Writing A Script
A digital story allows an author to capture the essence of an experience with visual images and sounds. However, the script remains the backbone of the story. The narrative behind and between the images and sounds is critical to how the audience will interpret and feel about your story. So, spend time writing, revising, and editing your script. To produce a digital story that is 2 to 3 minutes in length, you’ll need a script between 1.5 and 2 pages, double-spaced.
Consider these five questions when developing your script:
- What should I write about? Thinking of an idea
- How do I start? Developing the Lead
- What is the main point? Developing a Thesis Statement
- How do I end my story? Developing a Conclusion
- How do I keep my audience's interest? Revising and Editing
What should I write about?
Thinking of an idea
Whether you are writing about a research project, a semester abroad, a co-op position, or a remarkable NU experience, one phrase to help you get started is "What a Difference a Day Makes." Isolate one day of your research project, semester abroad, co-op job or other NU experience that changed something about you - the way you think about a certain concept, feel about another person, live your life, or approach a situation.
You might write about a turning point in your life--perhaps a time when you were forced suddenly to grow up, a time when you faced a difficult challenge, or a time when you reassessed your values. You might describe an experience in which you did something new: perhaps you designed a stage set for a play, visited a foreign country, or moved to a new city for a co-op position. Or you might recount an adventure that tested you in some way: trying to find your way out of a dangerous situation, or having to make a difficult moral decision. Or you may decide to describe a seemingly small situation that changed the way you look at something.
If you are drafting a script about a research project, you may have had an "ah-ha" moment of insight that clarified months of work. Or, you may have met a researcher in your field that has inspired you to continue in your field or to reexamine assumptions you had about your field of study.
If you're uncertain of what to write about, try the following tactics to generate ideas.
- Try a pre-writing (or discovery) technique
To come up with an idea for your story, you can use any of the following pre-writing (or discovery) techniques that you have most likely tried in your first-year writing courses. These exercises can cure writer's block and generate ideas that may be lurking in your subconscious.
Free-writing: The basis of pre-writing techniques, free-writing involves writing without pausing for a certain time period, usually 10-20 minutes. Look at your watch, take pen to paper and start writing. Even if you begin with, "I have no idea what to write," keep going without editing your words. Write whatever comes to mind, and relevant ideas should soon start to flood the page.
Brainstorming: The most frequently used discovery technique, brainstorming involves beginning with one word or phrase, then listing everything that pops into your head. Write every word and phrase that enters your mind - even those that seem tangential or only slightly relevant. Then look over your list, pull out the words and phrases that pique your interest. Put them at the top of a new page and brainstorm again.
Clustering: A non-linear, graphically-oriented method of generating ideas, clustering involves starting with a topic, circling it, and drawing lines to other related words and phrases.
- Read good writing and listen to powerful stories.
Sometimes reading what others have written or listening to what others have recorded can help you think of your own topic. Also, reading and listening to personal narratives gives you a feel for the structure, tone, and style you'd like to capture.
Read:
To read intriguing essays, look at your freshman composition texts. You may also want reading a few essays from one of these collections:
One Hundred Great Essays edited by Robert Diyanni
The Oxford Book of Essays edited by John Gross
The Best American Essays of the Century edited by Robert Atwan
The Norton Book of Personal Essays edited by Joseph Epstein
The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present edited by Phillip Lopate
Listen:
Because you'll be reading your story aloud, you need to appeal to a listening, rather than reading, audience. To gain an understanding of how a story should sound, listen to stories on National Public Radio, www.npr.org
National Public Radio airs a wide variety of stories from personal narratives written and recorded by listeners to hard news stories produced by seasoned reporters.
For stories by listeners, go to NPR's Story Corps (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989) and This, I Believe (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138) to hear solid leads, clear thesis statements and compelling conclusions.
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How do I Start?
Developing The Lead
In the case of a digital story, your lead and your opening image will dictate whether or not your audience will keep watching. Each of the leads below, written by published authors and college students, strives to hook the reader in the first 10 seconds.
"My first victim was a woman - white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago." - Brent Staples, from "Black Men in Public Spaces"
"With the first busloads of Katrina refugees about to arrive in San Antonio, the call went out for physician volunteers, and I signed up for the 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift. On the way, riding down dark, deserted streets, I thought of driving in for night shifts in the I.C.U. as an intern many years ago, and how I would try to steel myself, as if putting on armor."
- Abraham Verghese, M.D., from "Close Encounter of the Human Kind"
"Once I met a woman who grew up in the small North Carolina town to which Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins, retired after their circus careers."
- Francine Prose, from "Gossip"
"A young boy molts. Tender skin falls off, or gets scraped off, and is replaced by a tougher, more permanent crust. The transition happens in moments, in events. All of a sudden, something is gone and something else is in its place. I made a change like that standing in the back of a pickup truck when I was 15." -Jay Allison, from "Back at the Ranch"
My mom says I was born under a lucky star. The truth is there have been many moments when I could say I have felt exceptionally lucky. If it was because of the lucky star I do not know, but I am certainly starting to believe in it. - Katarina Futova, from "Lucky Star"
"My mother, dead now to this world but still roaming free in my mind, wakes me some mornings before daybreak. 'If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a quitter.' I have heard her say that all my life." - Russell Baker, from "The Good Times"
"Like a good many New Yorkers, I've often wondered whether I was going to be mugged." - Edward Hoagland, from "The Courage of Turtles"
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What is the Main Point?
