Adding Muscle to Your Story

1
Adding Muscle to Your Story

• Support and Elaboration

2
Strong vs. Weak Story

• Would you rather read a story with lots of
  details or a list?
• Some times our stories turn out more like list
• What can we do to fix that?

3
Think about your favorite book

• Does that book have any characters?
• How does the author let you know how that
  character is feeling?
• Does he or she just tell you or paint a picture
  in your mind?

4
Emotions

• Possible element of a strong story
• Why?
• One way to make stories even better is to SHOW
  them rather than just TELL about them

5
What are some emotions that characters in your
stories might have?
6
Which is a more powerful way to include emotions?

• Billy was really mad
• Billys hands curled into two tight fists. His
  face turned bright red as he glared at his big
  brother. Suddenly Billy threw his glove across
  the room. He whipped around and stormed up the
  stairs. His bedroom door slammed shut, echoing
  through the whole house.

7
Why is that more powerful?

• Better way to include emotions
• Stretches out the moment (play by play account)
• It paints a picture in your head!!

8
Showing Emotion

• Everybody is going to be given an emotion. When
  you get it, start thinking about how a person who
  is feeling that emotion would act, look, or sound
• Form a picture of a character feeling that
  emotion in you head

9
Showing Emotion

• Now it is your job to paint that same picture in
  the head of your reader

10
Remember the difference in these two descriptions?

• Billy was really mad
• Billys hands curled into two tight fists. His
  face turned bright red as he glared at his big
  brother. Suddenly Billy threw his glove across
  the room. He whipped around and stormed up the
  stairs. His bedroom door slammed shut, echoing
  through the whole house.

11
Add some muscle to your emotion

• How is your character feeling?
• What does your character look like?
• What does your character sound like?
• What is your character doing?
• Paint a PICTURE of
• your character with words