Snowflake Outline Method Review

I am constantly having to refocusing my attention and energy back to my ultimate goal – to write a novel.  And just as constantly I get distracted and derailed by life, what passes for “reality.”  It takes vigilance to remember what it is I really want and to constantly monitor if I’m actually working on that goal or sluffing off, or if I’m letting what doesn’t matter, matter.

One thing I’ve found that helps immeasurably in this ongoing struggle is an outline.  The venerated, all-important outline.  It is honest to god my lifeline, and salvation.  It’s like a diet plan.  The enormity of designing and consistently following a regimen of exercising and eating better is daunting.  Diet books and DVD programs are not magic, nor are they even anything new.  It’s simply a matter of marketing and excellent packaging and I know if I just follow xyz program to the letter, I will reach my goal.  I just have to do what it tells me (which I really already know of course – eat right, exercise properly – duh), then I will get the results advertised.  

Follow any weight loss program properly and it will work.  It’s all packaged for you, broken down into doable little snippets, day by day.  That’s the secret, the key.  Otherwise it’s just too huge to grasp, to engage.  It’s the same with starting a novel.  How exactly do you do that?  You take workshops, classes, read books, and join groups.  But at the end of it you are still left with a ton of great ideas and feedback – but alone in front of that blank computer screen without any idea of actually how to “do” it; how to put all the ideas together, how to begin, how to piece it all together. 

That’s where the outline concept comes in, the diet program of writing.  Just find one that works for you, that has attractive packaging, that speaks to you, then pick it up and stick to it.  That’s where I am now.  I have a suitcase full of notes written in the middle of the day, while driving, in the shower, at work, full of scenes, ideas, things that actually happen that just have to be included, things that belong in my book.  But – now what?  What the hell do I actually do with them?  An outline helps you do just that, it’s a way to organize all ‘that.’ 

The outline method I found that was packaged ‘just right’ for me is “The Snowflake Method for Designing a Novel” by Randy Ingermanson.  His website and specific link to this article is:  http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method.  You should really check it out; it has a lot of resources included and it caught and held my interest.  From his website:
Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, the largest electronic magazine in the world on the craft of writing fiction, with over 32,000 readers.
I had tried a bunch of other outline formats, but this one works for me.  It is a more visual format, and it builds on itself, expanding outward.  The final piece of the outline is the first rough draft.  That’s exciting.  It’s like if I follow a diet and I know if I just keep following it, I’ll lose those twenty (or more …) pounds.  All I have to do is what it tells me, be faithful, don’t stray, pick it back up when I stumble, re-start where I left off with the assurance that if I just keep doing what it says – I will actually get something out of it.  It breaks it down so it’s not a huge overwhelming ‘thing’ you have to stare into the abyss of all alone, frozen and terrified, not knowing which way to even turn.  It is step by step, and it grows organically, feeding upon itself, each piece growing out of and into the next.  I like it.  I’m about half way through.  

It is very character driven, character focused, which Randy assures us is all the rage right now.  Even submitting a proposal from the viewpoint of a character is a very positive and popular thing to do, that agents reportedly appreciate.  So – a good sell on his method and rationale.  Each step is also defined by how long you should take to do it.  Again, this delineates and breaks it down.  You spend an hour, do this one thing, then you get that glorious holy grail of a checkmark, right through that step.  

 And – there are only TEN steps to your first draft!  I love how openly devious the method is.  You see it coming; know you’re being led to a very scary place, but it is so innocuous, so doable, that you can do it by just looking at that one piece and nothing else.  Here’s how it goes.

It starts with just one simple sentence.  Take one hour and write a one sentence summary of your novel, about 15 words.  This is not easy to do.  Randy goes so far as to say writing a one-sentence description is an art form.  He directs you to the New York Times Bestseller list for perfect examples, which really is helpful.  Doing just that first step focuses all those rampant thoughts, and ideas and it forces you to decide once and for all what your book is all about.

