StoryCon 2002

Meeting Schedule

 We Have the pieces

We  have an awesome range of plenary talks (single track) in morning and evening, with optional workshops in the afternoons.

The day before the advanced meeting, there is an Intro To Story Pre-conference course that lasts from Morning until evening, allowing many of the speakers to introduce themselves and their basic ideas. That's because the main meeting is an advanced meeting and they'll be sharing new ideas there.

Now We're putting them together

Three Post Conference Courses

 

Sun-Mon 9/29-30

Tues 10/1

Intro To Story Pre-Conference Workshop

8:00AM-12:00 PM

1:00-5:30 PM

6:45-10:30 PM

25+ speakers

Meeting Opening: Exploring the Whole World of story

Story Parameters

Structure, roots, experience

Story Parameters,  Models and Applications

The Future of Story

Ÿ 10:00 Break

Ÿ 10:10 Story as Energy David Vanadia

Ÿ 10:20 From Heros To Villains: The Psychology of Characters and Conflicts; Rachel Ballon

Ÿ 10:45 Character Structure Dan Decker

Ÿ 11:10 The Six Properties of Oral Storytelling: How "Story Communication" Differs from Conceptual Communication Doug Lipman

Ÿ 11:35 Living and Leaving a Spiritual Legacy: The Centrality of Story in a Meaningful Life." Daniel Taylor

Ÿ 12:00 Strategy and Story Ashraf Ramzy

Ÿ 12:20 Lunch

6:25 Bardic Voices Mythic Bards Cathy Lynn Pagano

About the meeting dress code.

In the spirit of the history of story, we will take a middle ground.

The earliest story tellers sat naked, or near naked around the campfire. This approach is optional, but probably overdoing holding to tradition.  It has been reported that some writers, sit at their keyboards in their underwear. Hollywood pitch session attire de rigeur  is the casual look—jeans, or at least no suit or jacket and tie.  Let’s stay with at least this level of casual, keeping in mind that it can get hot in Palm Springs in September, so shorts and a tee shirt are even better. 

Our business colleagues,  may, if they really feel the need, wear a tie during presentations, but this is discouraged, and we encourage more casual attire otherwise.

There is a hot tub at the hotel and we will be attempting to encourage the hotel to allow us to use it until midnight. So bring a bathing suit.

9:30 Panel -The Experience of Story

9:50 The Therapeutic Use of Story as an Adjunct in the Counseling Setting Rachel Ballon

7:00 Last minute presentation add-on

7:10 The Authentic Voice - leading individuals into community: How to find one's source of story, the power to communicate it fully, and create an audience out of individuals. Tim Sheppard

7:20 Universal and cross-cultural dream themes as extremely powerful story and plot elements. Craig Webb

7:30 Why is Dorothy Wearing Blue? Color and the Development of Story.  Marcie Begleiter

9:00 PM Hypnotic, subliminal experience Tom Budzynski

9:15 Attentional Synchrony: Psychophysiological assessment of audience interest David Kaiser

9:30 Panel -The Experience of Story

7:00 Last minute presentation add-ons

7:10 Last minute presentation add-on

7:20 Last minute presentation add-on

7:25 Experiments in First-Person Narration: Shifting Unreliability in Lolita and Angela’s Ashes James Phelan

8:05 Telling Our Master Stories" Daniel Taylor

8:45 break

8:55 RD Lang’s theories & the hero's flaw as a normal response to abnormal circumstances."Robin Tobin
9:35The Four Winds of the Goddess Steve and Robin Larsen

10:15 The New Story-Self Connection: Intriguing New Patterns Discovered in Great Stories Reveal the Secrets of the Human Mind James Bonnet

10:55 break

11:05 The Story Behind Every Relationship Ray Bergen

11:20 Being Story Robert Burdette Sweet

12:00 Panel -Story Structure; elements, dimensions, dynamics

1:00 Lunch

2:00- 6:00 PM Afternoon optional workshops

7:00 Last minute presentation add-on

7:10 Introduction to Augmented Story Telling and Topic Maps for Story Telling Jack Park

