Choosing Important details …and creating a narrative

Image Game I’m going to show you an image. You tell me what this person is feeling.

Turn to the person next to you How do you know how she feels without talking to her? When you look this time, pick out the details of her face that helped you decide how she felt. Jot specific details on your Word document.

Describe her emotion by describing her face. Write for me Now, using ONLY the details, describe her emotion using only the details. Describe her emotion by describing her face. DON’T USE THE WORD “NERVOUS” OR “ANXIOUS,” ETC.

What is Narrative? Narrative’s goal is to tell a story. The story should make a point. The point can be personal, political, social, etc. The entire story should be build towards making that point. The point should never be stated directly. Instead, the details make the point.

When we write narrative, we have to make choices. Because we can’t describe EVERYTHING, we have to choose details well. Which details are important to the story? Only details that help us prove a point or display the image. Why are they important? How are they helping us tell the story? How do they contribute? How will we describe them? Which words will we choose? This is where tone becomes important. “Cold” vs “Fridgid” | “He was sweating” vs “Drops of saline dripped down his wrinkled forehead” How long will we take to describe them? The more time we take to describe something, the more important it is.

Practice with an IMage On the next slide, I’m going to show you an image. Your job is to… Choose important details that you see. Get a feeling for the image. What going on? What is the person thinking? Where has he just come from? Why might this moment be important? From there… We’re going to make a short, paragraph-long story out of this image Just focus on collecting details first.

What I’d like you to do… We’re going to start with the mindset that this is a really important moment for this surfer. Decide whether you’re “him” (1st person) or “watching him” (3rd person). Decide why he has come here and what you want the “point” of this scene to be. Why is this moment important? Choose details that will help you create that point. How is he feeling? What is he thinking? Physical feeling of the suit / air / water / sand / surf board? Write me a paragraph-long story telling me why this moment is so important for him. ***Remember. This is all about details. Use the details to tell the story. If he’s nervous, don’t tell me he’s nervous. Show me. Have him shaking, sweating, scrunching up his forehead, etc.