The Power of Written Storytelling: The End: Why Write Awesome Endings? (Part 5)

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This is the fifth part of a series of posts about writ­ing a story. (Again, when I write the word story, I mean a true tale, non­fic­tion). Here, I will discuss the importance of a great ending.

Girl on tracks.

I always like train tracks, and they remind me of great endings. Maybe it’s because it’s a hint of the future; the journey that you can still go on. (Photo credit: Barta IV)

I’m really into endings. Story endings, that is. Endings that make reading the whole story worthwhile. So you can sit back and reflect in the awesomeness of the moment, not jump up and down in frustration, or worse still, quietly forget it.

If I watch a movie and the ending is terrible, I’ll probably hate the entire movie, even if I’ve liked it up until that point. Or if don’t like a movie that much, but actually make it to the end and the ending is awesome, I will probably say I thought the movie was at the very least good.

(This is a bit off-topic, but so you can totally relate to what I mean by mind-blowing endings before we get started, here are three movies that fit that bill. If you haven’t seen them, now is the time. You can even call it homework: “The Usual Suspects,” “Fight Club,” “Fargo.”)

Oh, and if you haven’t read the stories I’ve been mentioning in these posts, I’m warning you now there will be some spoilers.

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The Power of Written Storytelling: The Middle: Adding Flavor (Part 4)

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This is the fourth part of a series of posts about writ­ing a story. (Again, when I write the word story, I mean a true tale, non­fic­tion). Here, I will dis­cuss what I mean by flavor and how to add it to your story.

Spices and tea!

Adding some flavor to your story is just like adding spice to your soup! You need to add just the right amount. (Photo credit: Clyde Robinson)

“I like the sound of boom, boom,” firework maker Reach Ravuth said.

This is flavor. Flavor is that creative little extra that’s added to the story to show (not tell) readers a detail they wouldn’t get otherwise. It’s usually not necessary to tell the story, but it’s vital to make the story spicy. It makes it come alive. That Reach Ravuth likes the sound of fireworks going off shows you a bit of his personality.

He also says he’s not afraid of having an accident. Perhaps because the $250 a month he gets from making fireworks is good money. Perhaps because he was a soldier in the 1980s so he is still full of bravado, or perhaps because of his long experience with fireworks. He says he weighs the ingredients carefully and takes his time.

When I see flavor in a story I’m excited. It’s what makes the story sizzle. As a storyteller you have flexibility over what you decide to include. The same story could be told differently depending on who is telling it.

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The Power of Written Storytelling: The Middle: Setting the Scene by Reporting the Story to Death (Part 3)

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This is the third part of a series of posts about writ­ing a story. (Again, when I write the word story, I mean a true tale, non­fic­tion). Here, I will dis­cuss how to set the scene of a story by “reporting it to death.”

It is also a beautiful landscape.

I love barns so maybe I’m just biased when I think this is beautiful. But it does raise a million questions for me. Who built the barn? What’s in the barn? Who owns the barn? Why is the barn falling down? These are questions that you can use to set the scene in your story. (Photo credit: Ian Sane)

Let’s look at another firework maker in the story I mentioned earlier. I use Prak Sam Nang to set the scene and write about how he makes fireworks.

“Prak Sam Nang sits on a wooden bench his legs crossed in front of him, dipping his hand in a pot of glue and smoothing it across the thin brown cement bags. The firework makers create the glue by frying Tapioca flour and water until it becomes a thick white substance. Using a round metal mold, they shape the paper into a curved cup.

They fit two cups together and fill them with the homemade explosive ingredients: charcoal and metal burnt and melted together. They then smooth the ingredients over with more glue and paper and attach a string covered with another layer of the thin brown paper to one end of the device.”

You might have heard the phrase “setting the scene” in relation to fiction, but you can also use it when referring to a nonfiction piece. In some ways, it’s much more difficult to write. When you report a true story, you have to be a hundred percent sure the information is hundred percent accurate. That takes a lot of work. If I remember correctly, I spent at least a couple of hours learning about firework making that I then shortened into the above two paragraphs.

Accuracy is vital because you’re putting information out into the world as fact. You not only want it to be true, but also, your organization’s name is on the piece. Double check your sources. Don’t report anything you would like to be true just to support your cause.

So how do you set the scene?

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