Don't Forget To Pause

WhitneyBaby

6 min•0 plays•0 favorites

Business & Finance

Description

Storytelling is an art as much as it’s a science. It’s a medium that is fascinating because it can never truly be mastered. Maybe for a moment. Maybe it can be for a magical hour. But being a great storyteller is very much like tuning a guitar. When you tune that guitar perfectly and strum that first F chord, it sounds absolutely perfect. But any guitar player will tell you that it never stays that way. Even when you play great, it goes out of tune. And the notion that you constantly need to retune to keep great sound is learned quickly by any aspiring guitar player. Telling a story well is similar to playing a guitar well. You constantly need to retune. I had learned that I was a pretty good storyteller by the time I was hired as a photojournalist in Evansville. My photo series in the William Randolph Hearst National Champion was first place in the national competition, giving me validation, credentials and a little cash- all that were needed. My verbal storytelling was much more unrefined. The biggest stage I had was a full table at a bar. But there was something about putting sentences together in a way that kept people leaning towards me and having them maintain eye contact that was slightly intoxicating. So any chance I had, I used stories to keep the attention. Even in typical work situations. One afternoon at the newspaper, I was assigned to a breaking news assignment with no warning. I drove over to the location, documenting the crime scene while doubling as the reporter since there was no writer who could get to the scene that quickly. I attempted to get as much information from the police and the witnesses to bring back to the newsroom to use for the story. <span style=