Mini-Whole Stories

A Whole Story can be as small as a paragraph, a quote, or a single sentence.  Interestingly, most beautifully conceived sentences are mini-whole stories:

Example #1: one of the great sentences of all time:         

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men area created equal.     

The data: 87 years ago…

The event: … our fathers founded a new nation…

The Issue: … which was all about liberty …

The Idea: and “the proposition” of equality

 

Example #2: A wonderful sentence from Ethel Payne, Chicago Defender, 1956, on the Montgomery Bus Boycott:

The young, the old, the middle-aged, the lame and the halt, housewives, maids and cooks, bellhops, janitors and laborers, school teachers, doctors and lawyers – they were all taking to the road.  

The data: Maids, teachers, lawyers, etc.

The event: Walking, not taking the bus

The issue: They want change so all people, regardless of race, can sit anywhere they want on a public bus

The idea: Equality

 

Example #3: An audio centerpiece for multimedia story (also used as  pivotal quote in print version) on march to end violence in a San Francisco neighborhood. A resident speaks his mind:   

“These youngsters are fighting over turf that don’t even belong to them. And they need to realize that the only turf they’re ever going to own in this country is that turf out at the Cypress Lawn, that 6 by 9 foot plot where they’re going to be buried at if they don’t wake up and smell the coffee.”                                             

 

The data: The size of a plot at Cypress Lawn

The event: Kids fighting over “turf” they don’t own

The issue: Gang wars

The idea: Futility

 

Example #4: A cell  

The data:  nucleus, golgi, vacuole, mitochondrion, etc., all the stuff in the cell

The event:  the cell dividing

The issue:  how the cell (and the new ones that come from it) knows how to do what it does   

The idea: Life