Step two begins to grow the snowflake outward.  Take that one sentence and expand it into a paragraph for a full summary of the book.  He suggests structuring it at this point into the quarter system; “three disasters plus an ending” though he does explain the three-act structure as well – whatever works for you.  This paragraph essentially becomes your book proposal.  No pressure.  He really breaks it down though.  Another hour, five sentences:  one for the backdrop and setup; one for each of the three ‘disasters’; and the last for the ending.

The third step begins to get into the nitty-gritty character development.  You are to write a one-page summary description of each major character.  He gives an outline for this, but I actually researched more and found even more detailed character development outlines that I used.  I really took to heart his case for a character-driven novel.  It makes sense, and it was fun getting to know these characters that intimately.  He reassures us that as the development progresses it is likely you’ll need to go back and revise your initial summary, and this is a good thing – don’t freak out.  It’s what the process is really for, to become clearer and more focused as to what the story is you really want to tell.

To further grow the story, step four is to expand each sentence of the summary paragraph (in step two) into its own full paragraph.  He says “This is a lot of fun …”  I personally hate statements like that.  Have I failed then if I don’t have ‘fun’?  Whatever.  I got through my little hissy fit and engaged this step.  The end product is supposed to be a “… pretty decent one-page skeleton of your novel.”  I did end up with this, but the process seemed to bring up more questions, point to a zillion issues that had to be dealt with.  I feel like I’m still really developing the actual plot.  This step is supposed to take “several hours.”

Step five entails a “day or two” of writing the story summary from each characters’ own point of view (POV), a full page for each major character and a half page for each minor character.  Now this step really is fun.  It was enlightening actually.  It is completely realistic and critically important.  Take any flat sitcom or romantic comedy – or any movie or show really that you’ve suffered through.  The whole of the world revolves around the main character – it is all about them and everybody else in the world exists to support them, as backdrop for their story, their conflict.  This is irritatingly done to death by the best girl friend two-dimensional character, who is of course a little overweight and happily exists just as a back drop for the main character who is dealing with some insipid little issue.  The ‘friend’ never has her own life and only exists in that world to support and sacrifice herself for her friend’s oh-so-important conflict with getting the boy, or whatever else it is we’re supposed to covet.  It drives me crazy.  

I sure as hell have never had a friend like that.  Shockingly, all my friends have actually had their own lives and no matter what conflict or tragedy I was going through, and no matter how supportive they could be – spoiler alert – they actually maintained their own lives too.  They in fact had their own issues to deal with, and actually existed outside my life.  Drives me crazy I swear.  So this step was gloriously ‘fun’ and exceedingly satisfying.  It gave all those characters depth.  The story, from their POV, becomes their story.  The protagonist and everybody else became the backdrop to their own personal lives and story.  This is reality.  Seeing how each of my characters responded to the events of the story, what my squirrely protagonist was getting up to, was a wonderful exercise.  It gave them real life and depth and will shape their actions and reactions as the story unfolds – the actual story, not just the tale of this one chick.  That subtle understanding can only help bring more depth to the portrayal of those characters.  When you swing the camera to them, it becomes their story in that moment.  I couldn’t keep the minor characters to one page – they had a lot to say about what was going on around them.  It was sometimes hilarious – such a perfect reflection of the natural (and necessary) narcissism humans actually embody.  Yeah – I liked this step.  I actually didn’t want it to end.  It was ‘easy’ and non-threatening.  It’s where I’ve left off at this point.  I think I’m scared to push onward to the “real” book.  But I am.  Onward.

The outline directions state that I now should have a “… solid story” and “… several story threads” for the characters.  And I actually do.  The next stage is to take the one page summary from step four and expand that.  Each paragraph now becomes a full page, again “… a lot of fun.”  We’ll see about that.  This is where a lot of revision to prior premises comes in.  I can see that.  It starts to bring it all together.  Daunting, but still doable I think.  This is supposed to take a week.

