Exercise: How To Write A Story (About A Paper Cup)

The idea behind this exercise is that ideas don’t make a good story, craft makes a good story, and a writer should be able to move a reader with a story about anything—even a paper cup!

Story is the appreciation of movement from one point to another. African dramatic form understands story as an image of community, based on a figure, what that figure means, and who should understand that figure and carry it forward. The elements of story, therefore become narrative device, dramatic line, and audience. African dramatic form’s three primary controls: Dramatic form, Dramatic character, and Dramatic mask, emphasize and develop each of these essential community, or story, elements.

This exercise will combine the three essential values of story to explore narrative awareness, movement, and meaning in a story about a paper cup.

Try the exercises with your work-in-progress or as a free-writing exercise.

Next: The Paper Cup – How to Write A Story (Part 1)

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