Dialogue Editor Kristine Haglund and author Brent Metcalfe speak at the 2012 Mormon Stories Seattle Conference.
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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.