make that a dark
mysterious purple. When you finished
your second drawing, move on to the third
memory that you circled and make a
drawing for that. If it helps you
to time yourself, you can I'd say no more than 30 s per drawing just to give
yourself that limit. And as you go, you
might find that it becomes more difficult
to come up with ideas. Or you might find that the
flow comes through you more. If it's more difficult, sit with it for a
little while, you know, don't force yourself but
be easy on yourself, but kinda sit with the process. It's kinda like waiting
for the sunrise, waiting for the ideas to come. And after some time looking at the idea when you've
relaxed your mind, you might find
some symbols come, maybe not the perfect ones, were more about process, more about movement
here, if it helps you, you can draw just
any kind of shaped doodling on another
piece of paper. Just to keep your
juices flowing. Feel free to get
up, move around, spin your arms,
keep that energy. And when you're done,
show us some of these crazy ideas
that you've got. If you haven't already
started a project, invite you to go ahead and do that in the project section, take some photos of what
you've been working on. Slapping some explanation
doesn't meet me to make a whole lot of sense and put it up there in the project section. If you need some
more time for this, take as much as you want, just wait until starting
the next video and explore this process of making pictures to go
along with your memories.
6. Choosing Two Moments: All right, we are
on the journey. Now you've got a
collection of memories jotted down on a piece of
paper next to some of them. You've got little drawings. To go along with the memories. You might just take
a moment and let your gaze wander
over these memories, especially the ones that you've
circled and made drawings next to this collection of events from your
time here on Earth. Now looking over the ones that
you've made drawings for. C, which ones come forward? And circle two of them. Circled two of them. And look at the first
memory you chose, and look at the
drawing for that. Now get a separate
piece of paper. Remake this drawing
but larger now, and leaving the words behind. Leaving the words that are
describing the memory behind. You just recreate
this simple drawing. Filling up the whole page. Make it nice and big because
you're going to cut it out this time, color it in. And if you're drawing
changes from the original, that's totally fine. This is a progressive
creative process, and you might find that the process invites you to
remake and refine your work. As you go through,
you might find a orange wasn't
really the color. I'm gonna go with blue or
triangles, not quite right. I'm gonna go with square
as you go through this. And it changes. Remember the emotional
resonance of this memory, what it means to you
and bring that through. Form can change in whatever
way feels natural. In fact, the essence may become clearer to you as
you change the form. When you're finished
this first drawing. And don't take too
long, one or 2 min. Then go ahead and get
another fresh piece of paper and make the second
drawing that you've chosen, make that large as well. Again, not including any words, just the symbols you've made. Give yourself plenty of space. Alright, now you've got
these two large drawings. So lay them out in front of you. Take a breath, soften your gaze. And just let yourself
look at these symbols. Let your mind loosen from the specifics of the
memories that they represent. And just look at these as
shapes in and of themselves. See what they're saying to you. Consider how they might
combine in different ways. What each one means to you. In a deeper way, in
an emotional way, in a physical way. Releasing from the details, the contexts that they came in. Let yourself float
like this for awhile, just looking at the
symbols you've made. Lending what they
mean to you sink in. Just loosening up your
meaning-making mind.
7. Adding Words to Symbols: Now you've got your scenes drawn out with nice simple symbols. The next step is to
come back to words, come back to that
kind of language. And on each element
of your drawing, write a single word. So in my case, this orange circle is
a single element of my drawing and these wavy
lines are another element. And what kind of words
should I write on? So I'm looking for
basic evocative, primal brainstem words,
usually short words. I'm thinking. Words not so much like comparative sociology
or something like that. But more words like up, down, dark, light, valley,
mountain, Sun, Moon, Star, wet, speak, silent, dry, inside, outside,
time change, growth, break, bind, bird,
creature, borough, love, grief, flow,
dive, fly, run, swim. In my case, I've written
flow on the stream. On the knee circle. I've put express On my friend. I've put listen for
my other picture. I've put crossing,
traveler, mystery and home. So going through
first one drawing and then the next, Take your time. Choosing the right word. Not to overthink it, keeping that flow,
keeping that momentum, but also bringing in some consideration to get the word that feels
right for that. And if the words that feel
right to you now aren't necessarily literally
coherent with the memory. Don't worry about it.
