This document discusses elements of narrative writing and storytelling. It provides tips for using concrete language that appeals to the five senses to grab readers' attention. The RENNS model is presented as a way to add details to a story using reasons, examples, names, numbers, and senses. Various examples from literature are given to illustrate the use of different senses. The document also discusses Ira Glass's view of stories being built from anecdotes and moments of reflection. Robert McKee's "commandments of storytelling" are listed, advising writers on techniques like not taking the climax out of the protagonist's hands or using false mystery. In conclusion, stories are said to have the power to both simulate and inspire
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.
8. TheRENNS Model
Why did something happen? Why did someone do
Reasons something?
Examples How did it happen? How did someone do something?
Names Who was involved? Where did it happen?
Numbers When did it happen? How many were involved?
hearing sight smell touch taste
Senses (auditory) (visual) (olfactory) (tactile) (gustatory)
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
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
21. The A
n ecdo
te
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
l th tha n g...
fee in
can tra ethi
som
.. .you on a to find
be re ing going
y ou'
96dpi