Week_6Storyboarding

Week 6 Activity: Practice with a Storyboarding Technique

This week, you will use an activity to examine an existing written story and determine how it does (or doesn't) fit into a framework of a specific type of storyboard -- a high-level representation of a story that helps someone see important points of transition in a story while leaving out the low-level story details.

Follow the steps below:

1) Background: review the 12-minute video clip, Your Book Starts Here - Storyboarding for Writers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMhLvMJ_r0Y
Also, if you have time and would like additional notes on this technique, read these blog posts by author Mary Carroll Moore's for additional background on the use of storyboarding:

• http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-love-hate-affair-with-storyboards.html
• http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2013/03/lesson-from-argo-why-storyboards-are.html
• http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2012/02/making-map-of-your-books-structure.html

Of course, there are other techniques, including more sophisticated ones, for developing stories. For now, we'll focus on the "W" method discussed in the video. Think about the W method as one form of scaffolding (for a story writer) to be able to create a narrative.

2) Using the short story that you have identified for yourself, develop a W chart that represents the story as well as possible. That means that you'll need to try to identify the 5 "events" that represent the transitions in the story according to Moore. Draw a W, label these events, and also label the lines between them to provide additional context around what is happening between the events.
Optional resources: example story | W chart template
If you need additional resources, you might find appropriate stories published on the web. If you would like to start with something very short, referring to fairy tales or Aesop's fables may be helpful.

3) When you have completed your work, pair up with someone in class and talk through what you did. Discuss your thinking process for choosing the points of transition across the W diagram and share additional questions about where the process was ambiguous. Say something about any other ways that the story itself, the W process, or your own ideas raise issues about our 3 key concepts for this theme: story, scaffolding, creative voice.

4) After class, submit your W diagram to your assignment dropbox (if you used the template provided above and wrote by hand on a printed page, you can submit a scan or photo of the page if your writing is legible). Please include your name and a reference to the story title/publication somewhere on the page.

Other notes: of course, the story that you choose may not closely follow the W structure very well. In that case, see where the "W" does seem to be followed as well as and where the "diagram" of the story might seem to take another shape. Don't be too concerned about forcing the story into the clear, well-defined W for now if you are not sure about it; this attempt is meant only as practice with respect to viewing stories and the transitions within them as you consider your work under Theme 2, and we will discuss ideas further in our class meeting.