Dialogue Editor Kristine Haglund and author Brent Metcalfe speak at the 2012 Mormon Stories Seattle Conference.
Dialogue Editor Kristine Haglund and author Brent Metcalfe speak at the 2012 Mormon Stories Seattle Conference.
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4 Responses
Kristine,
I loved your remarks about the stories we tell and the setting, format/formula and ideas about “truth”. I am giving a talk in church soon and was going to tell a story from my own life (nothing overly personal or sensitive, just something to illustrate a point) and your remarks made me resolve to do 2 things:
1) Not shy away from the story, go ahead and focus on it and make it good in order to illustrate the principle I want to highlight
2) Be extra aware of the format/formula and the words I use so that I don’t cause anyone to tune out due to it sounding like a familiar trope.
Brent,
I appreciated your comments as well. What a story you have to have met Mark Hoffman somewhat by chance and be presented with the infamous letter. There is so much of your story I would love to hear, have you done an interview with John Dehlin or if not would you be willing to do one? I would love to listen to that interview.
Kristine,
I just wanted to follow-up on my earlier comment about telling stories. I did as I said I would and really made sure to tell a good story in my talk that was personal but had a purpose and I tried to make sure not to fall into phrases or patterns that might cause others to tune out and assume they know where I was headed before I took them there. I received quite a bit of very positive feedback about this talk, and it didn’t seem as trite as it has in the past. I felt like people wanted to make it clear that they were offering more than a typical “‘atta boy” or “you weren’t totally boring” type of comment that one often offers out of politeness. I believe that the quality of the talk and the reactions were due in no small part to what I took from your message about the importance of telling our stories.
Thank you.
This week, we’ve been trying to figure out how to build a better Mormon subreddit where we don’t lose our audience just b/c we encourage mos and exmos to hang out in the same space rather than self-sort into warring camps. It hasn’t gone well. Not enough Kristines or Brents in this world, apparently.
Great stories! Thanks to both Kristine and Brent.