Random Order

At least at a potluck dinner you can choose from the selections on the table, and decide whether you want to start with the broccoli salad, the garlic bread or the chicken wings. You can end with yummies from the dessert end of the table, or if you don’t have a sweet tooth you can go for seconds (thirds?) on your favorite hot dish.

At a story slam, random order by random draw of names from the hat rules the day, and if your name is drawn, you dive in!  Random selection of the storytellers/stories means, of course, that there is no crafting of a program at a story slam.

In more-traditional storytelling programs, often great thought goes into deciding the order of stories, and/or of storytellers if there is more than one.  

One favorite guideline, summarized and popularized by storyteller Elizabeth Ellis, is “Haha – Aha – Ahhh – Amen.” This means:

• start with a short, funny story(-ies);
• then something clever, witty or with a twist;
• continue with a longer interesting tale with some emotional depth;
• and end with a powerful or meaningful one.

The format and nature of a story slam doesn’t allow for such crafting.

You can read more here about what makes a story slam a story slam, and one of the elements is random drawing of names for the event’s storytellers.

For the listeners/audience, this creates an emotional-engagement experience at a slam that is very different from what is experienced in a storytelling program with a more organized, thought-out order.

Instead of an emotional arc or or sense of through-journey that a single teller or planner of a program may offer, a slam is a collection of single/separate stories (connected by the slam’s theme) that are likely to deliver a hodgepodge of emotions, imagery, highs and lows in the intentionally-random order.

It can be exciting. It can be tiring. It can be dissatisfying. It can be fun  Did I mention “hodgepodge”? – !

For the storytellers at a slam…

Not only do you not know if your name will be drawn at all, there is no way to know, or to influence, when in the order of 10 tellers you will tell your story.

The first Denver Moth story slam I went to, my name was drawn 8th out of 10. It all went well and was fun and I’ve written about that in a previous post.

The second Moth slam I went to, I submitted my name again, but I wasn’t certain my story was a good fit for the theme, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted my name drawn…

And then, it was perhaps the 6th teller, there was a person who told a searingly-funny rip-roaring tummy-hurts-from-laughter kind of story…and I was sitting there thinking over and over: “Ohmigosh my story does not belong here and now! – oh, please not now, please not now, please don’t pick my name now, please don’t pick my name next, oh please…!” I really didn’t want my very-different-in-atmosphere story right after that one!  [As it turns out, my name wasn’t drawn at all that evening.]

Then there’s the issue of having your name drawn first…

If you’re drawn first, accept the fact that there is no way you’lll win the competition. The judges need to use you as a baseline to set and begin scoring from!

A friend of mine had her name drawn first at one of the slams and was rather deflated. Even though, for most storytellers I think, the competition is more of a game-structure to the event rather than the primary goal, I can understand feeling disappointed at being drawn first; I’d probably feel the same way.

I encouraged her to think of the big picture, and that it was great for everyone gathered there that she went first – her good story really did set a great tone for the rest of the evening!

Ah, story slams!  Interesting creatures, they are…

Thanks for reading – Pam

[Theme for this A-Z April Daily Blogging Challenge: “Story Slams & Traditional Storytelling – Bridging the Distance”]