5 Tips for Storytelling
Bailee Blevins and Santana Simmons
Here are some tips from people who know a thing or two about writing narrative essays.
What do students struggle the most with when writing:
Where do you get stuck when writing the paper/ what do you dislike the most when writing?
- Proper vocab/spelling
- Organizing the paper
- Putting your thought on the paper
Tips from Professional Writers:
1) If you’re struggling to figure out how to begin a story about you or somebody else, what are some tips for starting the brainstorming process?
- If an interview leaves me with an obvious way to start — something attention-grabbing that serves as a good introduction — then I’ll go with that, but I don’t always start with the lede when writing a news or feature story. A good intro usually emerges while I’m writing, and sometimes I’ll change my lede after I get going because something from my notes catches my eye.
2) As you’re drafting a story, how do you make a story come alive?
- Using specific examples and anecdotes, scene setting, including succinct quotes that make a point in the subject’s own words, watching out for repetitiveness in the language you use — all of these are ways to keep your writing lively.
3) Lastly what do you do to help with writer’s block when you get stuck?
- I go to my notes and look for good quotes, then ask what additional information is needed to tell the story. Newspaper writing usually calls for sharing information in as concise and clear a way as possible, so if I know what I’m trying to communicate and have the information (interviews, research) in front of me, the rest usually just sort of follows. If I get stuck, I might try skipping the lede (see above) and writing what I know I need to share, then adding the lede and transitions after I get the bulk of the information written.
1) If you’re struggling to figure out how to begin a story about you or somebody else, what are some tips for starting the brainstorming process?
- When I’m writing a feature about a person, I think the start of the story should be about a defining aspect of that person. For example, I wrote a story about a high school basketball coach who died about 10 years ago. He won state championships in three decades, was known by his peers as an innovator and always wore colorful socks. All three of those details were mentioned in the first five paragraphs of my story. For the purposes of THAT story, those were his defining characteristics.
And if I’m really struggling, I just think “What’s the first thing I would tell someone about this person if they didn’t know him at all?” Whatever the answers is, THAT is how I start the story.
2) As you’re drafting a story, how do you make a story come alive?
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Stories, stories, stories. Specific stories! That’s how a story comes alive. You will write in general about your subject, but it’s the specific little anecdotes that people remember. That story about the basketball coach, I had a part where one of his former players remembers him, at 70 years old, arguing with a referee, and then hiking up his pants and jumping to prove a point. That vivid picture sticks in my mind.
3) Lastly what do you do to help with writer’s block when you get stuck?
- I don’t have very good advice for you here, because my method for dealing with writer’s block is … deadline pressure. I really can’t get motivated to write something unless I feel a bit of a time crunch. I really don’t know how a writer writes without deadline pressure.
From Lewiston Tribune editors and journalists Matt Baney and Mary Stone
Tips from Teachers:
- Find where you can use sensory language. Taste, touch, hear, smell etc.
- Help your reader connect with the story/understand more.
Writing Tutors:
- Get all your ideas out on paper first.
- Revise multiple times.
- Read your essay out loud.
- Get someone else to read it out loud.
- Don’t procrastinate!