Another full week is to be devoted to step seven, back into character development.  Take the character descriptions from step three and make “… full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character.”  It must end with / include how the character changes by the end of the book.  He again asserts that “… great fiction is character-driven” and I’m not arguing with him about that – I just don’t know how much more I can write about my characters.  Maybe I got a little carried away and by using other character development outlines, I’ve maybe already done this step?  I mean I wrote 17 pages about my main protagonist, and at least two pages for every other character.  I really got into my main character – I looked up her astrological sign, her name meaning – just everything about her I could think to dig up.  I guess I’ll end up doing a bit more of the same for the other main characters.  He says this step actually may take a month, not a week to do.  But he asserts that after this step you’ll have “most” everything you need to write a proposal and sell the novel.  Just like that.  I think I’ll stick to the character development here.

Step eight, which you may choose to wait to start until your book sells (!), is the one I’m really eager to delve into.  It seems to me this is where the real skeleton lies, where the “real” book really does start to come together.  

 You are to take the four-page synopsis from step six and make a list of all the scenes that are needed.  Now this does sound like “fun” to me, but he lets us know that this part, making a spreadsheet anyway, is “scary”.  I don’t get that, but then my idea of a real good time is to make lists solely for the joy of putting checkmarks through each item.  I will literally make a list of things I have already done, just for the sheer joy and accomplishment of putting that magnificent checkmark through it.  So Randy and I may not be coming from the same realm here.  But that’s ok, this step does seem fun.  It’s a LIST for god’s sake!  How incredibly non-threatening can you get?  I don’t have to “write” – I just have to make a list.  Bring it on!  That is SO doable.   I bought a gigantic 6’ x 4’ magnetic white board just for this purpose.  I had a contractor hang it in my little office sanctuary and I am just drooling to get those diagrams and scenes marked up there.  Yum.  

 I’ve printed out everything I’ve done so far and have the pages tacked up there with magnets and labeled.  It is very reinforcing for me, to see things visually.  It’s why this method is so compelling to me in the first place.  It is very organic, very visual.  So back to this step - make one line for each scene, then fill out columns next to that line – the character’s POV; a brief summary of what happens; and it can also include things like an estimate of how many pages for that scene.  Cut and paste manna here, moving around the scenes as needed to actually put your book together.  Yeah, that’s exciting.  It reminds me of playing Risk when I was young.  I just loved the little wood blocks, loved seeing those all laid out on the board, showing just how rich I was.  Visual.  This step can take a week.  I think it’s going to take me longer, and will be ongoing.

The next step he lists as optional and says he doesn’t need to do it anymore.  It is writing a narrative description of the story.  What?  This to me really is what I’ll always think of as “writing”, the actual writing.  Sitting down and pounding out that story.  This is the real book, and the thing that writer’s block is made of.  But again, he quickly has you breaking down and expanding just component pieces.  You don’t have to worry about just sitting down and writing a whole book, start to finish.  You just take each line of the spreadsheet and write several paragraphs describing that scene.  Dialogue can start to come in here as well as conflict descriptions.  Ok – a little daunting but I still see it as doable.

The last step?  Well, “… just sit down and start pounding out the real first draft of the novel.”  Ok then.  Not sure that qualifies as an actual “step”, but again we’re reminded, “This is supposed to be the fun part …” in fact, it is “…incredibly fun and exciting.”  I’m willing to see!

A Year in Pens

What better way to start the New Year?  To know where we are going, we must of course know where we have been, and how we got there.  I went through an alarming amount of pens this year – constantly searching for ‘The One.’  The one that would represent exactly what it is I’m trying to capture, what it is I’m trying to do.  The one with both the perfect feel and ultimate output.  Here’s what I found.

The Generalities:
I prefer at least a medium ink.  Anything else is just not substantial enough.  I am tired of apologizing, hiding my words – I don’t need my ink to do it for me.  I like the bold, thick, unapologetic lines joining the white unsoiled page, sparking life in its discernible wetness on the primordial page.

