Tap tap, is this thing on?
Think about this: you’re at a party. You’re telling your favorite anecdote about the time you hid a bunch of frogs under a basket in the garage, and what happened when they got loose (spoilers: they scared your mom half to death and you got grounded). You’ve got the timing down. You know when to pause, when to expect a laugh. It’s a good story, and it’s yours, told only the way you could tell it.
Maybe you should write that story down. You know: for posterity.
Everyone here is a writer, but writing isn’t just about the words you put down on paper: it’s about storytelling, and storytelling was originally an oral tradition. This month we’re asking you to explore those roots, to be a storyteller as well as a writer.
Ready?
August’s assignment is: record yourself telling your story, and transcribe the results (Maximum time: 8 minutes; maximum wordcount: around 1,000, ish, give or take)
The whys and hows:
When you’re writing, it’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of language—those perfect phrases, our beloved darlings—or in making sure that each sentence is structured in a way that makes sense, and to lose the overall sense of the story. (Essayists, that’s often what we mean when we say “you wrote yourself out of this essay.”) Telling a story out loud can help you avoid those traps. If you’re not looking for that perfect phrase or second-guessing yourself, you can focus on the story, and find out what the most important points are: if you find yourself circling back to add in details (“Oh, but first she got a drink, which is where she met the bartender, which is important for this scene”), then you know that it’s necessary for the final story. Telling a story out loud also forces you to engage different parts of your brain. It’s more immediate; it changes the voice the story is told in. This can give your written story a more natural cadence. This month, we’re asking you to tell your story… out loud. Record yourself with a phone, camera, computer, old-school cassette recorder, or whatever you’ve got handy, and then listen to it, transcribing it as you go. Post it without editing, except that it’s ok to take out any “um” or “errrr” words. For this assignment we’ll be a little bit flexible on the wordcount, since you’re not really allowed to edit. But don’t take advantage of us: if your version is more than about 1,200 words? Go back and tell it again, shorter, and transcribe that. Looking at your longer version might give you an idea of what to leave out.A few tips and tricks we learned on the way:
- Set a timer for eight minutes, and tell your story a few times until you have a version that takes that amount of time. Eight minutes of speaking out loud at a measured pace should give you about 1000 transcribed words.
- Phone a friend! Or Zoom, or grab a family member. Telling your story to a mirror can be hard, but involving another person means that you get feedback as you go with their expressions (or even questions about what’s going on, but don’t forget: you have to transcribe those too because now they’re part of the story). This might work best with someone who hasn’t already read your original story. Just don’t forget to start your recorder!
- Don’t worry about “ums” and awkward pauses. Don’t get flustered if you have to add a detail in: “Oh! I forgot to mention…” It’s all good. Put that part in exactly like you said it.
- Note for those who have been writing in first person: you can choose to tell your story as the main character or about the main character. That is, you can stick to first person (“So my stepsister invited me out to a club.”) or switch to third (“So it was Lisa’s birthday, and her stepsister wanted to go dancing.”)—whichever feels more natural to you.
- Important: tell the story, not a story about your story. We’re not looking for a summary or a book report. It’s easy to say “Lisa finds her way to the bar but there are challenges and she’s guided by three mysterious figures that represent dawn, the sun, and dusk…” That’s not the story; that’s a summary. Instead, tell us: “Lisa goes looking for the bar, but between the lights and the crowed and everything she keeps getting turned around. She bumps into this gorgeous blonde in thigh-high boots and a silver harness…” See the difference?
Loading InLinkz ...Hindsight!
In case you missed it, here's a look back (see what we did there?) at the exercises in our 2020 workshop.
January: Write a story or essay in 1,000 words
February: Write the same piece in 100 words
March: Retain just 25 adjectives and adverbs from your original 1,000 word story
April: Write your story or essay using only dialogue
May: Write your story or essay from a different point of view
June: Write your story or essay in 2,000 words
July: Write your story or essay out of chronological order
August: Record your story or essay and transcribe it
September: Write your story or essay using a different voice
October: Write a poem using your story or essay as inspiration
November: Write a version of your story set in an alternate universe.
December: Write the final version of your story or essay in 1000 words.
About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