Developing a Thesis Statement
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1. Discover your main point.
Example 4: Not So Different
Often, you will not know what the point of your story is until after you have written the first draft. Just like most Hollywood films or weekly TV series, your digital story is, first and foremost, a narrative. That narrative usually depicts an experience for a central purpose: to reveal an insight about the action or people involved.
Finding the central point of your story takes work. Once you write the first draft, re-read it and ask yourself what the experience has meant to you. Read it to a friend and ask what he or she thinks the point is. Then revise your essay to make sure the main point is clear.
Consider the following examples from student stories. Each author discovered the main point of the story after completing the first draft.
Example 1: Indian Earthquake
Topic: One student wrote about sitting in her mother's third-floor apartment in India when an earthquake struck. She sent her young son down the stairs ahead of her, while she stayed behind to help her arthritic mother down the stairs.
Main Point: When the author wrote the first draft, she thought the story was about the earthquake. After she re-read the story and shared it with her classmates, she realized that the story was about herself as a daughter and the duty and love she felt toward her mother.
Example 2: Two Outs in the Ninth
Topic: Another student wrote about striking out with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning of his high school state championship game.
Main point: When he wrote the first draft, he thought it was about his most embarrassing moment. After re-reading it and sharing it with his parents, he realized that this difficult moment and the weeks following showed him how much he loved the game of baseball. Instead of defeating him, the experience gave him the courage to play in college.
Example 3: Who Am I?
Topic: A third student wrote about the day her youngest child moved out of the house. Main Point: At first, the author thought the story was about her daughter. Through the draft process, she realized the story was about the author's own need to re-shape her identity because, for the first time in 28 years, she was not known as somebody's mom.
Topic: Another student wrote about moving from France to Boston as a teenager and learning English by watching Sesame Street.
Main Point: The narrative moved from centering on the author's being grateful for Sesame Street to how her abrupt move to a new culture has allowed her to understand more clearly the emotional struggles her clients were going through at the international relief agency she volunteered for.
- Develop a thesis statement.
Once you have discovered your main point, you need to turn it into a clear thesis statement on which the whole narrative depends. The thesis statement conveys the main point of the essay. To develop your thesis statement, write what you believe your main point to be and see if you can place "I want to prove that . . ." before the statement. If the sentence follows logically from that prompt, and the statement can be proven within the confines of 1.5 to 2 pages, then you have a workable thesis statement.
Each of the thesis statements below, written by published authors and college students, conveys clearly the point of the essay.
Thesis Statement Samples
"What I took away from the course, however, went much further than that. These stories inspired and changed the way that I approach teaching, and even changed my roles as husband, father and citizen." - Ernest Patterson, from "The Power of Narrative"
"It seems to be a rule of life that you can't advance without getting that old, familiar, jittery feeling." - James Lincoln Collier, from "Anxiety: Challenge by Another Name" "The most unlikely events, even freak accidents, sometimes teach valuable lessons. One crazed cat was certainly about to teach me one." - Melissa Flippin, from "An Unlikely Crisis"
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How do I end my story?
Developing a Conclusion
Many students find conclusions to be the most difficult part of the essay to write. Students feel the pressure of finding that perfect last word. Instead of getting clutched trying to write perfect final lines, think of the conclusion as your opportunity to leave your audience with a departing thought that encapsulates your major point. Then write it in a style consistent with the tone of the piece.
Each of the conclusions below, written by published authors and college students, tries to leave the audience with a final, meaningful message
Conclusion Examples:
"Someday, of course - and I will make no predictions as to exactly when - they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end." - Barbara Ehrenreich,
from "Nickel and Dimed"
"Cautiously, I reached out and touched the skin. It felt cold and firm, not unlike clay. As I walked out, I felt glad to have satisfied my curiosity about dead bodies, but all too happy to let someone else handle them." - Brian Cable, from "The Last Stop"
"To most people - with or without PhD.s - love will always be more than the sum of its natural parts. It's a commingling of body and soul, reality and imagination, poetry and phenyl ethylamine. In our deepest hearts, most of us harbor the hope that love will never fully yield up its secrets, that it will always elude our grasp." - Anastasia Toufexis, from "Love: The Right Chemistry"
"Baxter's Miss Ferenczi provided me with a clear example of how to engage students in life's bigger questions, and so, to this day, I am compelled to use one of her "substitute facts" now and again, when necessary." - Ernest Patterson, from "The Power of Narrative"
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How do I keep my audience's interest?
Editing for Clarity and Sharpness
Once you are satisfied with your lead, your thesis statement, and your conclusion, copy edit and proofread closely to make sure the narrative flows smoothly. The best way to determine if your narrative makes sense is to read it aloud to yourself and to others. See where you stumble while reading, and see where your peers stumble while trying to grasp the meaning.
Additional things to remember:
- Include only those details that advance the central point.
- Smooth out the flow of the narrative with clear phrasing and sentence structure.
- Make the narrative vigorous and immediate by using strong subjects, concrete details, and active verbs.
- Keep verb tense and point of view consistent.
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