We're looking more for emotional resonance
than literal sameness. So you might find that a particular symbol is
now speaking to you. Not necessarily as a
person in a scene, but as an emotion or a sense of falling, flying, expanding. So just go ahead
and write whatever feels right on each
of those symbols. Take your time bringing a presence and keep your
flow going as well. If it's not perfect,
that's totally fine.
8. Cutting Out Your Symbols: All right, Now it's time
to bust out your suitors. Do you feel like you were
in kindergarten yet? So now we're going to
cut out our symbols. And if you've got symbols
inside other symbols, you can cut those
out from the inside. So keep going until you've
got all your symbols cutout. Don't need to get
the borders perfect. This is a way of separating
the different components of these scenes to see
what we're working with. The first time I did this, I was surprised that as
I cut out my symbols, the way I was
thinking about them, the way I was thinking about
that memory also shifted. I drawn them in a particular
arrangement with each other. But when I broke
that arrangement, I've found that the meanings of them didn't necessarily need to connect together in
that particular way. It moved apart from the
details of how it happened exactly became looser,
more conceptual. So keep going until you've
gotten them all cut out. And if you'd like, this might be a
good time to share another photo in your project. So you can just lay them out on the table there and
any kind of order, get a nice high shot. Get a photograph of
all those symbols with the words on them, and upload it to the
project gallery. And then move on to
the next lesson.
9. Combining Symbols: So now you've got your
symbols all cut out. What you wanna do is find a nice big surface to
spread them out on. This could be a table. If you have a good size table, it could be just on
the floor as well. You can sit on the floor
and spread them out on a carpet and make clear the sheets off the bed and
just spread them out on a bed. You want somewhere
where you've got a bit of room to work. Just spread your
symbols out their, place them and place
them in the surface. And now it's time to
move them around, to rearrange them
in different ways. Just do this without
any kind of plan, just moving the symbols around, sometimes clustering
some of them together. And notice how you
feel when part of one memory joins with another. And when you're seeing how
these symbols combine, notice how your mind is
looking for meaning. It's looking for reasons why this one might be
together with this one. And if a third one comes
in, what that means. If some little meanings
come to you, jot them down. For me, I've put this symbol
with listen, with mystery. And it makes me think of a person who's
listening to mystery. Then fleshing that
out a little bit, putting some scenes,
some story in it. I'm thinking somebody
who's wandered out of town into the wilderness
place of mystery there, looking up at the
stars and they're listening to the mystery
of the universe. So I'm gonna write down stargazing and
wondering about life, little snippet from that
particular cluster of symbols. And I've also put the Express
symbol with traveler. So I'm thinking
of somebody who's traveling and expressing like somebody who's
walking and singing or working in telling a story. Maybe you're traveling
storyteller. So I'll write that down,
or traveling storyteller. So you can see these can
be characters, scenes, they don't need to be complete
in and of themselves, just whatever is coming out. Now you might find with some
of the symbols that you put together, it's confusing. It's hard for your
mind to figure out what possible meaning
might be there. That seems kind of
abstract or absurd. So if that's the case, I'd suggest you kinda sit
with it for a little while. You might move your
body, put some music on, you know, walk around the room, get outside some fresh
air and come back to it. A lot of this is about keeping, create a flow going, but keeping energy going. And you come back to
it, you might see, Oh, that's possible connection,
that's interesting. Something might strike you. A lot of the great ideas coming
to go into the bathroom. Ben, some focus on it and then
mind relaxes a little bit. And often that's when
the click columns. So you come back to it
and you may find, oh, that's a pretty interesting
thing that might combine with this and this and this
way little snippet comes out. And if it's not working on
a particular combination, don't worry about it as well. You can just move
on to another one, combine them in different ways. So these little snippets can be absurd, boring,
weird, wonderful. Whatever they are, keep them flowing, keep
them coming out. Some are gonna be more
interesting to you than others. But the most important thing is just keeping this flow going. So trying how these
different combinations, two at a time, three at a time, four at a
time, moving them around. Maybe their
relationship with each other is important if one's above the other or they're intersecting in different ways, you can try different
combinations and see what that brings up for you. And then just jot
down those little, little snippets of ideas, little snippets of scenes and characters and actions and such. Have fun keeping that flow going and just get
