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** Tracing the Storyteller’s Craft through Dramatic Narrative **
 * Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk, Plot the Plot (?): **

How may we define the term “story?” Which literary elements constitute the storytelling process, drawing our senses to tragedy and comedy, sorrow and jubilee, dissolution and absolution? Perhaps we should commence our query with rudimentary research; let us describe our subject. The Oxford English dictionary portrays a story as “A narrative, true or presumed to be true, relating to important events and celebrated persons of a more or less remote past; a historical relation or anecdote” ([|“Story”]). Through our reading of this description we should notice “story’s” direct relationship with the term “narrative”—a word further catalogued by the OED as “An account or narration; a history, tale, story, recital (of facts, etc.)” ([|“Narrative”]). Thank you, dictionary-makers, for your succinct circular definition!

Perhaps Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French—authors of //WritingFiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft//—may aid us in our quest to understand storytelling’s units of meaning. According to these critics’ commentary, a story merely includes “a series of events recorded in their chronological order” (Burroway and Stuckey-French 273): a recollection without meaning, without plot. How do we define significant storytelling—narration with dramatic implication? Please ponder this question for a brief moment. Did you interject, “Wait, teacher! Before we continue, what does plot mean?” If you did so question, I congratulate you!
 * The plot thickens.**

**An English scholar shall you become!**

Burroway and Stuckey-French also define plot as “a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance […] plot’s concern is ‘what, how, and why,’ with scenes ordered to highlight the workings of cause and effect” (273). Thus, a plot assembles and organizes a story’s occurrences into a compelling weave-work of action and reaction, incidence and consequence. This literaryorder—often structured via a character’s [|journey of //conflict//, //climax//, and //resolution//]—imbues each tale with a possibility of closure; when the tale’s characters surmount their final challenge, they shall receive compensation for their toil—whether rewarding or punitive. Indeed, a story’s plot offers the reader a reason to experience the narrative in entirety; a plot presents its readers with a character-driven trial, and then promises them an end-solution to such a dilemma.

**And now, commence the stretching of the brain!**

As you may have already guessed, narrative transcends the printed page, finding expression through other artistic outlets. We shall now apply our understanding of storytelling convention to the realm of interpretive dance; we shall tease plot and passion from the movements and mannerisms of the Atlanta-based Giwayen Mata dance troupe. Please enjoy your viewing of these performers’ presentation, “[|Putting It All Together],” and return to our conversation on the other side (of the page).