talkmagic.co.uk

daleshrimpton wrote:you might also think about taking some acting classes, or at the very least join a decent local am dram society, or choir. you might also find that there is a poetry group in your area that has reading nights. If you were to explain what your looking for, you might be able to sit in ... for the price of a few shared tricks.

Unfortunately, I cannot follow this kind of advice, as I explained before: I at the moment live in a country where they possibly speak the most difficult European languages (which I still barely grasp after more than one year) and, most importantly, don't know how long I'm going to stay here.

BrucUK's post is much more on the line on what I am looking for...

Ive never met a finn, who can't speek english. And strange as it seems, ive met a few over the years.
However, sinnce you are in Finland, go and listen to people telling viking Saga.
the words are not as important as the timing.And that is what your trying to get to grasp with.

incidently, this is a nice SHORT native magical tale....

http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/058.html

They do speak English (otherwise I would be cut off) but don't give acting lessons in English, as far as I've looked at. As for a choir, I've been part of a choir for several years, but here, ehm, I failed the audition

Anyway, the one on timing is a good tip, although timings in different languages (and especially in Finnish) can indeed vary a lot.

EDIT: thanks for the link

I took the crazy step of Googling storytelling. Both of these came up on page 1 of the results:

http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/

http://www.sfs.org.uk/

They have resources that don't require you to attend instructional seminars or courses. The former in particular has a great FAQ, which I think you'll find useful.

Part-Timer wrote:I took the crazy step of Googling storytelling. Both of these came up on page 1 of the results:

Please, don't assume that google works the same for everyone (i.e. for every country). Thanks for the links, though, they look promising.

I know that Google might not work the same in other countries. I was really thinking of all the comments about acting classes, when you'd made it clear that you wanted something else!

I hope you find the material I located useful.

Listen to audiobooks -- both well done and badly done.

A good audiobook narrator brings the story alive, giving the right emotions to the narrative sections and making sure each character has an individual voice (not the same as doing a load of accents). Listening to these narrators, and analysing what makes them enjoyable to listen to, can show you how to do it right.

A bad narrator speaks flatly or erratically, expresses no emotion or emphasis (or the wrong ones), and fails to distinguish between characters. He may be perfectly clear in his pronunciation, but you're never allowed to forget that he's reading words from a page. Analysing these narrators can show you things to avoid.

As a subscriber to Audible, I get an audiobook a month, so I've built up a small library by now. Some are breathtakingly good, others astoundingly bad. Just last night I struggled to the end of a wonderful Ellery Queen novel read by one of the worst narrators in the business. Every single sentence had exactly the same flat inflection, no matter whether it was "The dawn came up gradually, casting its pale beams over the silver sea" or "Oh my God, don't kill me".

Also from my audiobook experience, I can confirm that there's a difference between acting and storytelling skills. I have some of Agatha Christie's Poirot stories read by David Suchet himself. He's superb at the dialogue, and does a wide range of believable voices for the different characters, but he's not particularly good as a narrator.

That's a wonderful idea! Thanks!

I can reccomend a talking book, if you can still get it. In my youth, ( and for many years after) I treasured teh times i listened to teh late great Magnus Magnusuns recordings of the Viking Sagas.( Its those sagas again!)
If you can find them, they should be required listening for every single Bizarist and story teller on the planet, because they contained some incredible ghostly stories, and how the universe was created.

Local and Central Libraries will have a selection of Audio Books and don't forget places like The Works who often have excellent deals on Audio books.

The works tends to have lots of Bernard Cornwall audio books. I particularly like his Arthur trilogy and the audio version was read well.