7:20 Dreams as stories: A history, framework and method for harvesting the creative potential of dreams, dream symbolism, and dream characters as key story elements Craig Webb

7:30 The Hollywood Film as American Dream; Greek Mythic Tragedy vs. Bible Hero Success Ashraf Ramzy

7:50 The Archetype of the Bard Cathy Lynn Pagano

8:00 Beyond the Story Mind: Reflecting Story Structure Back on our World Melanie Anne Phillips

8:40 break

8:50 Reaching Your Audience: Compelling Story Choices that Affect an Audience's Emotional Involvement in a Story Chris Huntley

9:30 Panel -story technologies, algorithms

7:10 NeuroScience and StoryWriting Thomas Budzynski

7:40 Authentic Character; defining by challenging Dan Decker

9:50 Heartwarming as a Verb; milking the human tear duct and pulling heart strings. Rob Kall

7:00 Last minute presentation add-ons

7:20

7:30

8:00 Digital Storytelling for Knowledge Continuity Michael Kull

8:10 Stories empowering youth Ben Callahan

8:20 The Role of Story In Writing Sales Copy David Garfinkel

8:30 The Seven Highest Value Forms of Organizational Storytelling Steve Denning

9:10 Break

9:20 Story Work -- Embarking on Powerful Quests to Consciously Shape the Future Karen Dietz

10:00 The Power of Story to Ignite the Imagination Richard Stone

10:40 break
10:55 Panel:-Applications of Story

11:45 -Closing Panel; building cross disciplinary models, finding concensus, issues of controversy and opportunities

1:00 End of Plenary sessions for Meeting

2:00- 6:00 PM Afternoon optional workshops

2-4:00 PM

workshops

sc-201A From Word to Image: Visualization techniques for writers, filmmakers and interactive media developers: Marcie Begleiter

 

sc-203A Writing Stories from the Soul Richard Krevolin

 

sc-205A Change Your Story, Change Your Life: Be The Hero In Your Own Life Script: Rachel Ballon, Ph.D.

 

sc-207A Using the Tools of NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming to construct, crisp clear, solid writing Thom Hartmann:

sc-226B The Secret Language of Great Stories James Bonnet

 

sc-211A Pitching Through Story: Oral Communication Skills for the Very Important Presentation Doug Lipman

 

sc-213A What Is Narratology and Why are They Saying Such Good and Bad Things about It James Phelan

sc-215A Eight Essential Questions Every Author Should Know About Their Story Chris Huntley

sc-217A David Snowden

 

sc-219A Lifewriting; Connecting the Inner and the Outer Life of the Writer Steven Barnes

 

sc-221A Theme and Images: Giving Your Story Meaning: Linda Seger

 

sc-223 Do you Write Primarily For Yourself or For Others: surviving as a writer in the modern world Robert Burdette Sweet

 

sc-231A The Hero and the Brand.Using the Character & Journey of the Hero to develop Heroic Power Brands Ashraf Ramzy

sc-225A Story Jam Richard Stone

 

sc-228A The Lover’s Archetype and the Four Male and Four Female Energies That Drive Every Love Story

 

sc-229A How to Create Powerful Stories to Make Your Sales Copy Irresistible David Garfinkel

 

4:00-6 PM

workshops

sc-202B The Story Mind: Exploring the Model of Psychology Hidden in Story Structure. Melanie Anne Phillips

 

sc-232B CINEMAHEAD WORKSHOP: "SCENE DYNAMIX and IDEA RECYCLING" Daniel Alegi

 

sc-206B Sound Design In Story David Sonnenschein

 

sc-208B  How to Build a Relationship Between the Hero’s Flaw and the Life Changing Event which Creates a Powerful Second Act Rob Tobin

sc-212B Crafting and Performing the Springboard Story. Steve Denning

sc-214B Discovering Story; Finding the Souce of Creativity Sharon Maas

sc-216B Story ArchePaths: Five archetypal paths to character illumination. Pamela Jaye Smith

sc-220B Drive Structures; What keeps the audience coming at you for more. Dan Decker

sc-222B The Masks of Creative Mind Stephen and Robin Larsen

sc-224B Your Web Site as a Story: David Vanadia

sc-230B Neuroscience of Story Tom Budzynski

sc-227B Personal Stories/Sacred Stories What Are Your Messages The World Needs To Hear Karen Dietz

