A Behind the Scenes Tour

Originally posted in August of 2008:

After some thought, I decided that if The Anecdote is truly going to live up to it's mission statement, I should probably check in every once in a while with some general observations and whatnot. To start, I thought that it make sense to explain the process with which I've been collecting stories.

The idea for this project initially popped into my head several years ago. I had decided to collect stories from my grandparents that they were locally famous for telling... over and over again. Soon I became interested in collecting stories from other people, thanks to the father a friend who told stories about his experiences during the Vietnam War. Though the idea was there, the project never really took off. This was due, primarily, to laziness.

After creating this blog, I had to come up with a system for handling stories. My first decision was that all stories would be told verbally and transcribed verbatim. When people write down their stories, the edit the content, use words that they normally wouldn't, and take more time to think about how they want to describe things. Verbal stories are raw and fresh. They are a better representation of where and who we are as a culture. Of course, no matter how many times I explain this, I get an email from a friend saying, "Hey, copy and paste this great story from my Facebook page onto your blog."

"No," say I.

Each story is recorded onto a cassette tape. Hopefully, one day I will be recording digitally, but for the time being, an old handheld recorder is my tool of choice. Some of the stories are recorded face to face (over lunch, on road trips, on the L, etc.) while others are recorded over the phone.

The story teller can honestly go anywhere they want with the story, and I’ve been surprised a few times. In the story “Gun Shots,” we were sitting down to lunch, and I pressed the record button with no prior knowledge of the subject matter in which we were about to dive. My mouth was hanging open through a majority of the recording. Most of the stories, however, are ones that I’ve heard before. Since the project is in it’s early stages, I’ve been calling a lot of family and friends and saying, “Hey, you know that story about that time you fell off of a waterfall? Can I record you telling that?” Hopefully, as the project develops, I’ll be talking to a wider variety of people.

In an attempt to move this plan along a little faster, I put up a few ads on Craigslist.com, Riverbender.com (a site that focuses on the area where my home town is located, Alton, IL,) Facebook, and Myspace. Not a lot of luck so far. I’ve heard from a few people, but they generally ask a few questions and then disappear. Having said that, if anyone has family members or friends that they think might enjoy telling a story, please, give them my email address.

Another initial setback has been finding a good way to interview strangers without giving out too much personal information. I have no reserves about having my name attached to my work, but allowing strangers access to my personal phone number is a completely different story. In a world where everyone has Caller I.D. it’s hard to remain anonymous. Two years ago, I could call someone with a calling card, and the number would show up as a business line in Georgia, but technology has caught up with that little loophole. Hopefully, some great solution will present itself, and the spectrum of potential story tellers will grow in leaps and bounds.

I try to stay fairly quiet as people tell their stories, which isn’t always easy. Each recording is speckled with the sound of me gasping, laughing, or letting loose the occasional, “Wow!”

It’s a completely different situation when there are other listeners present. People love to ask questions, and honestly, that’s part of what makes verbal story telling so honest. People do tell stories to groups, probably more often than they do to individuals. Questions, comments, and the story teller’s response are part of the raw nature of the verbal told story. The question is where to draw the line: at what point does questioning turn a story into an interview?

As far as my own questions, I try to save them until the end. Sometimes I keep a notebook out or a word document open and jot down things that I want to ask when the teller comes to the end. Sometimes a question will jog the story teller’s memory, and a whole new section of the story will come into the light. In those cases, I try to edit that section back into the original story. This is the only editing I do to each story; the content is never altered.

Transcribing the stories is the most tedious and dreaded part of the process. It usually takes me about three to five times the length of the original story to get it typed. It is extremely important to not get impatient and rush. Accuracy is the entire point. I transcribe the story into a word document exactly as it was recorded including all of the little interruptions made by myself and other people. Then, I make a second copy of the document in which I put any answers that the story teller gave (at the end of the recording) back into the story at the point which seems most appropriate. This was often done by scribes who recorded the accounts of captives in the past. I maintain both copies of the story, and post the second copy to the blog, which is where you, the reader, come in to the picture.

Feeling more clued in? As usual, I would love to hear from anyone, whether it’s about a potential story or just to chat. Your questions are always welcome.