The Foolscap Method Step 5 -  Narrative Device
Channel: Steven Pressfield
Date: 2023-06-07

Before you can sit down and start working you have to figure out the next part of your foolscap page – what Narrative Device will you use?  I think there are really two parts to the Narrative Device:
1. What’s the point of view? Who is telling the story. You should know yourself why you’ve chosen this point of view.  Genre sometimes influences this.  The book The Story Grid is a good reference for ,or details regarding genres and who is telling the story.   
2. Who are you telling the story to?  Knowing this helps keep the story consistent.  Consistent language, keeps you in a point in time and place.   For instance, if you’re telling the story to a group of children (in your minds eye) this will affect the language you choose, perhaps the pace and rhythm. Your audience may never know who that person is you’ve concocted in your head, but I’ve find it a big help to think about who I’m talking to when I’m telling a story.

Let’s look at “To Kill A Mockingbird”.  Harper Lee chose to tell the story from the point of view of Scout.  Not Scout as the 9 year old girl in the story, but Scout as an older woman looking back at this particular memory.
I chose to use this same “looking back” in “The Legend of Bagger Vance”.  Told from the POV of Bagger’s Vance’s assistant, looking back to that moment in time.
You can tell your story from the 1st person protagonist POV, from the 2nd person (this one is tricky) or from a 3rd person omniscient point of view where a god-like narrator knows the thoughts of all your characters.  
Sometimes a story is told from multiple points of view.   
What’s important is that you figure this out and follow it through.
So now, with just this information on your foolscap
Genre,
Act 1, 2, 3,
The Hero and The Villain
Your Narrative Device and
The Climax
You can look at it and begin to ask yourself – Do I have a story?  Do I like it?  What’s missing?  This becomes the pitch to yourself where you can begin bringing your world to life.
Next week I’ll talk a little more about the importance of knowing who you’re telling the story to.  

This goes for a business too.  Who is telling the story of your brand and who are you telling it to?  Does this work for music, dance, other artistic endeavours?  What do you think?

PUT YOUR ASS WHERE YOUR HEART WANTS TO BE https://www.amazon.com/Put-Your-Where-Heart-Wants/dp/B0B553D3FP