This is not a Composition lesson.

This is a Storytelling guide.

A good story can be told by the least literate amongst us. And many great writers fail in their storytelling skills. So all those voices in your head - the 'you're not the creative type, are you' authority figure, the 'don't dangle your prepositions' grammar tyrant, the 'we're on a deadline here' editor - take all those voices and place them deep in a cave in the back of your brain where they can't be heard. You are a storyteller. We all are.

Just think about how many times you hear somebody say something like this in a day?

"That must have made some story?" "So what's the story, man?" "Tell me a story, mama?" " What a great story!"

Stories range from conversational anecdotes to great plays, flims and novels. Most of us don't think much about what makes a great story, we know what we like, and we know when we are bored. Of course a few people are obssessed with the idea of story construction, and they are at least four opinions for any three experts on the subject. By the time we get through school, we are oftern are more confused about the fundamentals of storytelling, than enlightened.

So let's start with something basic. You are flipping through the family album with your friend Shirley, and Shirley points at a picture and says, "My goodness, she was quite lovely, who is that?" You say, "Oh that was my mother, when she was young." Shirley asks, "Do you know much about your mother when she was young?"

Here is where most of us lock onto a script we have about a given topic, and recite our normal response to such a question. "My mom was the youngest of three children, a boy and two girls, she lived in ______, and went to college in _______. She met Dad when, etc. Call this "Presenting the Facts."

Some of us would have a bit more information. "Oh mom told me she loved singing, and the dress in the picture is the one she had for her singing group." Call this- Adding the details.

And many of us might be in the mood to find a good story.

"You know, mom never told me too much about that period in her life. Once she shared with me how she lost her fear of flying. She had been a member of a youth chorus when that picture was taken, and she had to go across the country for a concert and was so scared about going on a plane. Being part of the chorus, and going on this trip was the most important thing in the world to her. So she didn't want to tell anyone about her fear. She just became more and more anxious until the day of the flight. She woke that morning thinking she would tell her parents she was too sick to go.

She told me she looked out her window and saw a flock of birds flying across the sky. Suddenly, she had the courage. She went to the airport to meet the other chorus members. She told them about being scared, and that she needed them to help her fly. Several other people laughed, and they had felt exactly the same. You know Shirley, what mom did is just what I like most about her, she always faced the hardest things so practically. I have been thinking about going back to school, and I wish I could summon up some of her common sense about facing my fears."

In this story, the picture is the trigger of the memory of a story told, a story that has particular meaning and value in the teller's life at the moment. It moved to story for lots of different reasons, a specific emotional tug the picture presents, something she had been meaning to share with Shirley during the evening's conversation, or perhaps it was a unselfconscious sharing of an intimacy that helps to cement her friendship with Shirley.

Here is another example, from a student's work. In Katherine Hijar's Imagined Memories, you have a similar story of someone flipping though the family album. Note how Katherine pulls out details of the lives lived, and the events around the image, as well as an understated point about where she imagines the stories will go in the future.