Film Courage: Well what are the primary reasons that we tell other people stories about our
lives? Mark W. Travis, Author/Screenwriter/Director: What are the primary reasons we tell people stories about our lives?
First of all it's varied. A lot of reasons but the I think the important
thing you have to realize is that you do it almost every day
you will tell somebody something about your life what happened to you in the
morning what happened to you yesterday in other words it's a primary way of
connecting with people it's just to tell them what happened in our lives even if
someone says how are you we're the same finds it I'm fine except the other day
this is what happened and then you have a little bit of your story so the
reasons getting back to your question the reason we tell people stories about
our lives are multiple one is to connect one is to be seen another is to actually
hide you can tell a story from your life and hide an aspect of yourself or the
truth about yourself by telling another story you can tell a story in your life
to avoid what the conversation is about you can tell a story in your life to get
attention to feel important you can tell a story a part of a story of your life
to actually feel vulnerable and to get sympathy or empathy so there's a wide
range of reasons we sometimes intuitively instinctively tell the
stories from our life that tell what's going on in fact just before this
interview I won't go into them but all of us the four of us here we're telling
stories about our lives and what we've been through and what we're doing and
all of that and we did this happens all the time but then you have to look at if
you are intentionally telling a story there's a story you were going to
intentionally tell to one person to a group of people to a hundred people a
thousand people now you have to think about your question actually Karen why
why am I telling this story now if you want to tell a story and the story is
fiction you also have to ask yourself why am I
telling this story but at the same time you're also making up a story you're
creating a story so there are two aspects of it why am I telling it which
will affect what the story is and how I'm going to write it but in
autobiographical stories that doesn't happen because there's something unique
about an autobiographical stories like the ones you and I were discussing
earlier they have already been written because they have already happened
there's nothing to create the events you told the events I told earlier those
have happened now you look at the story and there was a few big questions I want
to tell this story the first thing is you have way more information than you
need you have all the details of the story whatever the event was everything
that happened everything that happened to you around you what other people did
what other people said whatever that event was there's way more
information than you probably want to tell or could include so it's more now
like making a documentary film you have all this footage and you want to extract
from that footage a smaller story so now you have an event what am I going to
actually tell but then you have to ask yourself why am I telling this story and
this is where a lot of people struggle no else you and I when we're teaching
our workshop on autobiographical storytelling called write your life one
of the big things we deal with will have anywhere from 6 to 15 students each of
them has an autobiographical story that they've already written just a
three-minute story and it's really interesting that a lot of them have no
idea which is totally understandable why they picked that story they picked the
story on their own we just say pick an event and they are not clear why and
that's fine there's no problem with that that's very normal I don't know why so
now part of the struggle is to explore yourself and explore your experiences
and to learn while you working on the story learn about the
story learn about yourself and eventually learn why you picked that
story and there are some people we've worked with when they start to realize
why they really picked that story sometimes they're horrified oh I didn't
want to do that I didn't want to reveal that and all I can say is well you
picked the story and they realize they did that there's something inside going
on and my belief is that with autobiographical storytelling there's an
inner voice that's even helping you pick the story so if you're going to meet
with somebody maybe for a job or a date or whatever and you want to tell them
something about yourself and say I know what I'll do I'll tell him or her this
story about what happened to me because it's really a great story do you know
why you pick that story are you clear and this all comes way
before the question of how do you want the listener to receive the story what
do you want the listener to get from the story how do you want the listener to
see you as the storyteller or even to see you as the person in the story and
all of that is open and all of that is malleable even without changing the
story so the question now becomes how do I tell the story so that I can project
myself present myself the way I want to and how can I tell it so that the
listener will receive the story the way I want them to receive it do you think
people change their story and it's not by its maybe just by omission by the way
they are reading the room maybe they can tell either the room is welcoming or
maybe it's not so welcoming so they don't feel comfortable sharing certain
aspects of their lives because they can there's a there's an elephant in the
room they're not sure what it is but then they leave out certain details
because they don't want to offend or or maybe they realize it won't be
with the same reception as if they were in another setting yes no your question
Karen was about do they change it I mean in the process of telling it or now are
