Review

Review

  1. Write a paragraph or two to describe a central idea you have had. In your writing, explain how the story you are reporting and writing is connected to the idea. If you don’t see the connection, what steps do you need to take ( more reporting of relevant event, action or the character, more interviews, more research ) so you can turn the idea into a story that represents the way we live or human conditions.
  2. Writing Prompt:In LeBranc’s essay, she provides advice for writers who have never attended journalism school and yet need to report their subjects journalistically? She streamlines ideas from picking a topic to determining the topic to when to start drafting scenes to how she should conduct interviews. Write a paragraph or two to explain what your own responses are to the events or situations described in your narrative as well as what you want to believe on the issue involved. Are there any “blind spot” or “dead end”? What are they? How can you unravel them? If you still feel on the outside, how can you move closer to the inside? Read the parts you have written, is there a particular person or subject you keep coming back to? Are there any dialogues between you and the subject? If not, how can you move forward to secure one? If yes, is the dialogue revealing about your subject? Do you need to go deeper through more interviews? What has your experience been like since the day you started the project? Have you been taking notes or writing journals to keep records of the development of the project?

Continue probing into your narrative and use yourself as the “thermometer”. How far have you gone into the reporting and researching? What else needs to be done? Have you been writing scenes as you gather information about events and actions?

Writing Prompt: Lowery advises, You go with what instinct tells you”. Set up an interview with someone you don’t know but may be able to provide information about the person or event you are writing about. Explain why you want to talk to the person. The story you are after may be an event of some consequence or of little significance at all. Prepare questions. Do your homework. Be ready to explore new territory when unexpected news comes your way. Write a scene. Fit the interview into the story, using direct quotes only when they contribute to the story you are telling and move the story alone.

How does the structure reveal meanings that are beyond the story itself?

Key ideas from “ A Story Structure”-

  • All our lives are lives are narrative…story is something else: take select pats of a narrative, separately, then from everything else, and arranging them so that they have meaning. Meaning is intrinsic to storytelling.
  • We mistake meaning for opinion. Journalism has very little to do with meaning. …what made stories powerful…character and plot.
  • Anton Chekov defines a story by its points of change, or plot points. The first point of change, at the end of the beginning, is the character complication. It is the point when main characters runs into something that complicates his or her life ( not necessarily a conflict but something that forces the character to exert effort.
  • The key is to find the significant point of change.
  • “Points of Insight”, the moment when the story turns toward the resolution, when the main character ( and/or the reader) finally grasp the true nature of the problem and knows what must be done about it.
  • Good stories show how people survive.
  • All stories have three layers-
  1. The top layer is what actually happens- the narrative
  2. The next layer is how those events make the main character feel. If the writer succeeds in getting the reader to suspend disbelief and see through the character’s eyes, then the character’s and the reader’s feelings will be joined.
  3. There is another layer below the factual and the emotional. It’s the rhythm of the piece and evokes the universal theme: love endures, wisdom prevails, children mature, war destroys, prejudice perverts.
  • The rhythms are the most important to storytelling. Storytelling can be symphonic.
  • The narrative writers may choose to speak at three levels very consciously, but the effect on the reader is usually unconscious.
  • Rhythm exists in story from the sentence level right up to the sectional level.
  • We like stories because we think in stores; it is how we derive meaning from the world.
  • You know the narrative behind the piece of news. The human mind looks at the evidence- new information and past experience- and figures out scenario, forms the narrative. This is why structure reveals meaning and why we like stories that have structure.

Homework:

Writing Prompt: Review the story you have written so far. If you have had a strong beginning that immediately and clearly drives the reader to read on, then how is the body of your story? Are all scenes or events written in a chronological order? Try to switch scenes around and see the effect the change may bring. Are all scenes about the protagonist? Can you add some paragraph profiles about other people in the subject’s life? Did the events reveal how the character feels instead of your own feelings? Is there a clear trajectory where your story is going? What is it like? How can you connect the structure of the story with the universal theme of the story? 

Discuss “The Naked Citadel” by Susan Faludi-

  • How does Faludi use summary narrative passages to link dramatic scenes? What effect does the shift have on the reader?
  • Select an example of summary narrative in the essay and identify the traits of the passage (emphasis on the abstract, collapsed time, employment of direct quotes, topical organization, omniscient point of view, writer’s hovering over the scene, statement of outcome instead of process, high end on the ladder of abstraction, consisting of digression, backstory, and explication)
  • Select an example of dramatic narrative and identify the traits within (emphasis on concrete details, reader’s direct experiences of the event( actions are described as if they were happening at the moment), employment of dialogue, characters talking to one another, organization by scenes, specific point of view, clear narrative stance( writer is inside the scene), dealing with process and giving specific description, consisting of story’s main line of action)