Structuring Your Narrative

What is a “narrative?” Your “narrative” is one story that you can tell about yourself right now, within this context, to the audience that you have identified — perhaps your peers in this workshop, or some larger group. There are multiple narratives that each of us might tell about ourselves at a given moment, and these evolve over time. This is not “the story of your life” but ONE of the MANY stories about you that you are choosing to tell right now. You might tell it differently next month, or in a year, or in ten years.

Read through everything that you have written and underline:

• Questions, conflicts or ideas that come up more than once.
• Passages that you think are connected.
• Metaphors that you might want to draw out or develop.
• Anything that feels especially resonant.
• On a new page, jot any salient themes.

Write for twenty minutes about one of those themes OR expand on something that you wrote. You could:

• explain to yourself why one of your themes is a theme.
• go back to something and add to it.
• unpack an idea or metaphor.
• explore a feeling.
• finish a story.

In a group of three, take turns asking each other (and answering) these questions:

• What themes emerge for you?
• Are they easy to recognize?
• What images come to you?
• What writing prompts seem promising as potential catalysts for the larger narrative?
• How might you deepen what you’ve already written?

Based on this conversation, return to your writing and continue to craft your narrative.