Telling Stories

Post Reply New Topic

are you good at it or downright terrible? Sometimes if its short and doesnt have too much detail I do alright and I can get laughs. The other 75% of the time I always seem to go way to far into detail and explain everything (even obvious things) and I just lose the attention of whoever I'm talking to. Its like I have to explain evey little detail because I do not know what the others do and dont know....so I provide every tid bit.

In high school and college my friends have told me that I've told them the same story at least 6 times that year, or more frequently that I'm really bad at telling stories. I knew this and we had a laugh about it every time I told a story badly...in my group of friends they would always have this 'agh hes gonna tell a story!" face but in a friend-who-puts-up-with-you way with a smile.... is this just ADD or what, it seems like an AS thing to do

I suck at telling stories.

I went to the beach. I went surfing. I came home.

Yay. Wasn't that exciting?

I have a few stories that I've worked out a good speech for. I also never tell the same story twice to the same person. For some reason I can usually remember having told it to a particular person.

People seem to appreciate my story-telling skills. Key word being seem.

I like to tell someone a story and then give them facts along the way.

Like if I am telling the story of a person buying a Christmas tree I will delve into how the tree tradition came about and what type of trees and where they should buy trees and what the best type of tree is and other types of trees they could use and then health of trees and then trees reproducing and the biggest trees then I'd go on about oxygen and how you have to have a mix of other gases in order to breath perfectly. Finally the tree gets stuck on top of the car and driven home.

I either do that, or I tell them too little.

I fail at telling stories. My friends have always said that I sucked at it, and that I should say "...and then I found $20!" at the end so that my story sounds interesting.

I go into the fine details and I'm monotoned so it doesn't come across as exciting. It's like I am relaying facts.

And I have been told that I have only 5 or 6 stories that I tell repeatedly. Hell, I don't remember to whom I tell the story.... So I always begin with "Let me know if I have already told you this story before."

My fiancé is nice and will let me finish the story.. after it's all done and over and he laughs at the punch line, he will say, " Yeah, you've only told me about 12 times."

I'm pretty good at telling funny stories. John Robison is as well and so is Stephen Shore.

When I was little I would tell stories to my mom that were totally made up and usually around my special interest. They would go on and on and the plot was super-complicated. She told me later that she would totally zone out about half-way through. I did this to my friends all through elementary school and a bit into middle school before I got any sort of social training. Now when I tell stories to my friends, I don't tell them unless I know they would be mildly interested. However, sometimes I just have to tell a story that is related to my special interest. I usually preface this by saying, "Sorry guys, I'm a nerd, but I have to tell you this." They will usually ask me to tell them what's going on in my head because I'll start giggling randomly or giggling disproportionately hard about something they said. One nice thing is my friends know that I'm on the spectrum, so they are used to my randomness. That makes life easier I also have the problem of telling the same stories over and over again. I was relieved to find out that other people on the spectrum deal with that

In my head, I developed a way to decide how long / short to make my narrative. I'm sharing this in case this helps other people tell stories more effectively (socially appropriately ) And yes, it's based on levels of academic writing (because I'm a super-nerd).

Abstract length version: a few sentences. Go for this length of story for small-talk conversation.

Article length: Can be longer, go into more details. Usually if someone says, "SO then what happened?" Fill in details from abstract-length story if someone asks for more details. I usually do this when I notice other people going more into detail, like if my friends are sitting down for coffee.

Thesis length: This is like getting down into the sit down to coffee and spew your life scenerios. Usually good for one on one time with friends. If I'm sending an email, I warn people that it's going to be sort of long.

Dissertation length: Rarely do I use this. This is basically go on with no stoppage in sight. Honestly, I have only done this once or twice. I usually save dissertation length stories for journaling