Breaking Down Your Story

              Picking up after you’ve decided to “try out” your story (the last blog entry), this might be a time when you want to start putting the larger piece together.  Please note, I say “might” because you need to have ultimate freedom in your process – creating this storytelling is your personal journey, and you can work any way you please!  I write these “How To” entries as suggestions.  If you have a plan that works better for you, please use that.

              That said, this entry is going to look at some ways you can start putting your larger story together.

              I call it a larger story because I tend to think about each individual short “scene” as a smaller story or anecdote that, while part of a completed piece, can also stand on its own.  To be sure, some individual scenes may feel unfinished or awkward when shared out of context or without the binding of the complete piece, but, at least for me, the tendency is for each moment to still have a beginning, middle, and end. I think this is easier for an audience to follow what is happening, and therefore I tend to think of an extended story as a series of interconnected vignettes.  To be sure, this could be a self-imposed limitation but I believe composing in this manner helps a non-professionally trained writer/storyteller think about a larger work because the story is broken down into a series of manageable parts.  This also goes hand in hand with “trying out” short stories or scenes with an audience, as when you share you want moments that can exist independently from the full piece.

              This is also a way to begin outlining what will become the storyline of your piece.  As you compose these short events for your piece, title each moment with words that help you to acknowledge what happens.  You can then begin an outline by arranging the stories and quickly edit your storyline by simply moving the titles of each scene.  With this technique, you’re creating the parts of your story as opposed to the full piece, and it is easier to see how you can arrange or edit moments.  It also allows for a consistent sense of completion, as every time you finish one short story/scene, you can view it as something you have successfully done. That (short) story is finished! Now moving on to the next.