Brian_8_I
I know I am taking this slightly out of context, but on page 197 Simmons says:
"Asking someone who is trying to tell you the whole story to 'cut to the bottom line' often dumbs the story down to a meaningless bullet point"
That is a great point, and it fits in with my feelings when telling stories in class. When I tell stories to my friends, I don't have time limits, and I have a base on which to build the story. (I know the extent to which they actually know me, and I can either fill in the gaps or skip over certain facts that they already know.)
When in class, we have to give a certain amount of back story which forces me to tell the story in a completely different way. I then have to deal with the ever-present timekeeper. (Hi Tim!)
That makes me feel exactly like what Simmons is talking about. I have to dumb the story down and it seems to make it a meaningless bullet point.
Labels: boswell
posted by kingfish @ 9:11 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I agree with you to a certain extent. When we are given time constraints and an unknowing audience, there is a real limit placed on the stories we can tell. However, knowing that there is a time constraint and that the audience isn't going to know all of the back story coming in, we are forced to find a story to match these limits. The easiest method in the class is to tell a personal story because we are most familiar with this type, but with our constraints we cannot always fit this type in. The suggestion from last week about taking ourselves out of the story really opens up possibilities to us. Not every story needs a back story to accompany. I think the constraints can act as a challenge for us to find new and different stories. There are a wealth of stories in the world, and I think we can find at least one a week to fit our needs.
In script writing my teacher said,
if every word is worth $500.00 would you use it? Looking for the pivotal points, words, focus makes us key in on the best choices. Doing that extemporaneously is a fascinating challenge. I try to let the audience make some of the connections on their own...they are smart they will get it.
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