you talking about a stage presentation like a solo show or something like that
or a super speech or a TED Talks it's possible it's very very very possible
it's very possible with the most skilled storytellers they can change it in a
heartbeat because they can tell a part of the story and get a reaction that
tells them oh okay I need to make a shift I need to make an adjustment and
go in a different direction because that's being received negatively or
being misinterpreted and so I'm gonna have to clear that up and I'll shift
sometimes shift to another story or tell the story in a different way or reveal
something different within the story then I had attended I had intended to
reveal this aspect of my character or my experience in the story but I'm gonna
shift that to something else and they can do it within the telling of the
story I have one small story not an autobiographical story but I was working
actually with Val Kilmer many years ago on his portrayal of Mark Twain now he's
not doing an autobiographical piece at all but he's doing Mark Twain telling
Mark Twain stories so it's Mark Twain telling stories and we were talking a
lot about Hal Holbrook who he admired a lot who has a whole career doing Mark
Twain and one thing I didn't know that Val told me was that Mark Twain had 17
different shows he could do all Mark Twain material that he had researched
and exported so much material about Mark Twain that and he would get a booking he
would say okay you're going to do this in we want to perform in New York and
based on the fact that it's New York he was select certain material you're going
to do it in New York for this organization
aha he'd do research on the organ is a from all the wide range of material he
would have he would construct a different show specifically for them if
he was doing the south it was a whole different show so I think the the whole
thing of autobiographical storytelling I think by instinct when we're just having
a conversation like you and I are and we're telling a story by instinct we
will change if we're not getting the reaction we want we will shift I know
there are times I've started to tell a story and a group and I said story and
it got a little interrupted at one point and this happened to me just a few weeks
ago and I went that's it my story's done I know there's no point in finishing the
story I could feel that the energy and the interest of the people was somewhere
else and there was no point so I just stopped so you can do that so I think
there is that's very important it's a great question because we are telling
our own stories we actually revealing something about ourselves rather than
someone asking me what's your screenplay about and I tell them that story well
that's not an autobiographical story at all that's a fiction story and I'll
stick to whatever the story is and hope that they like it
but I'm telling the autobiographical story I'm actually revealing bits and
pieces of me one little piece after another after another after another and
I know the times that I've done some rather long stories totally improvised
long autobiographical stories about my experiences in Hollywood and things like
that and it's been a speech that I've agreed to do I will shift and change the
tone of it even based on the reactions and sometimes the reaction is I'll say
something and I hear a reaction that I wasn't expecting which means they know
exactly what I'm saying this is a you know it's an inside joke they got it
okay then I will keep going in that direction because that is supporting
what I want to reveal do you think they are regional autobiographical stories so
let's say someone in LA may tell an autobiographical story that's more
career based where is in some small town in another part of
the u.s. it might be more about their family and how long their families had
the land or something I don't know I'm just generalizing here but I was
wondering is is autobiographical storytelling more regional based into in
terms of the people who know you're talking about who are doing it more or
less professionally you mean I guess in what we select to reveal or leave out
mm-hmm well again I'm gonna take your two
example you have the LA story which you said it's career based or industry based
or whatever and somewhere in the Midwest it's more about family my belief isn't
I'm pretty sure my the audience in LA would rather hear the family story the
audience in the Midwest would rather hear the the industry story interest in
other words who would because the the to do a story a lot of stories about the
industry in LA we got I've heard that I lived that you know that's nothing new
but for someone to be telling about being raised in Arkansas you know and
working on a farm I go I want to hear that because that is not part of my
experience I want that experience I want to learn from that so again that's
judging the audience assessing the audience and will what I am talking
about resonate with them in some way or will it offend them in some way if you
do a one-person show in LA about the struggles of becoming a famous actress
most people won't go I think we I know that we know that story we've heard that
story so many times well Judy the movie Judy thought because you're seeing
another side of it which is in another side the happy-go-lucky side of what
people most people probably want to project yeah they'll go for that one
yeah you know but I think that's because that person's revealing you know Renee
Zellweger's character was she was revealing these demons that we don't
always get yes she's revealing the demons within a very famous icon that we
know and so we want to know more and and you're right that film shows us more
about who Judy really was and less actually less
about her career I mean her career was in there but it's more about the demon
she was struggling with which is fascinating she did it oh yeah yeah
you