Storytelling is innate to us as humans and is universal to the human experience. As National Geographic (NA) refers, “Although it is likely impossible to prove, it has been suggested that storytelling developed not long after the development of language itself.” and also highlights that “All cultures have told stories… It is part of our nature to relate and communicate tales, whether based on authentic experiences or imagined concepts.”
Some of the earliest evidence of stories comes from cave drawings in Lascaux and Chavaux, France. NA demonstrate that “The drawings, which date as far back as 30,000 years ago, depict animals, humans, and other objects. Some of them appear to represent visual stories. It is even possible that the scenes depicted on those cave walls were associated with some kind of oral storytelling.”
According to Ingov (2022), “Storytelling features of an oral narrative include the following:
- Plot: The plot is the sequence of events that take place in a story. It includes the conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
- Characters: The characters are the people or animals that take part in the story. They may be good or bad, main or supporting roles.
- Setting: The setting is the time and place where the story takes place.
- Theme: The theme is the central idea or message of the story.”
Storytelling is the art of telling stories based on our innate taste for stories. Its aim is to create emotion and a bond between the narrator and the audience, to make the experience as lively and memorable as possible. This act, an age-old communication technique, has stood the test of time and is more relevant today than ever before, a testament to the power of human connection through telling stories. An essential part of good storytelling is the representation of human struggles and feelings.
Robert McKee concludes that “Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.”
Personal writing practices (biographies, autobiographies, diaries, memoirs, etc.) reflect the era and culture in which they were written. It is in modern and postmodern societies – where individual differences are exacerbated – that flourishes the writing of the self.
A modern approach to storytelling as a healing modality comes from the emerging field of narrative gerontology. This field provides a scientific approach to the study of ageing through the observation of transformational life events and the stories told about those events.
How people see the world and their place in it depends on how they look at their life story. The narrator not only recalls their past but also asserts the interpretation of that past. This is one of the foundations of storytelling: in the absence of a story to help us understand, we will naturally tell ourselves one.
According to Sudres (2004), many elderly people “write the story of their lives in their heads” and are only waiting for an incentive to tell it.