This document discusses narrative writing and storytelling. It provides several mini-discussions on why we tell stories and what makes a story great. It also discusses how stories are important cognitive events that encapsulate information, knowledge, context and emotion. Several techniques for strong storytelling are also presented, including using concrete language with details that appeal to the five senses, and providing reasons, examples, names, numbers and sensory details. Robert McKee's "commandments of storytelling" are also listed. The document emphasizes that stories have the power to both simulate and inspire.

1. Narrative Writing
Daniel Flower

2. Mini-discussion
Why do we tell stories?
What makes a story great?
http://3oneseven.com/29/singin-in-the-rain/

3. Stories are important
cognitive events, for they
encapsulate
information, knowledge,
context, and emotion.
--Don Norman, Things That Make Us Smart
danorbit.

4. Stories Use Concrete
Language
JD Hancock

5. Concrete language grabs
attention by appealing to the
five senses.

6. Stronger imagery creates
deeper impressions on a
reader.

7. Need Details? Use the RENNS Model
Yau Hoong Tang

8. TheRENNS Model
Reasons
Examples
Names
Numbers
Senses
Why did something happen? Why did someone do
something?
How did it happen? How did someone do something?
Who was involved? Where did it happen?
When did it happen? How many were involved?
hearing
(auditory)
sight
(visual)
smell
(olfactory)
touch
(tactile)
taste
(gustatory)

9. 1_milano
Random Characters

10. Sight
light and dark, shades and hues,
visible shape and appearance
timitalia

11. Thomas Hawk
The restaurant was shaped like a big bottle, though squatter than a
real bottle, and on its cap was a revolving figure of a grinning
boy holding a hamburger aloft.
--Joyce Carol Oates, “Where are you Going, Where have you Been?”

12. Smell
Often used metaphorically
Andrew Morrell Photography

13. ...I remembered clearest of all...how the bedroom smelled of
the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent
entered through the screen. --E.B. White, “Once More to the Lake”
James Jordan

14. Taste
Gustatory, detecting flavor--related to smell
ani-bee

15. ...the walking boots that taste
of Atlantic and Pacific salt...
--Robert Frost, “A Record Stride”
striatic

16. Sound
volume
word choice
tone
Vox Efx

17. ...there came to my ears a low,
dull, quick sound, such as a
watch makes when enveloped
in cotton.... It was the beating
of the old man's heart.
--Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell Tale Heart”
alvaro tapia hidalgo

18. Touch
Tactile experience and
emotion (tension, reactions)
Shemer

19. You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,
And look up small from the forest's feet.
--Robert Frost, “On Going Unnoticed”
ben matthews

20. Ira Glass: A Story’s Building Blocks
713 Avenue

21. The A
n
ecdo
t
e
like
ntly
here that
s] in .and
t it' n..
[tha atio
form estin
lass
h its s a d " --Ira G
roug t ha
g...
l th tha
n
fee in
ethi
can tra
som
.you on a to find
..
ing going
be re
ou'
y
96dpi

22. The Moment of Reflection
cambiodefractal

23. Robert McKee’s
Commandments
of storytelling
yoppy

24. Thou shalt not take the climax
out of the protagonist’s hands
Βethan

25. Thou Shalt Not Make Life Easy For The Protagonist

26. Thou sh
practicalowl
alt not
u
se false
mystery
or surp
r
ise

27. Respect Thine
Audience
yozz!

28. Have a god like knowledge of your universe

29. Use Complexity Rather
Than Complication
Thuany Gabriela

30. Thou Shalt Take Your Characters To The End Of The Line
emma.c

31. Thou Shalt Not Write On The Nose Dialogue
B Rosen

32. Thou Shalt Dramatize Thine Exposition
My Melting Brain

33. Thou shalt
rewrite
pj_vanf

34. becca.peterson26

35. Stories have the amazing dual power to
simulate and to inspire.
--Chip & Dan Heath, Made to Stick