Story Telling
characteristics, devices and tips
THE IMPORTANCE OF STORYTELLING
You want to write a really good story?
Then, you need to know……
What makes a good story?
What are the most important elements?
How can you write it?
Then start to write...but first consider that...….
A story is memorable when…….
It should contain the following parts
Introduction: Characters and setting (place and time) are introduced.
Initiating action: the point of a story that starts the rising action.
Rising action: events leading up to the climax
Climax: turning point of the story.
Falling action: the story begins to conclude.
Resolution: the main conflict is resolved (or not).
Do not forget the main elements of a short story
Character: A character is a person or sometimes an animal, who takes part in the action of a short story.
Setting: the setting is the time and place in which the story develops.
Plot: Plot is a series of events and characters that relate to the central conflict.
Conflict: The conflict is the struggle between two people or things in a short story.
10 STORY ELEMENTS
Improve your writing using literary devices
Simile: a comparison between two unlike things
‘She wanted terribly to put her hands, her mouth on the body beside her, no matter the humiliation of the act, which he fulfilled like a medical procedure, prescribed to satisfy her.’
Personification: a figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.
‘The voice of the cello doesn’t lie.’
Literary devices
Metaphor: a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects that are poles apart from each other but have some characteristics common between them.¨
‘The sounds he drew from the overgrown violin between his knees: the
complaining moo of a sick cow;the rasp of a blunt saw; a long fart.´
More literary devices...
Stream of consciousness: it is a method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters.
‘It is his voice, that glorious voice of his cello, saying something different, speaking not to her but to some other. He makes love to her. Isn’t that always the signal of return after he has been away?’
Allusion: it is a figure of speech that refers to a place, event, or literary work in order to make a comparison in the readers´ minds.
`He was a a real Romeo with the ladies´
A few more literary devices...
Colloquialism: the use of informal words, phrases or even slang:
“Don´t laugh, asshole. It is true!’
Jargon: It seems unintelligible to the people who do not know the meanings. Examples of jargon used in literature are used to emphasize a situation or to refer to something exotic to the readers or audience.
‘Just in case you find some chicken weed, pick some leaves and bring them.’
Literary devices are like food with spices!
Devices to provide information about cultural background
Slang: Words that are not a part of standard vocabulary or language:
‘Mrs Leiva told me her son is empachado.’
Dialect: The language used by the people of a specific area, and by a particular group of people and it distinguishes them from other people around them. Dialect is a way of characterization, which elaborates the geographic and social background of any character.
“ He had no fear of a gaucho’s facón, but disease, insidious decay and death, against which he had no weapon, terrified him.”
Code-meshing
It is the act of combining colloquial and local words with Standard written English in order to embrace pluralism and diversity.
It refers to the concurrent use of different languages, dialects, and genres, sounds, and even more distinct linguistic features and conventions in a single rhetorical performance.
code - switching versus code - meshing
My advice to write effectively
And do not forget……….
And here some authors’ advices
Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. (Henry Miller)
Never use a long word where a short one will do. (George Orwell)
Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do. (Margaret Atwood)
Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. (Henry Miller)
Before you start writing let´s analyse its benefits
Writing is not just typing ideas into a computer, writing is a reaction to something or somebody, is a response to the people and the world around us, we always write to transmit an idea to a certain audience and with a certain purpose.
How storytelling can be a powerful tool to teach children and expand vocabulary by child development expert Stephanie Anderson
Why should we use stories in class?
By http://www.i-scoop.eu/art-storytelling-6-content-marketing-context-questions/
Improve your reading noticing the difference
between efficient and inefficient reading.
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Efficient Inefficient
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But… we do not interpret what we read in the same ways. Not all the words that we read have the same impact on the person and this is due to two important concepts...
The schema is all the The script is the pre-determined,
background information stereotyped sequence of actions
that the reader has. that define a certain situation.
This is the reason why we may have different opinions about the same piece of writing.
SCHEMA
SCRIPT
Let´s use technology in our storytelling!
By Joe Sabia in TED
Finally….
A great example to use in our classrooms… A nice, popular story for kids, full of adjectives to work with...