Co-creating the story

From November 19 memos:

Benjamin described a specific time when the way he told the story was shaped by the evening:

in the story,

my middle school PE teacher,

we were all

being punished,

we had to be five minutes silent on the bleachers,

and I was grateful that we didn’t get to play

because I wasn’t good at basketball,

so I’m like

well at least I don’t have to play basketball

because I suck at it.

I’m never going to make a basket ever.

And so then my teacher gets up

in front of

do you remember this?

my teacher gets up in front of the entire class and says

okay everyone

you’re not just punished for five minutes,

you’re going to sit here

silently

until Benji Carr makes a basket!

And the entire class groaned,

but the entire room,

when I’m telling the story

groaned just as well, so I said,

that sound is the sound I heard that day in class!

And I never would have known

it never would have happened.

How perfect to have the audience actually hear the sound that he heard. It would have been an injustice to the story not to make that connection. He was able to more perfectly draw the audience into what it actually felt like to be him in that moment.

Others, including Cris, David, and Randy have suggested that the story is shaped by that evening. Even that it is desirable to leave room for the story to be shaped by the evening.

I wanted to look at that idea, alongside this, also from November 19 memos:

Benjamin suggested that one of the things that makes Carapace a safe space is that no one is fact checking the stories:

You are speaking

from your soul,

and when you realize that you are in a safe environment

and no one’s going to fact-check you,

because nobody knows your life better than you do.

And when you realize people genuinely care,

One of the few “rules” for the storytellers is that they are supposed to be telling true, personal stories. However, no one is really going to challenge the storyteller on the facts of their story. As Benjamin points out, it is assumed that the storyteller knows their personal story better than anyone else. I don’t think he meant this as license to make up whatever you want. But there is safety in knowing no one can say, “the story doesn’t go that way.”

The storyteller is responsible for the facts of the story. The audience helps shape how those facts come together to be a story.