Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts & Culture
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Telling compelling stories
  Posted: November 1, 2004
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A storyteller should to be able to perceive what a story is about at its deepest level, and how to move that to a resolution that offers fulfillment to a story's audience. Understand what about the movement of a story engages the interest, the needs of an audience. Such a writer can better perceive how characters, plot devices and POV work to create a dramatic movement of a story toward its fulfillment. How every element of a story works together in its characters, plot, environment and ideas to make vivid and potent a story's world.

That's why I say that at its heart, a story must have an issue at stake that is of consequence to the story's audience. Something the members of the audience will desire to experience in a state of resolution and fulfillment. Love. Courage. Redemption. Renewal. Some issue that revolves around the aching need of humans to feel they matter, that they have a place in the world.

Why was I doing a Google search on storytelling? Because the current election process keeps reminding me about the need and power of compelling stories in everything we do, and the idea that those stories do not only begin when our curtain goes up and end when it comes down.

Arts organizations and arts managers tell stories...it is the core of what they do. They produce, present, and preserve the human narrative as it is unfolding, and as it has unfolded for centuries. And while the story conveyed by what's on stage or in the gallery is the core of that story, it's only a tiny portion of how we connect to our audiences and constituents on a daily basis.

Just consider the many places we could tell compelling stories:

• Press releases
  Greg Sandow has done some great weblog entries on the lack of good storytelling in artist bios and press releases. So many emphasize the least interesting fact about artists -- what obscure awards they've one, and what parts they've performed.
• Program notes and exhibit guides
  A corollary of the press release, but now delivered to a captive audience in the hall or gallery. How sad to waste this opportunity on more tedious awards listings and such.
• Grant requests
  If there is ever a place to tell a compelling story, this is it. Foundations, corporations, and even government grant review panels are looking to spend their money on places with impact. And despite the seeming emphasis on quantitative results, the qualitative elements of your work are what give those statistics meaning.
• Budgets and financial reports
  Financial reports and plans are just stories written in dollars. They shouldn't be fiction (despite what Enron might tell you), but will always be selective abstractions of reality. What you choose to include, how you choose to bundle it in categories, how you organize it on the page or in the spreadsheet, how you unfurl it for your board or donors or staff, all determine the story you tell about what you do and how you do it.
• Advocacy
  Cities, states, and nations are bundles of stories -- collective and individual. How does your work fit into the larger stories of the world around you?
• Personal connections
  Every staff member, board member, or volunteer should also be ready and able to tell the organization's story, and the story of its work. This requires that they have the toolkit to do so.

It's a delicate balance, and an exceptional craft, to be sure. But an engaged and engaging arts manager will always spot his or her opportunities to tell a good story, in whatever language (words, dollars, statistics, economics, education) the listener understands.