Sunday 9/29

Tues  11/1

Melanie Anne Phillips: Story Structure for Passionate Writers
Step by Step from Inspiration to Finished Manuscript

Sunday Afternoon and evening

Jame's Bonnet's

Storymaking; The master Class:

The Quintessential Screenwriting and Storymaking Seminar

Optional, Additional Fee

Conference Workshops: (listed alphabetically)

Conference workshops are two hours. These optional,  presentations offer an excellent opportunity to hear  in depth discussion by your favorite speakers.

sc-219A Steven Barnes Lifewriting; Connecting the Inner and the Outer Life of the Writer 

To write well, we must resolve the apparent conflict between plot and characterization, and see how each is a different version of the same thing, like two sides of a coin. Once this is understood, we can use our grasp of plot both to structure books or scripts, and design our lives. We can use our grasp of psychology to sculpt unforgettable characters, and simultaneously promote our growth and healing as human beings and artists. Lifewriting is an advanced tool for writers genuinely committed to both personal and professional advancement, a warrior path for the word-wizard.

sc-201A  From Word to Image: Visualization techniques for  writers, filmmakers and interactive media developers”. Marcie Begleiter   Bring your stories, scripts and outlines. This workshop will cover basic techniques that can be easily utilized to take your ideas from  abstract words to concrete images. Visual brain-storming, storyboarding and other right-brain activities will help you to discover new ground in your ongoing search for new story territory.  Registration limited.

sc-228B Ray Bergen The Lover’s Archetype and the Four Male and Four Female Energies That Drive Every Love Story

For two hours we will explore how the four male energies that make up the male Archetype of  “the Lover” interact with the four energies that complete the female Goddess repertoire.  We will play with how these interactions create the meat and potatoes of the myriad subplots to the one universal relationship drama.   And we will answer the question, “What are these forces doing controlling our relationship stories, anyway?”

sc-226B  James Bonnet The Secret Language of Great Stories Metaphor is the symbolic language of story. The archetypes and patterns of action it reveals are the same archetypes and patterns which run through every individual and every group, and are being played out in all of life's important stages. If you understand these archetypes and patterns, it will not only help you understand the world and your place in the scheme, it will help you make your story characters truly charismatic and memorable.

sc-209A  James Bonnet Exploring the Dark side: The Anti-Hero’s Journey  In this workshop, we will explore the nature of evil, the great characters it can inspire, and the lesser known, uncharted dark side of the passage, the place in story and real life where the dark forces live and hatch their nefarious schemes. I will also introduce you to the new story model, the Golden Paradigm, which reveals the  transformation of the hero into an anti-hero, and all of the life cycles we experience from birth to death. When you understand these patterns and cycles, you will not only to be able to create better stories, you will understand why the struggle between good and evil is the dominant pattern in great stories and why it is playing such a significant role in our lives.  

sc-223A Robert Burdette Sweet Being Story: Narrative as a Guide to Self Discovery

sc-220B  Dan Decker Drive Structures; What keeps the audience coming at you for more. 

 

sc-212B  Steve Denning Crafting and Performing the Springboard Story.

More and more organizations are realizing that stability and predictability are no longer reasonable assumptions. In fact the number one problem of today's managers is the difficulty in getting their organizations to adapt to a competitive environment that is neither stable nor predictable. For many organizations, better management of knowledge is key. Yet while change is irresistible, the organization often seems immovable.

 

This workshop shows how springboard storytelling can communicate complex new ideas and spark rapid energetic action towards their implementation. Drawing on his experience as Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank from 1996-2000, the workshop will give practical experience in crafting and performing springboard storytelling.

