Weekly Blog 6

• Describe six promising practices for creating a meaningful story.
• • Immerse your audience in a story. Make your audience really feel like they are in the story as well an reliving it as you tell it. Using visual and sensory details that will bring a deeper connection with audience is important. 
  • Tell a personal story. Tell something that relates more to you and something personal to show that you and the story have a deep connection 
  • Create suspense. Make the audience eager to reach the end of the story. Leave unanswered questions in the story that are slowly unraveled. Leave out important details of the story that requires explaining later on. The urge to know and not be left in the unknown is what makes audience strive for more. 
  • Bring characters to life. The characters in the story need to be alive. They need to be not just a really boring character to help with moving the story along. Instead it should be a dynamic character that grows with the story and has a life of its own in the story. 
  • Show. Don’t Tell. Instead of just telling a story try to show it. This also helps add onto immersing your audience to the story. How do you show? Well, you can show a story by describing more verbally and using more pictures to help really have the audience imagine themselves in the story. 
• End with a positive takeaway. I think this one hits the strongest. A positive takeway is like a resolution at the end of the story. The story starts with a problem and the audience immerses in it living out the problem as it they are inside the story as well. They wish for a positive takeaway (problem-solved) because the problem is now their problem as well. Which is why a majority of people do not really like cliff hangers, or the evil person wins stories as much. 

In the reading this week, 7 Storytelling Techniques Used by the Most Inspiring TED Presenters, which of the presenters did you find most compelling? What technique(s) did you recognize in their talk?

Leslie Morgein Steiner’s talk on abusive relationships and domestic violence was the most compelling to me. When she told her personal story she showed a lot of energy and power in her words and gestures that help immerse audiences into the story. The choice of descriptive words and subtle suspense she creates also help keep audiences on the edge of their seats. The best part was when she says “the ten black bruises on my neck” while using her two hand to imitate a choke with her hands showed so much suspense and demonstrates the show don’t tell as well. She properly uses at least 3 of the techniques to make a good story telling experience like create suspense, tell a personal story, and bring characters to life (have the husband slowly become a nightmare). She had so much power with the words she chose to use because of how personal the story was to her and how much it had changed her life. It was her story.

With little to no experience in writing scripts for a video, here is mine. It is a short video for showing how to properly secure a baby to a carseat to ensure their safety. The use of extra cute babies would be needed to help bring more attention to the video. I used little knowledge I do know to do a closeup of the carseat, a over the shoulder (from the baby’s shoulder to look at the father and how the father would look at the baby (the audience has the perspective of the baby) and to show the father turning around and looking at the baby to help bring audiences closer into the video.

References:

Ferster, Bill (2016-11-15). Sage on the screen : education, media, and how we learn. ISBN 9781421421261. OCLC 965172146.