Tag Archives: Storytelling

6 September 2023Teaching ToolsCreative Writing, Fiction, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Storytelling, Teaching Tools, WritingJanina Malena Sähn

It’s A Wrap: Beginning with Endings

By Maryann Henck

At the end of the semester, I always like to include a wrap-up exercise for one final creative writing task: “It’s a Wrap” – which also seems to be a fitting way to say goodbye to the American Studies Blog this September. Here’s how the task works:

Select endings from novels or short stories without revealing the original source. These are some of my favorite choices:I really, truly wish he hadn’t said that. I keep thinking about it. I can’t stop. I don’t have anything else to add. I just wanted to make sure I had the last word. I think I’ve earned that. (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn)
“It’s because I’m concentrating on my thesis, I don’t worry about other stuff. Nobody asked if Freud checked the use-by date on the milk.” “They didn’t have use-by dates in the early twentieth century.” It was incredible that two such dissimilar people had become a successful couple. (The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion)

Through the windows a strange subterranean light was rising, barely distinguishable from darkness. I felt change far beneath me, moving deep beneath the surface of things, like the plates of the earth blindly moving in their black traces. I found my bag, and my car keys, and I let myself silently out of the house. (Transit by Rachel Cusk)

…Also I’ve begun to feel he’s the only person who knows anything about me. Maybe because I’ve never hit anyone else with a bottle, so they never got to see that part of me. Neither did I come to think of it. It did make a mess; but then, I don’t think I’ll ever be a very tidy person. (Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood)
Ask participants to write a piece of short fiction (350–700 words) using the selected ending as a prompt for beginning their stories.
Keep your promise and reveal the original literary sources to your participants once they’ve completed the task.

In the following story, “Who’s Getting Crowned,” the ending from Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader inspired me to create a meeting between the Queen and her most loyal subjects. Enjoy!

21 June 2023Creativity CornerBedtime Story, freedom, Future, key to life, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Memories, past, Stories, StorytellingJanina Malena Sähn

No Story, No Life

By Michael Lederer

Everything we do begins with a story. Without story, we would perish. We don’t get off that couch and head to the kitchen unless we have first told ourselves a little story: “There’s food in that kitchen, it will taste good, erase the feeling of hunger, and thanks to it I will survive.” We may not say those words out loud, and if we do, someone should call a doctor. But at the most primal level, that story is told and its lesson heeded.

17 August 2022Creativity CornerBedtime, Bedtime Story, Berlin, Childhood, Creativity, Iron Curtain, Leuphana, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Memories, Stories, StorytellingHenrike Kattoll

Childhood Memories

By Michael Lederer

Memories are stories we tell ourselves.

Credit: Genia Chef, “Emerald Grotto,” oil on panel, 1997 (fragment); published with the artist’s permission

“When I was younger, I remember how…” We cherry-pick. We have to. Otherwise, we’d remember what we wore and ate for lunch a day before our 6th birthday, and the week before that. TMI.

11 May 2022Teaching ToolsBerlin, Brown Girl Dreaming, Coming-Of-Age Narrative, Family Relations, Identity, Jacqueline Woodson, Leuphana, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Life-Writing, My Childhood In A Box, Narratives, New Zealand, Online Class, Pandemic, Personal Growth, Seminar, Stories, StorytellingHenrike Kattoll

All the Stories That We (Were) Told

By Nora Benitt

Pixar’s Rules of Storytelling by Profound Whatever

Life writing – which includes a wide spectrum of sub-genres such as (auto)biography, memoir, letter, diary, (digital) life stories, and oral histories – has a long tradition in the U.S. and is becoming more and more popular all over the world. An abundance of artifacts compiled by famous, semi-famous, and not-at-all-famous people fill public libraries, private bookshelves, research centers, social media, hard drives, and websites. And that’s actually not even surprising since writing and/or talking about ourselves is a deeply rooted cultural practice and comes very naturally to most human beings. We do it all the time: We tell a significant someone how our day was, we put together our résumé when applying for a new job, we talk about childhood memories with siblings or a close friend. However, talking and writing about ourselves in an academic context and, to boot, in a foreign language is a completely different story.

6 January 2021Best Books & Fabulous FilmsBrain Science, Calvisi, Fiction, How To Write, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Lisa Cron, Novels, Pantsers, Screenplay, Screenwriting, Stories, Story Maps, Story Structure, Storytelling, WritingHenrike Kattoll

Storytelling: Of Geniuses and Maps

By Kai-Arne Zimny

What makes a piece of fiction successful, apart from a good portion of luck? Well, some writers deem the craft of ‘plotting’ essential for creating fiction that goes somewhere, while others prefer to write from the seat of their pants and are likely to dread the prospect of their art being anything less than inspiration, talent, and vision.

Let me introduce you to two writing guides that might offer some perspective on the initial question. First, let’s visit someone who claims that both ‘pantsers’ and plotters are on the wrong track because …