 

sc-227A  Karen Dietz Personal Stories/Sacred Stories  What Are Your Messages The World Needs To Hear? In this workshop, Karen Dietz will lead participants through the experience of taking? one or two personal experience stories and turning them into sacred stories.  There will be lots of discussion about what participants observe, experience, and the difference telling their stories as sacred stories could make in their world.  Toward the end of this workshop we’ll talk about the patterns of messages and themes that have emerged, and create a diagram of the types of stories we need to be telling ourselves and each other in order to create an inspiring future.  By the end of this workshop, each participant will walk away with at least one sacred story they can tell, they will know how their stories fit into the grander picture of stories that need to be told today, and they will have the tools to transform their other stories into sacred stories.

 

sc-229A David Garfinkel  How to Create Powerful Stories to Make Your Sales Copy Irresistible This one's different -- it's about using stories as part of your pitch, whether you're selling another story, a seminar, a service -- or anything else using the written word.

People naturally resist a sales pitch, but few can resist a powerful story, well told.  If you market yourself, your products, or your services on the Web or in print, you will notice a marked increase in response when you include powerful sales stories.

While story itself is universal in scope and subject, the types of stories that work well in sales copy are, by the nature of the medium, related to what you're selling.  In this workshop, we'll walk through the three types of stories that make people want to buy, and look at the sales story themes that push the buttons of desire in your prospects.

If you sell:
* seminars
* screenplays
* information on the Web
* services
* business-to-business offers

Then you will benefit from this workshop by learning how to incorporate your love of story and your already-developed storytelling skills into your sales copy.

You'll also learn key and rarely revealed "tricks of the trade" in wording your copy to gently make people reading it more receptive to what you have to say.

Thom Hartmann: Using the Tools of NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming to construct, crisp clear, solid writing

Thom Hartmann attributes much of the success of his best-selling books to a writing style which makes real for readers otherwise didactic information, bringing to life the clear vision of his message, helping them understand its story, and giving them the sensory experience of his examples.  In this workshop, he shares with writers the tools of communication derived from NLP which are now so powerfully used by Madison Avenue…and can help transform your next novel or work of non-fiction into a best-seller by dramatically ramping up the impact, power, and clarity of your words.

Neill D. Hicks: The Essentials of Action- Adventure and Thriller Writing

The Action-Adventure and Thriller genres are often confused because they each contain many similar surface elements.  However, there are very basic underlying differences between the two forms, including the Bounded World, the Ethos of the leading characters, the Narrative Trajectory, and the Timescape that make up the Cosmos of Credibility which encompasses the audience.  The Action‑Adventure wins us over by  enabling each of us to vicariously fulfill our destinies as the moral champions we would be if only we could.  The Thriller, on the other hand,  plunges us by proxy of the main character into overwhelming panic and loss of reality until, like life itself, we grow in order to subdue some primordial fear.  Discover the essential distinctions between these two popular story forms in this lecture/discussion with the leading industry expert in defining film genres.

 

Chris Huntley Eight Essential Questions Every Author Should Know About Their Story

Begin the discovery of your story's underlying dynamics by answering eight, compelling questions about your characters and plot. What is your main character's approach and style of solving problems? How does he need to grow, and does he learn to change or to hold onto his resolve? Do actions or decisions drive the story forward and what brings it to a climax? And what is the ultimate result of the climax and how does your main character fare in all this? Story examples galore and lively Q&A encourage you to learn the answers to these questions for your own story.

Richard Krevolin  Writing Stories from the Soul

Stephen and Robin Larsen The Masks of Creative Mind
Starting from William Butler Yeats' marvelous A Vision, the Larsens explore how four principles, Will, Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate supervene in all dramas. Understanding this mythic structure, the participant is invited to develop a story using this Hermetic structure. In particular the Larsens focus on the role of Mask in Imagination, and its effect on Creative mind. Participants will be invited to speak in "The Voice of the Dreamtime,." and both analyze and create tales using this method.

Doug Lipman Pitching Through Story: Oral Communication Skills for the Very Important Presentation

sc214-B Sharon Maas Dis-covering Story: finding the source of creativity.

