Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Exercise: Story Time, And Top Ten Tests For A Story

Find someone you're comfortable with - your spouse or friend or family member - and tell him or her stories about the following topics:

1. A challenge you overcame at work.
2. A success you had at home.

Be sure to include:

1. The point.
2. The who, where, when and the problem.
3. The attempts to solve it in the middle.
4. The solution in the end.
5. The moral of the story.

And remember the Top Ten Tests for a story:

1. Does it address "So what?" "Who cares?" and "What's in it for me?"
2. Does it have a point?
3. Is it different... interesting, unusual, even triumphant?
4. Does it connect with emotions of the audience?
5. Does it both show and tell? Besides conveying a timeline of events, does your story describe how things look, sound, feel, smell, and taste?
6. Is it short and simple?
7. Could a ten-year-old understand it?
8. Is it entertaining?
9. Does it ring true?
10. Have you avoided overly detailed descriptions of people, places, and things?

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