Writing for Story (Week 4 Response)

            Writing for Story has given me a lot to think about with regards to the way that I write. I found that I can incorporate many of Franklin’s structural pointers to not just narrative journalism writing, but also to feature writing in a more traditional journalism form. Above all, what stuck out to me the most was his emphasis on being organized. Each chapter flowed into the next as he literally taught us how to build a story from the ground up. Every time I read a story, I am now going to find myself considering certain key questions, such as: “Why did he/she do that?” and “What is his/her motive?”. When it comes to structure, the most helpful part of the book for me personally was his lesson on outlining. When I usually think of outlines, I imagine long and fleshed out lists of roman numerals and sub-letters filled with ideas that sprout in every direction. It was astounding to me that he is able to create an effective outline solely by choosing the story’s key tensions and expressing them with action verbs; it really got at the heart of what makes a story important.

            If Franklin had not included “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster” and “The Ballad of Old Man Peters” in this book, everything else he says may have fallen on me as cold theory. During my time as an English major, I have been instructed to read several different texts about style, but none of them have truly benefited me like Writing for Story. Had I not been able to feel the tension in the operating room with Mrs. Kelly or explore the intricacies of Wilk’s life, I would have been in the dark searching for examples that put into use Franklin’s stylistic suggestions. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it is most definitely one that I am not selling back to the book store. I consider it a valuable resource not only in this class, but in my future writing endeavors.