Letting Go of Control in Group Storytelling
Let go of the control of single author stories, the dominance of gaming systems, and experience storytelling in community.
By Raven
(map from story told communally by Brendan, Duke, Trae, and Ben)
Growing up, I wrote stories and “books” in notebooks and later on the computer. I was in complete control of the world and could express my imagination howsomever I pleased. As the youngest child in a pack of boys, control in play was mostly found in isolation. But even so, there was also another type of storytelling I learned — a form of storytelling that involved friends. I remember as a little boy the fun of having my older brother play stories with me.
“Let’s go out into the woods and play, and then come back and write it down.”
We’d grab our wooden make-shift toy swords we’d hammered together from scraps of wood and nails from our father’s unending projects. Into the woods we’d go, to meet the old hermit who lived in the apple tree, or to cross deathwater swamp and escape the man-eaters, slaying goblins and running from tree-tall dragons. As someone with a bit of an archival bent, I still have a notebook with such stories and I have later adapted one of them into a full length novel.
At other times, we had another method of storytelling. My oldest brother would take a couple dice and we’d begin our tale.
“You’re a poor farm kid on Tattooine,” he’d say.
With rolls of the dice to decide if my actions were plausible or would succeed, and his own whims as a storyteller, we would take my character far in an obviously D&D derived form of play that was a hand-me-down from my brother’s friend who actually played D&D and had introduced my brother to it. But we had no official systems, just our imaginations and some dice to serve as chance in the story.
It was late at night, dark in the woods. We sheltered beneath a pine tree, the embers of our fire still smouldering nearby. Ben, Travis, and I lay in a circle of blankets and sleeping bags on the pine needles. Around us we could hear the nighttime sounds of the woods — crickets, birds, and small breaking of twigs from unseen animals. I listened to Ben’s voice as I stared up through the dark of the pine branches.
“Alrick took his sword and said, ‘If anyone can succeed, it’s me, but I will need a volunteer. . .’ Next.”
“‘All was quiet for a few heartbeats,” Travis began. “But then a young boy, no older than seven or eight, stood out from the crowd.’I will go. . . ”
The narration continued until I began my own turn after Travis, and told the next section of the story and passed it off to Ben.
In highschool, I typed in names for website ideas. Elvendale. Elvenvale. Elvenhollow. . . I later turned away from the elf theme and regsistered www.lostpathway.com. There, I wrote little stories and I started a forum in the pre-facebook years. Today, the re-started forum is called The Grey Horse Tavern. I had no idea what the forum would become. Over the years, a couple dozen members made that forum a little community, and the old storytelling style I practiced with Travis and Ben beneath the pine tree adapted itself well to writing over the internet. One member would post a beginning, another would follow up. What developed was communal storytellin away from the function of dice, pre-set worlds, and game masters. A few entire book-length projects resulted, most enduringly, a satiric story called the Ides of Starch which has continued for ten years and involved to date eleven different storytellers. The story is currently in its seventh installment, the final one, and is the length of a modern fantasy novel.
I never anticipated the impact lostpathway.com would have in those highschool years, and they continued on into college. I remember when Duke, Brendan, Ben (another one), and I sat on the dorm room floor and finally finished, after many hours, the “interactive fiction” game we had been telling. Taking turns as “character” and narrator and using dice to help us relinquish control of each role, we told an epic tale of magic on an archipelago — a tale of revenge and sacrifice that explored the fantasy and horror genres in a way that no single author could. I most remember the final moments, when the whole story wrapped together in a poetic and beautiful ending that none of us had seen coming but all knew was sublime. It was not D&D. Everyone narrated and everyone made choices for a character, depending on the rotation of the storytelling. There was no system, just a world that developed. There was no winner, and you weren’t necessarily tied down to a character. This was not gaming — it was storytelling.
We took the map that resulted and each signed our names. It was to be a momento of a story that none of us could have told alone, a story that we shared together, and because it was spoken and not recorded, a story that will never be told again — not quite like that.
Since those days as a kid, I have gained a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing and a Master’s in Storytelling, but have I gained more delight in reading or listening? As storytellers and authors — or writers, for those who prefer that term — we can sometimes revel in the control of a story. We can point to it and say, “that is my story; I wrote it.” We guard our “creativity” and our “work.” We strive for literary quality. Sometimes, our learning gets in the way of our enjoyment and the reasons we love stories to begin with. But what happens if we can let go of having to control or own a story, even if just among a few close friends? We can begin to let go and enjoy a story for its possibilities. Yes, it takes getting past having the story go exactly as we want it. We may need to let go of the grudging feeling that we would have made better narrative decisions and character choices. Our “styles” may clash. In the writing of the Ides of Starch project, I have often become frustrated with various contributors because of a lack of continuity (over ten years, multiple installments, and multiple writers, such things happen) or disconnect in focus and content. I did at times steer the group to maintain order and pull the project from chaos — particularly during one installment where a satire of meta-fiction became especially hairy — but no amount of dictatorial rule could have produced a project like the Ides of Starch, something that has become a thing of its own so that we refer to writing it as “starching” and speak of it like some Arthurian legend. That was not the result of me, or my co-writer Duke, or any of the other storytellers. That was an “us” that could only become possible through none of us attempting to completely dominate the others. We had to at some point enjoy the course of the tale.
And what’s perhaps even funnier about it all — it may be terrible. The Ides of Starch might just be a pile of steaming horse pucky — with its moments of brilliance, no doubt, but nevertheless, maybe no one but the participants will ever read the whole thing. And that’s okay. Because we wrote it. Together. For ten years. And we’ll never forget it. We will never forget Berbil, or Eliott, or Quemmerillius the Sage of Cinnamon (formerly the Pepppermint Avenger).
In the end, we just have to accept that communally told stories are not about us — they’re about sharing a story with others, and enjoying the beauty of creative collaboration in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, something different and beautiful will result in a way that could not possibly happen alone — no matter the readership, no matter the ownership, and maybe even no matter the ultimate literary quality.
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