I am writing a personal narrative final draft paper: From my rough draft (Attached below), Instructions is 3-4 pages and double spacedincludes a heading and page numbersincludes a thoughtful and i

A stor y is not a stor y if it is simply a discussion of one’s ideas and emotions. In order to be a stor y, things need to happen. 2. Char acters:

This re fer s to the people, other than your self, who are involv ed in the stor y.

3. Setting:

This re fer s to where and when your stor y tak es place. Setting involv es both time (time of year , time of day, and time in your life) and location.

In terms of time, establishing the year is not always important, although knowing when in your life the stor y took place (the summer aft er eighth grade, for example) gener ally is. 4. Narr ator:

This is the voice who is telling us the stor y.

The important thing to remember here is that the narrator (you, now) is differ en t from the “you” who is a character within the stor y.

You are older now, at least somewhat, and you have distance from the even ts you are describing, so you can re flect on their meaning and put them into con te xt.

This sort of re flection is what will make you stor y a narrativ e.

St ories are comprised of specific moments and interactions.

Your first day on the job; your last day at that school; the time you and your grandmother sang the national anthem before a Mariners game. Build your narrative with specific con versations and memories. You will use these things to provide examples for your reader of the feelings, emotions, and ideas you want t o get across. Here are some other stor ytelling tools we use to make stories vivid: Imag ery:

Generally, this is the bigges t part of what makes writing vivid. Something is an image if it evok es one or more of the five senses: sights, smells, sounds, tas tes, and physic al feelings.

This is opposed to abstr act language, which pertains to thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Gener ally, this sort of writing is weak er than imagery, and so should be used sparingly.

Whene ver you find your self writing a sentence that starts "I thought..." or "I felt" or when you find your self using wor ds that are purely abstr act (love, fear , embarrassmen t, etc.) you are pr obably writing about abstr actions.

Each and ever y abstr act assertion that you make in writing needs to be supported with (or replaced by!) imagery.

F or example, the sentence "My dad is kind" is an abstr act assertion. Kindness is not a quality y ou can see or hear or smell. And so one option would be to follo w this abstr action with some e xamples of kind things he does. Or, bett er ye t, replace the assertion with imagery:

When I was six I bashed my dad's foot with a hammer by mistak e and instead of yelling a t me he gen tly picked me up and explained how to properly use the tool.

Then he ga ve me a bo x of nails that ra ttled as I slid it across the table.

Do you see how, from this concr ete description, we understand that the dad is kind, without the writing having to say it? The goal is to con ve y abstr act ideas (love, kindness, fear , etc.) through imag ery.

Dialogue: This is when you have people actually speak in your narrativ e.

It looks like this: The young bank teller looked at me and said, “Sir, your accoun t is all screw ed up.” “It is?” I said, pretending to be surprised. “Wha t’s the problem?

“W ell, it’s just, there’s no money in it.” Dialogue like this does a fe w things: it communic ates informa tion, paints an active picture, and de velop s personality .

It’s much more inter es ting to show a con ver sa tion like this than it is to tell the same con ver sa tion in summary:

The young bank teller was abrupt and rude and so I acted surprised when in reality I wasn’t. Dialogue is a way to keep your writing concr ete.

Surprising Details:

Ever y now and then you’ll wan t to drop in a detail that your reader doesn’t necessarily see coming.

This doesn’t mean you should make up something absur d.

Instead, try t o add color to your narrativ e by presen ting a less than obvious way of describing something.

5. The Tiny Elephant Principle: This is a safeguar d agains t language redundancy .

Imagine you sa w an elephan t walk by.

What might you say to your friend standing there?

Maybe, “Whoa!

Look at that elephant!” And your friend would look, expecting to see a ra ther large animal. The poin t is that the adjective large is already included in the noun elephant.

You wouldn’t have to t ell your friend that a large elephant walk ed by because, well, all elephants are large.

If , on the other hand, you saw a tiny elephant walk by, you would need to specifically mention tha t to your friend. “Whoa, ” you might say.

“Look at that tiny elephant!” Wha t does this have to do with writing? Start to be aw ar e of what nouns (and verb s) already imply an adjective or adverb that you might be temp ted to use. That way you won’t have to use the modif ying wor d.

Don’t write about large elephants.

If it’s an elephant, just say it’s an elephan t.

Never use two wor ds (or three) to describe what you can with one. Only use adjectiv es and adverbs (like tiny ) if they are absolut ely necessary.

A lis t:

We all know what a list is, but it can be a ver y effectiv e and concise descriptive tool.

A list is a way to quickly characteriz e a person, place, time, even t, etc.

with a range of characteris tics.

This helps make your narrativ e vivid by implying a varie ty of details all at once. An example of a lis t:

His freshman year of colleg e passed in a blur of late nights, early mornings, and week end trip s to the disco-themed bowling alley.