Optional: Build Your Arc

Additional Activities

Want to do more? Try some or all of these optional activities.

Stretch: More Writing

Make a Timeline: Draw a timeline with key events and the turning point marked on it. A straight line works, but you can also go with a literal arc to depict the story arc – or a line with peaks to show when action spikes. Try to indicate the amount of time taken up by each part of your story. Such visualization may nudge you to adjust the story timing.

With a well-built story arc, there’s a clear beginning, middle, and end. But the arc in a first draft is often too compressed. The story may not really begin until the end, with few words spent on the action itself. Your arc might need reshaping to focus the story on action and consequences rather than on a lengthy setup.

Add Capsule Descriptions: Observations of people or places in your story can bring it to life. Consider adding some vivid capsules (each two or three sentences long) to your change story. Create the equivalent of pictures in words.

Use Negative Space: What do you need to tell readers and what can remain unsaid? In revising your story, apply the concept of negative space in the visual arts: the empty space around an image.^[1] There’s intentional blank space in a story, too. The problem comes when blanks are unintentional or make a story feel incomplete. In describing your “I,” for instance, how can you use negative space to highlight key background information? What details can you add – or cut?

Respond: More Reading

Read: First-Person Journalism, Chapter 6 (“Observing Real Life,” especially the last two sections: “Direct Reporting of Events” and “The Art of Capsule Description”) and Chapter 9 (“Moving Through Time,” especially “Chronology” and “Time Machine”). Try some of the “Voice Lessons” in these sections, adding them to your Process Notebook.

Watch: “Stories have very simple shapes,” a segment of a longer lecture by author Kurt Vonnegut, in which he draws his own funny version of story arcs (the segment begins 38 minutes into the full video).^[2]

Respond: Reflect on what you think of the readings or Vonnegut’s “story shapes” in your Process Notebook (see suggested prompts in the box below).

Writing Groups: Connecting with Others

Discuss: When meeting with your group (or partner), address the discussion prompts below, especially if you’ve done the suggested readings or watched the video.

Exchange Stories: Share your revised change stories, offering supportive feedback.