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ELA 5: What's a Narrative Outline? 53 Views
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Description:
Step one: find the story's narrator. Step two: wait until they fall asleep. Step three: carefully trace their outline. Boom. Done. Or you could do it less literally in a way that would actually help your writing...yeah maybe just watch the video.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
Every once in a while in life, it’s a good idea to stop and smell the roses. [Girl smells bunch of roses]
- 00:17
To slow down and take it easy.
- 00:19
The same thing goes for writing.
- 00:20
Except instead of smelling the roses, you’re smelling an outline. [Man smells a piece of paper]
Full Transcript
- 00:24
Er…we meant, "writing" an outline. Don't smell it.
- 00:27
An outline is a basic plan for what you're going to write. It’s like a map of your
- 00:30
story from beginning to end. [Finger pints to start point on a map]
- 00:32
You may not end up following it exactly, but it’s a good idea to know where you’re
- 00:36
going before you leave the house. [Man with a map and taxi arrives]
- 00:38
So when we're writing narratives, it's a good idea to use an outline based on Freytag's Pyramid.
- 00:42
Like most stories, ours are likely going to end up following that same general structure, [Freytag's pyramid structure]
- 00:46
so why not make sure you're hitting each mark before you get writing?
- 00:49
One outlining strategy that’s kind of fun is taking a blank sheet of paper and writing
- 00:53
out each part of Freytag's Pyramid from the top of the page to the bottom: exposition, [Freytag's pyramid on a smartphone screen]
- 00:58
inciting incident, so on and so forth.
- 01:00
…What? We said it was kind of fun. Keep your expectations low.
- 01:04
Then you can think about your own story, and make little notes of what'll be happening
- 01:08
at each point on the pyramid.
- 01:09
It might not look like a pyramid, but that’s okay. It’s a lot cheaper to build, and doesn't [Egyptian pyramid and egyptian coffin]
- 01:13
have any creepy mummies inside of it… An outline based around Freytag's Pyramid
- 01:16
can even give you some insight into how your story works.
- 01:20
You might have a super strong climax and want to build the rest of your story around it. [Girl points and laughs at another girl]
- 01:23
Or you might think you know everything that’s going to happen, but you write it out and
- 01:27
realize you’re missing an inciting incident.
- 01:28
You can use what comes before and after to help figure it all out.
- 01:32
Because a story without an inciting incident doesn’t go anywhere at all. [Girls in school hallway]
- 01:36
And neither will you if you get grounded for getting a D on this assignment.
- 01:39
A good outline will help you organize your ideas and give you a reliable map for the [Dino teaching about outline of writing]
- 01:43
writing adventure ahead.
- 01:44
Which is good, because that spares you the inevitable argument about whether or not to [Taxi drives up hill]
- 01:48
stop and ask for directions.
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