Where do stories originate? Why do some stories fall flat, while others draw you into them from the very first word or scene? Why do some characters feel like cardboard, while others walk right off the page or screen, and into your heart? How can you, as a storyteller, create worlds that seem so real the “real” world disappears?

 

These are the questions I will try to answer in this workshop. I believe that the very best stories are not constructed by the conscious mind, but created unconsciously in the depths of the mind. That there is an innate intelligence in us that can piece together all the elements that make a story which not only works technically, but  sparkles with that ineffable Factor X – a magic story. This is natural storytelling.

 

 Natural storytellers are people who can access that source of creativity at will.  Stories seem to flow out of their fingertips, out of their hearts, and captivate their readers or their audiences.

We say that such people have a gift for storytelling – that they are born with it. I believe that there’s more to it than that. I believe that whereas the source of creativity is latent in us all, most of us have simply not learned to access it., or have forgotten how to do so.

 

I believe it is possible to consciously understand the creative process, and consciously access the unconscious.

If you feel the urge to tell stories, if you feel that wonderful stories that are all locked up within you and that all that is missing is some kind of a magic formula, an open sesame, which will get them to start flowing out, then this workshop is for you. I can’t give you a magic formula, but I can help you break the barriers that keep you from your own magic. For I have been through it all, and have a lot to share.

 

As a child, telling stories seemed second nature to me. I was writing fiction when I was eight; there was nothing I loved better! I was one of those children who could sit looking out the window for hours, lost in exciting worlds far away from the boring  here-and-now. I was brought to my senses by my elders, and lost it – for many decades, no more stories came, for reality had taken over.  And I was desperately unhappy with that reality.

 

However, my time was not wasted, for I was learning. I travelled to India, and lived in an Ashram. I learned meditation. I learned to still the mind. I learned to plunge in beneath the surface, and find the treasures buried there. And finally, in my late forties, those stories began to emerge – fully formed in spirit, ready to be crafted - by the conscious, rational mind - into workable, well-structured, publishable novels. Novels with the potential, as it turned out, to be best-sellers.

I would like to share some of what I have learned with you. With a minimum of theory and a maximum of practical, easy, exercises, you will find out some of the secrets of tapping the unconscious mind. You will learn to link your creative mind to your writing hand. You will learn, that, as Dorothea Brande (Becoming a Writer) put it, “There is a magic to writing”… and that that magic is learnable. 

James Phelan What Is Narratology and Why are They Saying Such Good and Bad Things about It

This workshop will be an introduction to narratology, that branch of structuralism concerned with narrative as a form of human expression.  We will focus primarily on what narratology can do for both writers and readers.  We will examine the elements of narrative as identified by narratology: story and discourse; character, event, and setting; vision and voice; duration, frequency, and speed of narration.  We will also look at some phenomena that become particularly intriguing from a narratological perspective, primarily first-person narration and the concept of endings. There will also be an opportunity to tailor some of the workshop time to the particular interests of the participants.  

 

Melanie Anne Phillips The Story Mind:  Exploring the Model of Psychology Hidden in Story Structure.

Every Story has a mind of its own - its own personality; its own psychology.  A story’s personality is developed through an author’s subject matter and style, but it’s psychology is determined by its underlying dramatic structure.  Structure is the carrier wave on which the passionate program is transmitted from author to audience.  When it is done properly, it is invisible.  But when it is flawed it adds static and can even prevent transmission of the program altogether.

The Story Mind model of story structure was developed over a 15 year period.  It is unique in that it goes beyond seeing individual characters as having their own psychologies and proposes that the story has a psychology of its own, as if it were a single, thinking entity itself.

Structurally, characters are seen as facets of the Story Mind - its conflicting drives or motivations, theme is explored as the Story Mind’s troubled value standards, plot describes the problem solving methods of the mind externalized and made tangible, and Genre explore the overall outlook or perspective of each story’s particular mind.

This workshop outlines the components of the Story Mind Model of structure, how they interrelate, and the dynamic forces that wind up the dramatic tension of a story.

 

Linda Seger THEME AND IMAGES: GIVING YOUR STORY MEANING. 