these snippets out there from all these
various combinations to keep rolling with this for, I'd say five, 10 min,
something like that. See where it takes. You can
go further if you want. Just keep writing
down those snippets. Remember if you get to a law, it's kinda sit
with it for awhile feeling a bit distracted board. Remember that creative process, that's often when the
good ideas start to come. If you wait through that
to keep going right down, I'd say at least 20 or
so different snippets. Because in the next
exercise we're going to be choosing from some of
them to go forward. So get as many as
you can out there. And in the next stage, we're going to be choosing
some of those to move forward. Alright, see you in the next
lesson when you're ready.
10. Combining Story Snippets: So now you've got a smattering
of stories, snippets, and it may be totally
unclear how they might fit together
into a coherent story. And that's totally fine. We're going to use a recipe for creating a story to
bring these together. There's many out there. This particular recipe is from the writers behind
the Pixar films. So the recipe is a
series of prompts, one after another that
you can fill in as you go with the material
from your story. And here it is, once and every day until and because of this, and because of this
until finally. And ever since that day. So we'll start
with two snippets. If you look at these little pieces
that you've got written on your paper, these
stories, snippets, see if there's two of them that are coming forward in
the crowd, so to speak, who want to be chosen, who are volunteering
for this first round, and the others may be
chosen later as well. Just circle a couple of them, look at those and bring
those ones forward. Now, we're going to combine
these two into a story using the recipe
that we got from the fine people behind
the Pixar films. So in my case, I'm going
to combine my stargazer, wondering about mystery with
my traveling storyteller. Put these together in
my magical cauldron, and I'll come up
with this. Once. There was a girl who
wandered without knowing why and with no means to
support herself alone the way. This was hard. Every day, she stared up at the stars
and wondered why she wondered and how she might be of service to
the people she met. Until one day, she saw stories
in the constellations, bulls chasing gods, gods
battling center centers, stealing potions from witches. And because of this, she started telling these
stories wherever she went. And because of this, people told her their stories from their own lives
and their own lands. And she collected many
within her heart. Until finally she
felt full of stories, so full that she returned home and began to tell these
stories to her people. And ever since that day, she's been telling these
stories from far and wide to the people
of her village. And many of these people have
since set out on the road themselves to find and
tell stories. The end. I hope my little story
gives an idea of what we're doing without
limiting your story. Because you can
really change this in any way that you see fit. And you don't need
to be literally faithful to the snippet
that you've chosen. It can transform in this next stage of
the creative process, I would only say to
remain faithful to the emotion that's resonating from your memories
through the symbols, into your story snippets. Just like a visual
artist starts with a simple gesture
drawing and tries to keep the flow and the action and the spontaneity of that drawing
into the finished piece. And the same way, we're
wanting to keep that charge, that emotional resonance
that comes from your memories coming
through into the story. And if your story feels like it's more or less come together, I'd suggest speaking
it out loud. Speaking it loudly. If you can go and
speak it to the trees. And as you do that again, you may find that
the story changes, that the story refines
and allow it to do that, allow it to change shape. The previous steps have been
scaffolding along the way. But what we're trying to
make is not scaffolding. We're working towards
making the structure, making the building
itself, making our story. And you may find as you
combine these two snippets, that you need something more. Maybe in the later
part of the story, you feel like another
character needs to come in or something
needs to happen. That's not really available
in those first two snippets. If, if that's the case, look out over your collection of snippets and pick a third one, bring it in and see
how it combines in a dynamic way
with the first two, using this sequential
story recipe as a container for the imaginings
rooted in memories. And if after working with a
story for a little while, you feel it's not the right one. And that there's
two other snippets that are calling to you. By all means. Let that one go and begin again. So keep going until
you have a story that you're pretty
satisfied with it you'd like the like the shape of it doesn't need to
be a lot of detail, doesn't need to be perfect. But a story that you feel
has resonance that's coming from your own memories
that is interesting, that is dynamic and
it speaks to you. That's what's important.
