Story Lab Week 10

Notes over Chapter 2: Telling a Story in Empoword.

This chapter focuses of techniques in writing.

 The first technique it mentions is the plot, it is important to have a plot because it is the basis of your story. The plot encompasses many other techniques because it is so broad.

The second technique is scope. The scope is the boundaries of the plot. The scope defines the outline of the story. The scope answers the questions When, Where, Who, and What but not Why. It is important for the story that the scope be defined and not too long. If you don’t focus in and cut things from your story the readers will get lost. It is hard to find a balance between enough detail but not to lengthy.

The third technique is sequence and pacing. In this chapter they describe this with Freytag’s pyramid. This is a pyramid that consists of most of the story building up to the climax and ending quickly after the climax. This occurs in 5 steps: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

The fourth technique is point of view. This is the way in which you tell and write your story. The way in which you tell your story and which point of view you use shapes the readers perspective on the plot.

Lastly, they mention finding a medium. Stories can be told though all sorts of medium, it doesn’t have to be a written story on a piece of paper in a book. Stories are told everyday through books, movies, TV, social media, in the newspaper/journal, having a conversation, plays, blogs, etc. Anything can become a story, your life is a story and it is your job to tell the readers what you want them to know about you and your journey.           

                                            (Book: Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Extra Credit Reading The Monkey Bridge

The Monkey Bridge by Noor Inayat
I really enjoyed reading this story. The writing of it was beautiful and very easy to read, it flowed like a story should. I like the idea of this story better then the last two, especially if it is being targeted for children. In this story a worried king tells his followers to not let the beautiful fruit from their tree fall into the water of the river. If a piece falls it will travel down the mountain and into the village with the humans. The humans will then want to find the tree and steal all of the fruit. Not only did this exact thing happen but when the humans found the tree and saw the monkeys living in it, they waited around until daylight to kill all of them. They wanted to kill the monkeys for meat and then take the beautiful ripe fruit with them. The king of the monkeys saw the fear of his followers and new action had to be taken. All the other trees were to far to get to so all of the monkeys were stuck. The king leaped as far as he could and made it to another tree where he tied a rope to his foot. He then jumped back across to the tree with his followers but the rope was a little short. The king had to stretch his body to make the rope long enough and his followers ran across his back, onto the rope, and into the forest. The strength of his back gave out and eventually broke after the last monkey crossed safely. The human king at the bottom of the tree saw the generosity of the monkey king and treated him as kindly before he died. The monkey king with his last couple breaths explained to the human king that he was willing to die for his followers and that he should learn from him. He also explained he should lead by love, as if all of the followers were his children. I think this story teaches a lot about what being a leader is about, some notes others can take from this story. 

                                 (Golden Gate Bridge: Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Reading Notes Crab and Crane

The Crab and the Crane by Ellen C. Babbit

               This story, I also think, is meant to be a children’s book. Although, I don’t think it is a very nice read for children and I do not agree with its message. In the story there is a pond with very little water because of lack of rain and over consumption from other animals. In that pond lived many fish that were beginning to struggle because there was no water in their pond. The crane showed compassion to the fish, or at least that’s what they thought, and offered to take the fish to a new pond that had lots of water. At first the fish were hesitant because they thought the fish would just eat them all but the crane took one of the fishes to check out the new pond and when they came back the fish told the others that the pond was great and full of water. So, all the fish trusted the crane to take them to the pond one by one but instead he took them to a different place and ate them one by one. Eventually all the fish were gone and the crane became hungry again. He saw a crab by the pond where the fish once lived and he decided to play his game again. He told the crab there was a pond in a different place he could take him to with more water and food. The crab agreed to go and check it out, but the only way the crab could travel was to hold onto the cranes neck very tightly with is sharp claw. The crane took the crab to the place where he ate the fish instead of the pond where he promised. The crane said he was going to eat the crab and leave his shell with the fish bones but the crab still had a hold of his neck. The crab then killed the crane to avoid being eaten. I think this lesson teaches kids that even though you are smart and ask the right questions you still can trust people which I don’t think this should be taught to the young, no matter how true it is. I also don’t think that teaching the lesson that you should kill the problem instead of fixing it should be taught to the young.       

                                              (Crab: Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Reading Notes The Ox

                                                             (Ox:Wikimedia Commons)

THE OX WHO WON THE FORFEIT by Ellen C. Babbit

The story of the ox that pulled the 100 carts was interesting. It seems that it was written as a children’s story because it teaches the fundamental act of treating someone nicely.  It was very easy to read with not very difficult wording or sentence structure. In the story an owner owns an ox that he enjoys telling all of the other people in town about. The owner loves his ox but mostly for his strength and never seems stop talking about it. He is always very kind to his ox and feeds him well so he can remain strong. One day while in town he began to gloat about the strength of his ox and bet that his ox could pull 100 carts. The gentlemen accepted the bet because they thought the ox could never pull 100 carts. The owner brought his ox out the next day to prove to the others how truly strong his ox was, and to collect his money. They tied the ox to the first cart with 99 following and the owner began to whip and yell at the ox. To the owners surprise the ox did not move even though he knew the ox could and the owner lost the bet. Once they were home the owner was very upset and asked the ox why he did not pull the carts. The ox responded by saying he did not like the way his owner was speaking to him and that he did not like being whipped. The owner apologized and said it would never happen again and the ox trusted him and forgave him. The next day the ox went to town and pulled the 100 carts to win the bet for his owner. I think this story is told in this way to teach kids its not okay to bully someone to get what you want. And if you need something to ask for it and not force it.