Week Two Assignment: Other Story Structures—Journey, Parallel, Comparison, and Circular

Your assignment: Print out the Storyclock Diagram. If at any point during the week a story floods into your head, stop whatever you are doing and write it out on a Storyclock Diagram.

Day 1:

Your word play: 

     Cut into small pieces three different colored papers or card stock. Designate one color for verbs, one color for nouns, and the third color for adjectives. Write your favorite words on appropriate color coded paper / card stock.  Brainstorm ideas and themes by randomly drawing words and seeing exploring what they might mean in relation to each other to come up with fresh ideas. This technique can be applied to other categories of words as well. You could create a "places" category... and so on. Write a list of twenty-five themes.

Day 2:

Look at all your themes from this week and last week and pick three to five that you are drawn to. Brainstorm question/s and answer/s for each theme.

Day 3:

Think of the story structures we covered: 1)Journey, 2)Parallel, 3) Comparison, 4)Circular 5)Cumulative / De-Cumulative. Do any of these story structures lend themselves to your theme? Fill in a Storyclock Diagram for each of your three-five themes. 


Day 4:

Transfer your favorite theme / storyclock to a dummy. Fill in the dummy with as much information as you have about the story.


Day 5:

Revise your dummy once a day. Read it out loud. Use your wordplay from day 1 to be inventive about your word choices, making sure that everything in your dummy moves your story forward.

Have fun! 


I hope you enjoyed this lesson.


xo, Kristen


k@kristenbalouch.com | Brooklyn, NY 

© 2018 by Kristen Balouch

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