PROMPTS FOR VOICE AND STYLE

I. Anecdote: write a short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident.

This should be something from your own life, a brief, humorous episode. Again, this is a writing workshop, so you are striving to achieve a presentation that is entertaining in the ways that stories entertain.

II. Personal Narrative: write a short personal narrative: this is a form of writing in which the writer relates an event, incident, or experience from his or her own life, and in the first-person POV. The events of a personal narrative are most often presented in chronological order, the order in which they actually occurred in time. The personal narrative incorporates vivid descriptive details as well as the thoughts, feelings, and reactions of the writer.

This should be a little longer than the anecdote, and you are striving to present a narrative that is compelling, like a story. The difference is that an anecdote need not make any ‘point,’ it need merely be entertaining in some way, whereas the personal narrative should end with a ‘point,’ some epiphany on the part of the narrator, some realization about life, or morality, etc., a coming of age moment, something, and this makes the entire narrative more meaningful.