11. Share Your Story!: All right, You have made it, you have a story. So to review, we found
memories, wrote them out, drew them into symbols, but words on the symbols, cut the symbols out. Combine them in various
ways to generate meanings, to generate stories, snippets. And from these snippets, we've combined
them into a story. Not bad for a day's work. Now, share your story. Sing it allowed, tell it to the trees and the river
is tell it to friends. Each time you tell it, you may find it changes. You tells you how the
story wants to grow. Stories organic. Although when we write
them down or film them, they become fixed in a sense. But the story really
might change over time. It might combine
with other stories. It might have components
come in and others dropout as you tell
it in different ways. And older, the story may
grow and change over time. I encourage you
to share it as it is in the class project section. So you can write
it out or you can even film yourself
speaking it allowed. And if possible, I encourage you to do that without looking at, which means you really
internalize the story. Know it by heart. So that would mean filming
it and uploading it to YouTube and then sharing the
link there on the projects. And it might be exciting
for you to check out the creations of your
fellow students as well. See the videos that they've
made, read their stories, look through the process
of their creation. Leave some comments,
give some encouragement. Remember, these are
newborn stories. So it's not really the time
to critique the stories. But you might consider how
the story landed with you. If there's some
part of their story that you remember that
staying with you, what it meant to you, what it brought up and you hearing or reading their story.
12. Closing thoughts: So as I've taken you through
this creative process, you might have thought
along the way that, hey, I can do things
a little differently. You might have
noticed that there's different potential
pathways branching off the pathway that
I've shown you. And of course, this is one of many possible
creative processes. So e.g. instead of using
symbols that you created, you might choose
symbols from your home, from the natural world. This pine cone
might represent me. This container of
water might represent baptism or learning to
swim or crossing an ocean. You might use collages, cutting out symbols from
newspapers and magazines. You might go through this
process with others. And once you've gotten
to the point of having your symbols
with words on them, you might trade symbols. So I might give you my
symbol of the traveler, and you might give me
one of your symbols. Take your symbol and see how
I can work it into my story. You take my symbol, see how you can
work it into yours. You could try this with people
who are younger than you, people who are older than you, people from different kinds of backgrounds or thinking
in different ways, bringing different experiences
and cultural expressions. And all of this is to say, we can really get creative
about our creative process. Can design pathways of
creativity to generate ideas, to combine ideas
with each other. That this in itself, this meta creativity,
you might say, is a very fertile area. And one perhaps that we could really use more
of in this world, in our space with each other, imagining stories and also imagining how we live together, our societies, our relationship
with the natural world, with people who are
different from ourselves. So this imagination is
a very powerful thing. And being together and creative play is a wonderful
way to exercise this amazing human capacity of imagination that
each of us have. I really look forward to seeing the work that
you've created. Please feel free
to leave comments. Asked me questions.
I'll be checking in. I'll be looking at
your creative projects with an eager, exciting,
and encouraging. I thank you for joining me and trusting me to bring
you through this process. And my best wishes
are there for you in your creative
Storytelling. Thank you.
Theodore Lowry
