How a failed narrative taught me about effective storytelling

In middle school, I discovered that I had a knack for telling stories -- and this discovery came about as a result of an assignment given to us by our English teacher. The assignment was to write a personal narrative about something that we had experienced in our lives. Being only in middle school and not having ever really done anything remarkable in my life up to that point, I was completely stumped about what to write. I could think of nothing that would be interesting to anyone else: I went to school, went home, watched TV, played with my friends, and ate dinner with my family. (Had I been skilled in realism at that age, I might have made this into an interesting narrative -- but my literacy skills were still very premature). Thus, with a deadline fast approaching I simply began writing about the first thing that came to me that I thought might be captivating enough for my audience -- a car ride that I was on with my mother that ended in a fender bender in a Subway parking lot. When I began writing it, I thought that the fender bender would be the climax of the story -- but once I arrived there I realized how anti-climactic it was and that no one reading the narrative would be impressed by it or particularly jolted by it. In my young experience, I had remembered the incident well -- but I could not convey the impressions I had at the time in writing.

So I continued on with the story -- we returned home, we unwrapped our Subway sandwiches, and -- because the fender bender had taken up a considerable amount of time -- our sandwich buns were soggy. I ended the personal narrative on this note, heightening the drama of having to eat soggy buns in a way that made the story very humorous and gave it a twist that no one saw coming. I went from attempting to write a serious piece to writing a personal narrative that verged on satire. I could not explain why this happened but knew that in using my artistic sense and sense of literacy, the story that I intended to produce was insufficient and I needed to take it in a direction that would be natural, compelling and still true to life -- and if that meant the story would be "less serious" as a result, so be it. My story ended with me crying out, "Soggy buns! Oh no! Why did this have to happen?" When my teacher read the story, he was so impressed he read it aloud to the class, saying, "This is the best story I have ever read by a student!" I was proud -- but also very embarrassed for receiving so much attention.

The lesson I learned that relates to literacy is that the way we intend to use language may not always be the most effective means of conveying something authentic. We should be willing to make changes to our pre-conceived notions and be willing to go to new places with language and literacy. I did and that moment stayed with me for the rest of my academic life and I still think back on it as the moment that I really began to understand language and how it can totally change the dynamic of a communication, narrative, or tale.