Here is the content of the course more in and titles and headings. I have not included all the details. Thanks to the trainees, I have also had to change my plans several times and throw some of my final materials away.
Of course, I will send you my teaching/practice handouts having get them translated in English.
I have attached the links to the course body as an introduction to the subject. I searched them from the internet hastily for you. I have used other materials that I have studied. I think, however, you should be a bit careful about the commercial sites that open through those links.
I am sure that you will find Swedish materials if you use, for example, the headings below. In my opinion, the ‘theoretical side’ of the course should be reviewed briefly and rather quickly and move on the practical work. The course participants can start their stories right at the beginning of the course.
Handouts, for example, about intersectionality, stereotypes, and counter-narratives about women, should be presented when there is a good opportunity, and in connection with the exercises or when listening to the learners reading the draft of their stories, not ‘in a lecture’.
This material is intended to be used for community radio trainers; it is not necessarily to convey everything to learners in a formal way. I often bring things down to earth by using the expression ‘how it usually is in normal life’, and I continue, e.g., like this ‘it never happens that we get easily what we want, there are always setbacks, and someone opposes our efforts, and we need to make a new plan if possible.
It is boring if the story is a mere dash to the finish. Better is a zigzag form. It arouses the listener’s interest in ‘what is going on’ and hooks them to listen the story excitedly to the end.
The Center of the Training: Cinderella
Cinderella is a story about injustice and the struggle between good and evil. Havin lots of variations, it is probably the world’s most famous and popular fairy tale, a diamond across the cultures polished for centuries, that offers an example of well-constructed story.
The earliest version of Cinderella (the Cave Girl) is from Vietnam. It first appeared in written form in China in the 8th century.
We use the Grimm Brothers’ version of Cinderella in our course. https://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/aschenputtel
Cinderella is there in all training process of writing stories for radio. Using it, we can explain how to create conflicts, contradictions, tension, and plot twist, create or strengthening the listener’s preliminary expectations and immersion in the story. I have a text and exercises that I am working on.
Cinderella is familiar to most learners from childhood, and therefore good material for a study and research journey to making stories. I also asked the course participants to make their own Cinderella story.
Attached is also Cinderella’s story arc as picture and audio. They are based on a shorter version of the story than the Grimm Brothers’ version of Cinderella. The purpose is to make the learners’ first contact with the plot structure of the story, where the tension rises to a climax, followed by the momnets of resolution.
By audio method learners are guided to construct stories, visualized through the audios. The recording is accompanied by a very simple story cue list, exercise, and storyboard.
In addition to words, the learners put the audios to the Cinderella’ story in a sequential order, as well as their duration. Before the exercise, each learner reads their own excerpt from Cinderella, and the excerpts are recorded together, as a whole.
The Archetypal Characters and Plot Structures of the Story
In fairy tales and stories around the world, certain characters and plot structures are repeated frequently. Recurring universal and archetypal human characters are, for example, a mother (a sustainer of good life or an evil stepmother), a hero, a wise old man, a gatekeeper, a shadow (ghost), and a tricker. They all have their own meanings and functions in the story.
Inspire the learners to try using archetypes in their stories! They probably have some in their story drafts. To emphasize them can enhance the listeners’ interest, and the message of the story.
Monomyth or a hero’s journey refers to a typical plot structure found in folk and fairy tales of different countries. The hero goes on an adventure and returns not only as a winner, but also as a changed and enlightened person. Plot structure is still used today especially in movie scripts.
Ask the learners, what their own hero’s journey would be like. For many learners, the story touches on the themes related to development of their own identity.
From the Story of the Cave Man
According to Ari Hiltunen, the author of Aristotle in Hollywood, stories began to take shape in the scary animal images of the Stone Age cave paintings, when hunters could probably better control their fear in real dangerous situations, watching them while sitting in a safe place.
The story arc of the cave man: threat of famine – hunters get prepared for the journey – a search for bison – a task of driving women and children forward – encountering a herd of bison – carrying out a dangerous hunt – a challenge with carrying the prey and the wounded home – returning home as a hero.
Around the evening bonfires, the hunters dramatized their hunting journeys. The told the events of their dangerous route to others using imitations and simple words. As the events recounted again and again, they got even more complex and impressive form. Although the hero changes over time from a hunter to a farmer, the basic elements, and dramaturgy of the old story remained.
The mythical hero’s journey is similar in its dramaturgy to the caveman’s heroic story. A heroic myth is a unified formula of a dramatic story that has been very popular and dominant in the early cultures of the world. (source: to Ari Hiltunen, you can use the content giving a summary in your own words and referencing it!)
For more information about the modern version of the hero’s journey, see. For example, Dan Harmon’s Story circle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Harmon#Writing_style
Three-act Structure of the Story
I have got to know Sydney Field’s model of comic show in particular, and made teaching material out of it. However, bellow is an introduction to the three-act structure of the story in general: https://self-publishingschool.com/three-act-structure/
I have used sources that deal with films, because the examples are more familiar to most course participants than, for example, radio drama, which is hardly available. If we suppose a film as a story told in pictures, why couldn’t a radio story be a story presented in audio pictures, where speech is only one element in the sound world of the story.
A Dramatic Story
A dramatic story gets the listener to identify with the main character of the story and enlivened with its events, like a film. The main point here is to create the tension of the story through the plot structure.
The tension arises from whether the main character gets what they want or achieves the goal. The main character faces bad lucks and objections while striving for the goal. The main charcter’s movement towards the desired goal creates the drama of the story – where the will of the main character is directed.
Dramatic Pleasure
- The listener cares about and identifies with the character and their goal
- Tension rises from contradictions
- The listener experiences the tension through the character
- In a good story, justice wins.
Cinderella’s story is a good example of this.