Felt pens suck.  They seem they would fit the bill, all dark and glide-y, but they are insubstantial.  You can’t get any leverage with them.  If you try to write anything but fluff with them, they yield like a bitch and give way, give up.  I’ve ended up pounding felt pens to their death because they couldn’t give me what I want – smashing their little fuzzy tips over and over again into the page ….. yeah.  I don’t do felt anymore.  

Calligraphy pens.  I am a sucker for these.  I always convince myself that they would just be SO cool to write with.  Changing the cartridges, or the once you actually dip in ink – how awesome and romantic and writer-ly can you get?!  I get seduced every time and end up with bleeding pages and about six legible words.  Enough time passes, I forget how completely impractical they are, and there I am again – lusting in the aisle, fantasies of Virginia Woolf in my head.  Don’t go there.  Just don’t.

Ball Point pens suck in general.  Tom Robbins says they run away from home, but I think they’re really lost on purpose.  Our subconscious writer brain ‘accidentally’ leaving them where they’ll be picked up by some other poor unsuspecting fool, conveniently forgotten while we look the other way.  Penicide.  That sounded better in my head than how it looks on the page …. Hmmm.

The Specifics:
Paper Mate Ink Joy.  This one does glide ok, as advertised, but it doesn’t have any bite.  It seems to skim the surface of the word, not bite down into it, its essence, breaking it down into phonemes, scratching it down and apart, then scratching it back together again to create a meaningful perfect word.

Bic Atlantis.  This one is just confusing.  I find myself working ridiculously hard for very little impact.  I inevitably stop and wonder what the hell I’m doing, why I’m struggling so hard to please a pen, to make it work.  It is weird that way, devious.   I usually end up placing these under a blanket, or the bed to hide their insidious power, too scared to throw them away.  Like I used to do with creepy dolls when I was young.  I hated dolls and they scared me but I knew they would come back and get me if I destroyed them, so I just hid them.  Out of sight, evil things lose their power.

R-2 Inc. Rollerball.  I don’t think this is really the name-brand version – it’s a Dollar Store staple.  It is really not a bad daily use pen.  It starts out very nicely – thick, deep ink, digging into the page nicely.  It loses steam fairly quickly though; sometimes during a writing session, it will just begin to fade.  You think it’s done and over with, relegated to the drawer of half-dead pens in the catch-all drawer only good for writing notes and grocery lists.  But then, if you try it again the next morning, it appears to be back and ready for action again.  Inconsistent and therefore frustrating.  But at two for a buck, and the short blast of oomph in the beginning – not bad.

Uni-ball Signo Micro 207.  I’m usually a fan of Uni-ball.  They have consistently reliable and hefty pens that can be counted on.  This one doesn’t make the grade for me though.  I am not a micro anything fan.  Seriously, why?  It scratches annoyingly across the page.  Irritating like a gross and ugly mouse (the cute ones are of course forgiven anything) scratching its over-enlarged balls right in front of you.  Yes, really – that annoying, that gross. 

Bottle Pen.  An environmental pen, from Vontone.  The packaging reads like bargain furniture assembly instructions.  It is technically English, but the combination of words just doesn’t quite work.  The pen is as advertised made from Pet Bottle.  I don’t know what that is.  It’s made in China.  Via Canada, via Virginia.  I don’t know how “eco” that really is.  It’s a Ball Point pen, transparent, nondescript.  It is audible on the page – I swear, when it writes it’s like a low growl, like it doesn’t want to be forced back into service.  And it gives a pretty crappy outcome.  Pale, insubstantial.  Pass.

Matrix INC.  “INC” is a registered trademark.  Seriously.  Of “Peachtree Playthings.”  What the hell.  This one has great advertising on its packaging:  ‘… optimum pairing of a high quality tip and soft smooth ink … bold vivid lines … long lasting ink supply … more for your money.’  Every word is capitalized.  Another meaningless ball point.  Ineffectual, light as air.  No substantial word could ever be written with one of these pens.

