1.4 Creating Stories

We tell stories for their own sake, and we also use them to communicate other kinds of messages. We want those messages to be as clear as possible to make sure that others can understand us and what we hope to accomplish. We also want to present those messages in the most engaging way possible to interest the audience and keep their attention. Putting these two desires together, we can say that good storytelling combines clarity and charm: clarity makes our messages understood, and charm captivates our audience.

Writing Stories

As we learn about stories and how to use them, we’ll want to create many of our own stories to communicate with others and share our points of view. This means that we’ll write many of our stories down—we’ll create them by drafting a few sentences, a paragraph, or something much longer.

Our focus in writing stories will need to be on writing itself, at least at first. Of course, there are other ways of creating and telling stories, like a dance or a musical composition. But the stories we will discover and practice within this class involve words. Learning some principles and strategies for effective writing will prepare us to create our messages with real clarity and authentic charm.