Page 20 - September 2017 Voices

persisted. We began giving educational sessions improv comic, the story arc lends us a structure
about how the story arc is structured. How to play to follow. Or, if nothing else, a format to consider
with narrative and change chronological order to before we write a story or take the stage. It
hook the audience early. We experimented with provides us with a path and informs us when we
continuous storylines in table topics, where every should throw rocks at our protagonist to build
speaker picked up the baton for 1-2 minutes in the audience’s tension, and when to give closure.
an ongoing monodrama. We discovered that It was this story structure, this arc, Brice
Brice wasn’t the only member who would have followed last Thursday night. The audience’s
an “I’d never” moment on stage. But the club prompts: Rhodesia. Post-WWII. A scout named
kept growing, and our members kept challenging Steve and a transcontinental madam named
themselves and each other. Maria. His answer; “Yes I can!” And he pulled it
Last year we saw real growth and understanding off with brilliance and gusto.
If you’d like to eliminate your own “I’d never”
or learn more about how stories are structured,
you can join us at Providence St. Vincent Medical
Center every Thursday night at 6:30pm, meeting
room 20. We offer technical feedback on the
story arc, generous round-robin and manual
evaluations, and storytelling challenges you
won’t find at any other club. Come visit us, and
together we can learn to tell better stories.
Joe Anthony joined Toastmasters in 2014. He
is a member of Liberty Talkers and Storymansters.
He is serving as VP Public Relatons in both clubs.
Additionally he is serving as a new club mentor for
Cascade Micro-Toasters in Beaverton, Oregon.
Brenda Bryan

begin to flourish in the club. Members
who couldn’t pronounce denouement
(day-new-mwah; the closing act of a
story) were now calling speakers out
for not giving the audience proper
resolution. Members were talking
about where the rising action and
tension points landed in a story.
Or how a climax was improperly
placed. Or what made a story’s hook
unforgettable. We also voted to keep
our 6-9 minute round-robin evaluation
system. This allows a speaker to receive
more than twice the feedback as a
regular evaluation, with perspectives
from everyone in the room. Because of
this we’ve had club, area, and division
speakers come back to us for guest
evaluations at every level of contest.
Our focus on the story arc
seems to be working. Similar to the
aforementioned guidelines for an

20 VOLUME 4 ISSUE 3 SEPTEMBER, 2017