UltraFine Promarx.  “Make your mark.”  Great.  Most pens I’ve found in this research are simply repackaging.  The advertising is often hilarious.  Again, I don’t like anything “ultrafine” – I prefer ultra-thick and substantial.  The tip is felt-like and leaves an acceptable mark on the page, dark enough.  The process of writing with it though is very unsatisfying.  There is no flow, no joy in the process.  Okay for grocery lists or to-do lists, but I won’t be writing anything of note (hah!) with these.

Pentel Wow! Gel.  Seriously?  I’ve never really paid close attention to the names of pens.  Who in the world gets paid for these gems?  Usually I’m a sucker for Gel – it just sounds like it would be what I want; fluid, thick, with a sensuous glide action.  I am usually disappointed.  Including, wow, even this one.  It just sucks.  The casing is embedded with little sparkly bits (wow!) and the grip is triangular.  It’s a confused mess and doesn’t write worth a damn.  It can’t even grip the paper, you have to force its nose down into the page to get any response at all.  I feel disturbingly violent, forceful with this pen.  No thanks.

Next up, the penultimate actually (hah!!  SO sorry, but I literally could not resist – may I burn in pen pun hell forever but this is just one of those words that simply does NOT sound like what it is.  So deceptive, so devious, just begging to be misused, the slut, in utter defiance of Mr. Webster).  Another little staple.  Mostly harmless I believe my hero Douglas Adams would say.  The Pilot Precise VS Rolling Ball.  I find myself trying time and again to resist these.  They are pedantic.  I long for more flourish in my pen, something more dramatic.  But the truth is this is a quite acceptable little pen.  Very reliable, solid, consistent.  The line stays deep and thick, doesn’t fade out until it really is dead, so no trickery like the devious R2s mentioned above.  When it dies, you can mourn it properly and move on.  They are boring and I don’t like they are the pen that my mother uses, but – a top choice in honesty, again for the day to day use only though.

But the ultimate pen (as opposed to Mr. Penultimate above) is leaps and lines above the rest:  the Uniball Gel Impact 1.0.  It takes the fits and starts of the other Gels listed, finally gets off its Uniball rump of disappointments previously offered, and comes in at number one with this absolute ultimate writing machine.  It is thick, it makes no apologies, and it is permanent, just daring you to try to take it back once it’s written down.  It will mark you forever (well, maybe for the day.  Well, maybe until you wash your hands, but damn it, it makes you work!), unapologetic, displaying to the world that you have written, and written well.  You bear the mark.  And it is not a throwaway.  It takes its permanence seriously.  Replacement cartridges must be purchased and refilled – the pen lives forever.  What better instrument to send that vibe of permanence into the words you write with it?  It colludes with you, and in times of doubt or block, it simply won’t let your hand rest.  You’ll look down somewhat surprised to see your hand caressing it, doodling with it.  It is a deceptively simple looking pen, not particularly comfortable.  But it packs a wallop.  It is so desirable I find myself ridiculously ‘saving’ it.  Putting it on a shelf as it were, not allowing myself to use it for my daily writing.

I think I just found my New Year’s resolution.

… And a Trite New Year

I’m trying to do a New Year’s piece here tied into writing – a fresh start, a clean piece of paper; the blank screen, the clean slate of a new year before us; a new book, a new pen, beginning fresh, anew.  How there is something cleansing about that process, ancient, being renewed in the flames.  And further, how every day really is the start of a new year.  Clever concept, yes?  No!  My margins are filled with angry, then pathetically defeated looking scribbles:  “Trite.  Trivial.  Too obvious.  Seriously?  I’m barfing in my throat just reading this.”  It’s not clever at all, not original and trite as hell.  Embarrassing.  I wish I could crumple up the computer screen page and hawk it in the garbage for the resounding definitiveness of the action and satisfaction.  A declaration that I am not trite, I am so much more profound than this crap. 

