Week 12 Lab: Telling a Story

For this week's story lab, I opted to read the second chapter in EmpoWord about telling a story. The chapter began with a nice quote from Doctor Who that got me engaged in the reading. I am a fan of Doctor Who, but unfortunately, I am not up to date with the latest doctor. Either way, this began the chapter off on a good note. The writer really wanted the reader to consider how one quote can mean several things depending on the mindset of the reader. This is reflective for all reading in life. Each person that consumes ideas will put together their own thoughts about the matter.

Next, the chapter went into more specifics about storytelling that I had already learned in previous classes in high school. These basic concepts covered items like narration, point of view, and mood. The explanation brought together that depending on how you approach each item, the writer can greatly alter how the reader engages with the material. Scope of a story was also brought up. The writer mentioned that some writers try to put too many events or details into a story when really they should be focusing on what is the most important. I find that I struggle with this a lot myself. I like to include a lot of details and make sure the reader understands what I am trying to convey, but I think that sometimes I just cloud up everything even more than I should have. This past week, I have tried to focus on doing short and straight to the point writing.

The technique spoke about next in the textbook was pacing. In result of including too much detail, I think I slow down the pace of my stories a lot. I like to elaborate on creating the setting when, really, the setting is usually not the most important part. If I could get down a basic description that can set the scene, then I need to work on just getting to the events of the story that I am writing.

From this chapter, I think that I have learned that I need to work on scope and pacing the most in my writing. I understand the basic fundamentals of creating a story, but working on these points of writing could easily help me become better.

Bibliography

Telling a Story, EmpoWord

Image Information: Writing, PxHere