Spark: How to Tell Personal Stories that Kindle Mind and Spirit
Storytelling
People have been telling stories to each other as a way of communicating information, knowledge and morals since time immemorial. Using merely the power of the spoken word, a good storyteller can evoke clear mental images and inspire the listener. If you wish to improve your storytelling skills and ability to communicate your experiences or values to others, this hands-on workshop will provide you with practical tips on how to:
- structure tellable tales from real-life experience,
- rehearse and imbibe stories into your system,
- enhance your vocal delivery skills, and
- tell your stories with confidence and from the heart.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to share your personal stories more effectively and make a clearer impact on your listeners.
Pre-Workshop Preparation
For Participants
- Participants who are able to communicate fluently in English are welcome.
- Please bring an object or a picture of an object related to the personal story that you wish to work on during the workshop.
- Please have in hand paper and pen/pencil for some writing exercises.
For Organisers
- Please make available a fair-sized room that can easily accommodate all the workshop participants and the facilitator (seated in a circular formation). Please make sure that any other tables and chairs are stored against the wall or outside the room so that the participants have space to move freely about the space when they do the various exercises.
- Please provide a large whiteboard and pens as well as access to computer/computer projection to show PowerPoint slides.
- Please make copies of handouts that will be emailed to prior to the workshop.
Feedback
Participants’ Feedback
What aspects of this workshop benefitted you the most?
"Feedback on our presentations have been most helpful to let us know how and where to improve on. Verena's presentation show us how to tell a story more interestingly."
Lau Lee Fang
"Voice training. Final practice. It was great."
Ming Tan
"The small intimate setting. Personalised feedback from you & our peers."
Elizabeth
"Making mundane stories exciting, engaging and personal."
Lynette
"Understanding how adding details makes the story more lively, vivid."
June
"Learning how the different parts of body, posture affects your speech.
Fun and engaging."Isabelle Lam
About the Facilitator
A Singaporean writer, editor, storyteller and theatre practitioner, Verena Tay has published a short story collection, Spectre: Stories from Dark to Light (2012), and three play collections, and edited various fiction anthologies, including the bestselling Balik Kampung series of short stories published by Math Paper Press. She possesses three Masters: English Literature (National University of Singapore, 1993); Voice Studies (Central School of Speech and Drama, London, 2005); and Creative Writing (City University of Hong Kong, 2015). Since 2005, she has been helping people to improve their communication skills and has taught voice, speech and presentation skills, storytelling and creative writing.