But an annoying little voice emerges, scratching persistently at my consciousness and it won’t shut up, won’t let me stew in my righteous mortification and disgust.  “But this is true.  This is how I truly feel.  It’s what I truly believe.  How can that be wrong?  Aren’t writers supposed to uphold the truth above all else?  Bravely put it to form for all the world to see?”  Bitch.  Annoying little bitch.  She cornered me.  So now I have to do this thing.  Stand behind the truth, unashamed and as herald.  Say something like -  

The blank page, the new year – they’re both going to get filled up one way or another, it’s up to me to fill them well and not let them be wasted.  A new chapter, a new beginning, new opportunity, placed in the spotlight and celebrated literally for a moment, the whole of the world watching, commemorating that moment with that little minute hand as a symbol; a symbol of hope, opportunity.  This – this is when my true life begins.  The past year is absolved – only the next minute matters.  We are sanctioned a reboot and fresh start once a year. 

But we forget that every moment of our lives portends the same thing.  We get a ‘do-over’ every single day.  As Tom Robbins reminds us in Still Life with Woodpecker, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”  It’s never too late to start again, we do it every day.  Instead of coffee, we should start every single day with fireworks and full awareness of what that new day can mean.  It is literally a new year every turn of that steadfast little minute hand.  If we fell off the wagon, became unbalanced, we merely need to wait up again till midnight, blow our horns, burn sacrificial fuses in pyrotechnic homage, and write a new list of resolutions on that fresh blank piece of paper.  Exonerate ourselves and begin again.  

See?  Trite as as all get out, right?  Aren’t you a tad embarrassed reading that as I was writing it?  I can’t let that go – I have to face and tackle that triteness head on.  

It is the undeniable truth that every day truly is a new day with a fresh start, the beginning of another new year.  But hasn’t that concept been trampled to death by corporate advertising, had the truth wrung from its broken limp neck by two-cent pundits?  Nevertheless it is still true, as my annoying little bitch inner voice testifies.  It’s up to us to reclaim the truth – our own truth – and hoard it back away to the privacy within ourselves where it belongs.  The truth is not a banner to sell hemorrhoid cream.  The ideals of the ‘60’s shouldn’t be a sound bite to sell a Subaru.  It is a profound and personal cornerstone of our life, critical for growth.  It’s been taken from us by the aggressive strategy of sheer overkill.  You don’t want to hear a popular song again on the radio as a weary DJ?  Play it hundreds of times until the public becomes sick of it as you are.  You don’t want the masses becoming enlightened, living independent, meaningful lives?  Take profundity, give it a catchy soundtrack and blast it on every channel until it becomes trite on steroids and no self-respecting person can ever again say, without deep pains of embarrassment, “every day is a new day.”  

All of our truisms have become trite.  And in so doing, have effectively been lost – co-opted.  We can’t even think of them without vomiting.  We hear people who publicly voice the trite and it is painful isn’t it?  We are embarrassed for them, we turn away; see them as shallow, commonplace, ignorant drones who have mindlessly bought into the party line.  But we overlook the paradox.  The truth is hidden from us in plain sight, buried in piles of syrup and hackneyed repetition.  Perfect.  We prevent ourselves from even thinking about a truism once it’s become so corrupted, much less embrace it for the richness it can give our lives. 

Trite is true.  Or, is truth truly trite?  And if it is trite, then what?  Do we get to skip right over it with that as our excuse for not really engaging the truth, letting it in?  Let’s embrace the trite, rescue it from the pit of overplayed mediocrity to which it’s been banished and enslaved.  ‘Trite’ must be renamed, re-conceptualized to be reclaimed, as a disenfranchised group takes the slurs hurled at them, turns them on their head, reshapes them as their own, then turns them back around to the ignorant; “This is mine now, you can’t hurt me with it anymore.”  We are “Queer”; you are “my N-word.”  Claimed, owned.  We mustn’t let the profound be taken from our world.  Reclaim it.  Don’t let it be soiled, don’t be embarrassed to utter it, hold it close, realize the sacred truth for what it is, what it truly is. 

