Good Storytellers Are Happier in Life and in Love

Storytelling is learned as a child, think about it - every day child comes home and tells mummy all about their day. In this circumstance mummy can say 'very good, now play over there!' or they can ask questions about the story, e.g. ask for details to be explained or parts told again. It is this storytelling ability learned as a child rather than anything that can be done as an adult. You could learn and master everything this guy says about writing a good story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKee

But it is not about that, it is about simple stories.

A lot of people travel to very nice places on holiday, some people don't get to do that. But have you noticed people that you work with go somewhere fantastic and then have nothing to say about it? Bad storytelling!!!

Meanwhile, a good storyteller will be able to walk into town, or maybe just take their dog for a walk and be able to come back with a story. The story could be anecdotal, something seen along the way, or it could be about some other dog and owner met. Bungie jumping in Borneo might not be something that really helps conversation, people don't relate to it, no matter how outer-worldly it is. However, meeting a sweet dog and lovely owner, a story can come out of that, one that can be related to.

Going back to childhood, there are other opportunities - the formal dinner setting where adults are willing to listen to a child's story. For a child to hold their own and maybe get laughs, that all has to be learned. If the child has a reputation for disruption then the invite to the top table will not be a thing and the opportunity to tell stories in a way that works with an audience is not there.

If a child is brought up without love then there is no chance for that child to learn how to tell stories in a social setting, i.e. relevant (beginning, middle, end), with audience engaged, true rather than fanciful, with consideration for others that are different and so on. The ability to tell stories that people want to hear should be an innate thing, developed with language. But some kids are not loved and therefore do not have that social engagement where stories are shared. These kids grow up in their own world so they do have stories but they only make sense in their world, not some broader happy society context. Hence not good story tellers. The motivation and the innate ability is not there.

Therefore I suspect that there are reasons why being a good storyteller is a signifier. Would you want someone that does not do stories to be parenting your child? No. For men this is not thought of as such a big deal, but why is this? Men do not have maternal instincts and it is the 'mother's tongue' that gets learned for a good reason. Women know they can get a more loving partner by rating the story telling ability of men, men don't always care about that.

It is possible to help someone that is not a good storyteller become better at it. This involves treating them a little bit like how you might have a conversation with an 8 year old child, asking lots of basic questions to get them comfortable sharing the story. I have yet to meet a human being that does not like talking, even if shy. Just through listening and questions one can get someone able to do things like stick to the plot and not go rambling off. Then through normal friendship you can get them to want to share stories. So far everything is all about them... But, listen, ask the right questions. Then, as time goes by you can start to get to talk about other stories, e.g. one's own or the world at large, or involving a shared interest. This sort of therapy is not available on the NHS, however, people do make friends at work and those that don't have the childhood wiring for good storytelling can be brought into the fold, gossip coaxed out of them on tea breaks.

Clearly the internet has created new opportunities for storytelling. If you are not from that broken home/foster home background where things like storytelling just do not get learned, then what to do? Write!!! If you get good feedback on your writing then you will be encouraged to further develop your storytelling ability. Although there are big books that can tell you how to do it better, practice is the true teacher.

With respect to the article, I see storytelling as something very much tied into child development and I don't see how that aspect can't be gone into properly.

Why do marriages have to be saved, and why are marriage counselors presented as respectable good guys instead of odious charlatans that prey on the weak and miserable???

(Careful, heard this "story" about dcposch, he might send you to jail too.)

On more factual note, it's a known issue that as you move from hard to soft sciences that positive results increase:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Fields studying topics like "happiness" tend to validate their hypothesis over 90% of the time; which means something fishy is going on.

I don't think the problem is that it's unreproducible or fraud so much as it's mostly testing the obvious. People will probably find good storytellers more attractive than terrible ones in the same way that they will find people who dress better, sing better, cook better etc. more attractive than the opposite. Not sure testing it does much harm apart from maybe as you say wasting public money. But then lots of things do that.

I've become a huge fan of Jiddu Krishnamurthi over the last year. A bunch of his talks on youtube.