What to Post Here/Guidelines

[Jubal]

Posting Guidelines Thread

Here are some guidelines for what makes a story suitable for posting here:

• It should not be a fully traditional story in a form easily available elsewhere (your own modifications of traditional stories are fine). Whilst a huge amount of good storytelling is based on folk tales, we can't reasonably collect the myths of the whole planet here!
• An exception would be if you're posting a traditional tale but with significant annotations and ideas for how to tell it - though if you're doing a "how to tell X" thread that would be better in the main spoken storytelling section rather than this story bank.
• It should be of a form that is good for storytelling, if not explicitly designed for it. Ideally you should have told it or heard someone tell it to confirm this.
• In general, avoid personal or historical anecdotes here unless they have been specifically heavily doctored for telling. The anecdotal/personal storytelling tradition is an interesting one and totally valid for discussion here, but it's also by its nature personal: other people aren't likely to tell your personal anecdotes.
• Stories with punchlines are alright, but this isn't really a joke-sharing forum; extended punchline jokes probably aren't best placed here.

And some notes on how to post:

• Obviously, include the full story, roughly as you would say it though this doesn't have to be exact. Don't worry about neatening the prose too much - the aim is to get the story down, not the exact wording (unless the story relies on a pun or refrain).
• A bulleted summary for tellers may be useful, and would be good to include.
• Please do include some telling notes with your story - for example, whether you include any sound effects when telling it, any particular visual aids you used or found useful, any more difficult areas or bits to emphasise, etc.