It is not a truism’s fault it’s been so abused, manipulated, made trite.  It still exists and – it is still true, still profound if we can just rescue it, drag it out of the mire, purge it of the slime.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” not trite.

So how’s that for trite?!

Happy New Year!

The Thriving Art of Storytelling at SLOLio

What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you hear “storytelling” – children’s bedtime stories, yarns spun around a campfire, romanticized days of yore, or perhaps a wistful acquiescence of the “lost art” of storytelling? 

I refuse those reductions.  Storytelling is alive and thriving.  We just need a modern day conceptualization of what storytelling is now, a realization that we are hearing and seeing stories played out every day.  The written and certainly the visual forms of storytelling flourish, but with so many bells and whistles we forget that we are in fact being told a story.  The ritualized, oral tradition of one person passing experience, history, drama, humor – life – along to another simply by talking, telling a story 'unplugged', may be less employed or maybe just less obvious these days, but it is far from dead and gone.  It has naturally evolved, grown to literal epic proportions along with our technology. 

This is not a bad thing.  It’s natural we push those boundaries.  It’s what we do and the results are spectacular.  We must be wise enough however to remember the source.  The source must be kept alive and thriving, tended well in order to fuel the evolution.  Just as the mother dough, the starter or patê fermentée, is the essence of all the wildly imaginative and delicious creations that evolve from its living core.  It is the basic element collecting wild yeast and bacteria from the environment, sparking the magical, live process of fermentation, birth.  Such is a single person standing alone on a small wooden stage in front of an expectant audience, telling their story.  And there are those who cultivate this, will not let it die; will not let the spawn of evolution turn round to destroy its own source.  And these people are SLOLio.

What exactly is “SLOLio?”  Their website slolio.org provides the definition of an “Olio” first: a mixture or medley; a hodgepodge; a collection of various artistic or literary works or musical pieces; a miscellany.  So SLOLio is then a gathering, an “olio” of true stories and story-loving people.  A “story slam” as they coin it.  Every month in downtown San Luis Obispo (SLO) CA, at a wondrous locale called Linnaea’s Café, very determined and committed people put on this live storytelling spectacular.  One person after another on a small wooden stage, an excellent mediator and host, and a willing enraptured audience.  All storytelling, all fresh, no notes allowed, each tale no more than eight to ten minutes.  A theme is provided about a month ahead of time which storytellers use to inspire their tales, which must be true.  Those are the only rules.  The evening’s stories are recorded and available on their website.  

I’ve been attending for about a half a year now and am amazed, touched, and laugh-out-loud amused each time.  There are regulars who come to tell a story each month, and there are always new faces, those brave and daring souls who embark on this adventure for the experience, or perhaps because that month’s theme touched them somehow and they have a story they simply must tell.  The stage is theirs for those few minutes and they get to tell their story, permitting us into their personal world, raw and exposed.  It is an indescribably human experience.  You pass these people every day of your life without ever knowing the amazing stories they have to tell, the experiences they have had.  Every person in this world has a story.  That simple realization shifts your perception just ever so slightly, but oh so significantly.  To have that awareness, that delightful burst of an epiphany as you become a part of this true hodgepodge of humanity and hear what they have to say, is a singularly unique and profound experience.

Per the website, SLOLio was inspired by The Moth in New York City.  The Moth organization was launched in 1997 by George Dawes Green, a poet and best-selling novelist who wanted to recreate storytelling nights he had with friends in his native Georgia.  SLOLio carried the torch of this tradition all the way West to the California Central Coast.  The host and organizer is Kirk Henning who is an incredibly dynamic speaker himself.  When he talks, you just listen.  He keeps the show running smoothly and takes care of the recordings as well.  

This is an exceedingly special, inspirational experience and I am very grateful to have discovered it.  The next event will be held January 15, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. at Linnaea’s Café located at 110 Garden Street, downtown San Luis Obispo, CA.  The theme for this month is “The Big Sell.” 

I am already sold.