Every good story is about something.  What are the ideas that storytelling can explore, and how does it explore these ideas without getting preachy, esoteric, or talky?  In this workshop we'll look at the relationship of ideas to the target audience, and then look at ways to communicate these ideas through images and image systems.  Includes lecture, film clips, and Q & A.

 

 

David Sonnenschein SOUND DESIGN IN STORY

Using examples from clips of well-known films, principles of psychoacoustics, sound-image counterpoint and audio sculpting will be reviewed. Techniques of bipolar pairs, visual-sound mapping, sound effects with emotional envelopes, and human-animal combos (introduced in the Plenary talk) will be applied with audience participation in selecting the most suggestive, intense or funny elements of sound design for a story spontaneously provided by a workshop member.

 

Richard Stone Story Jam

 In this experiential workshop, I will show participants how to tap into the depths of their imagination through the enactment of stories. You’ll discover new ideas for any endeavor—whether it’s writing a screenplay or coming up with a concept for a new product. If you’ve been stymied on a current assignment, wondering where to find a breakthrough idea for the next one, or simply want to expand the horizons of your mind, through Story Jamming you’ll discover how to unleash the power of your thinking and imagination. 

 

Robert Burdette Sweet Do you Write Primarily For Yourself or For Others: surviving as a writer in the modern world

The essential requirements for a successful story—and there are only three—simply put and in hierarchical order, are Significance (the universality of the content), Structure (the shape or form), and Style (the imprint of the writer’s personality in relation to the time frame within which the work is created).  My suggestion is that our lives, too, succeed or fail depending on the attention we pay to these three story essentials and particularly to their hierarchical order.

For instance, to what extent is our own existence dependent on a universal significance relevant to all human beings regardless of time, place or culture?  Is there a pattern to our lives which can give shape and form to whatever universals we might espouse?  And because style is our personal imprint, have we attempted to discover who we are. 

Writing a story, then—which we thought to be a meaningful hobby at the least and at the most an occupational absurdity—can actually be seen as a method for unmasking our existence and making it realizable.  Writing a story presents us with a kind of unified field theory for being, one whose guidelines, whose patterns and concerns, come from within and do not impose themselves from without.  Comprehending what comprises a story can free us from institutional forces whose existence depends on trying to alter, rather than aiding us in discovering, who we are and who we can be.  What is charisma, after all, but not being afraid to accept who we are?  And yet most of us are afraid.  To write a story is to find out who you are, possibly to become charismatic—first on the page, learning to trust story guidelines as a form of practice, then daring the stage of life.

 

Daniel Taylor Leaving a Spiritual Legacy: Telling the Master Stories of Your Life   Each of us wants it to matter that we have lived. At some point in our lives, we move from an emphasis on success to a search for significance, from the accumulation of valuables to reflection on values. Memoir writing has long been an important way to record and preserve a life, but the highest form of memoir can do more than document and entertain. Stories can become legacies if we tell the right ones in the right way to the people we love.

This workshop will focus on the concept of spiritual legacies and on story as their natural vehicle. It will discuss key terms and concepts, help you generate a list of your life-defining stories, articulate your core values and connect them to your master stories--the stories that tell you who you are, why you are here, and how you should live.

 

Rob Tobin How to Build a Relationship Between the Hero’s Flaw and the Life Changing Event which Creates a Powerful Second Act

 

 

David Vanadia Your Web Site as a Story:

The Internet is a storytelling venue. This workshop will teach different ways in which story can be and is used in websites to convey your message without distracting from it. Beyond the "post and read" methodology, we will explore how sites use story to build brands and change lives. Find out why is eBay is one of the best storytelling sites on the web! By using easy to grasp analogies and applying them to your own project you will learn how to streamline your communication in this new form of media. Participants will create "do and don't" lists that become a checklist for you to follow when creating your own Internet presentations. While we will examine and understand the importance of web site architecture, there's no need to know specific technology because we'll be discussing web site aesthetics as they are specifically related to story. By comparing the ideas

to "real life" settings, the message will be clear and you'll walk away with immediately useful solutions.