Location as narrative

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Location in The Narrative

I’M BERNIE GOLDBACH.TEACHING CUSTOMER CARE AT

THE LIMERICK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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I LIKE STORYTELLERS.THEY KNOW THE ART OF NARRATIVE.

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This #LITcrm presentation outlines where “narrative” fits into promotion of locations.

The basics:

-- Effective compositions employ a narrative structure.

-- We can learn from storytellers.

-- Quality narrative writing can be defined by specification.

-- The smart economy needs high quality content and storytelling is a desired attribute in that context.

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BASIC FRAMEWORK

-- Focus on a specific time.-- Observe and reflect about incidents in the first person.-- Open, then build momentum.-- Use verb tense cleverly.-- Remember: Intro + body + conclusion.-- Be aware of transitions and segues.-- Review grammar and punctuation.-- Finish with a message, image or idea worth sharing.

These skills also contribute to effective activity streams.

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STORYTELLING LIMERICK.AN ESSAY BY DERVALA HANLEY.

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DECONSTRUCTING“ALL THE WAY BACK”

[AUDIENCE ANALYSIS]

“In a world without consequences,” my mother’s friend Marian had said over their weekly coffee in the Shopping Centre, “wouldn’t it be great to go to bed with Bill Clinton?” When she reported this, she added, with a 15-year-old’s giggle, “And do you know, I have to say, I agreed with her.”

Dad said, “Well, I don’t know what to make of that at all.”

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[SENSE OF STRUCTURE]

Ten days before, I’d got an email request from a friend. “Give me a few facts about Limerick,” she wrote. I told her about the pogrom of 1904; Richard Harris; the spit-flecked Redemptorist Fathers; and the arrival of Latvian, Chinese, and Polish immigrants, who brought durian crisps and rye bread, and queued up for internet access in the public library. I mentioned how unfair the Stab City nickname seemed to the citizens, and the resentment at poor-mouthing Frank McCourt. Sure, the McCourts were starving because the father was a roaring alcoholic—and that was hardly Limerick’s fault.

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[SENSE OF STRUCTURE]

These ramblings weren’t what she’d had in mind. She was pals with President Clinton’s head foreign-policy speechwriter, and he needed notes for his boss’s trip to Ireland. In those slinking days after the Starr Report, Clinton could still count on a Kennedy welcome in Ireland, which had never fallen out of love with him (and misses him still). He was a great man on the North, it was felt. Irish people took pride in believing, unlike the English with their scourging tabloids, that a politician’s sex life was none of the electorate’s business. They wouldn’t hear a word said against him.

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DECONSTRUCTING“ALL THE WAY BACK”[ATTENTION TO VERB TENSE]

I supplied replacement facts: new bridges, new industries, a new stop on the national arts’ circuit, and an abiding love of rugby that crossed class.

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[STRUCTURE]

Munster is the bottom-left of Ireland’s four provinces, and it covers Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry, and Clare. Maybe Waterford too; my geography was always poor. It has a lasting rugby rivalry with Leinster, where the Dubs are. I don’t hear of the other provinces getting in on it, but perhaps that’s because rugby is such a city game.

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[STRUCTURE]

In most of Ireland it’s a posh sport that grows from the private schools. The kids in The Commitments would have played soccer. In Dublin, rugby is for South County Dublin boys whose strong necks are bred to support barristers’ horsehair wigs as well as scrums. Long before the rest of the country could afford to fake Viking genes, their girls were swinging sheets of blonde hair over pints of Heineken.

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[TRANSITIONS]

In Limerick, tough, scrappy Limerick, the whole city is mad for the game. On the field, solicitors tackle janitors and bouncers take down mortgage brokers (or they used to, before the game went professional). In the concrete stands of Thomond Park, the doctors from St. Camillus’ freeze their backsides off next to cabbage growers. We don’t have people from all walks of life in Limerick—there are no rag-pickers, no Google billionaires, no pet psychics—but if we did, they’d probably follow rugby. On Saturday nights, girls dress up for the Sin Bin, a club owned by a former Munster star and named for the place to which he was regularly sent off.

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[WORD CHOICE]

Mum reports that Cork is jealous, because everyone is saying that they’ve never seen anything like the way the Limerick fans came out for the team. At her school, the kids all wore Munster red on Friday, except for a couple of the little Pakistani kids—which is a pity, she says, because red is lovely with their dark hair. All the teachers wore red head to toe. Dad bought a Munster jersey; Uncle Tommy and Derek went over to Cardiff to see the match, and the fans there, oh, the whole stadium was pure red.

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[OWNERSHIP]

I can hear the shine in her eyes when she talks about O’Connell Street, where the whole town gathered to watch the match on screens strung above the traffic lights. When the homecoming bus drove into Limerick in the rain, it was magic. “You turn on the news and it’s all Munster, Munster, Munster, and they’re talking about the Limerick fans and how committed they were. And the team says that’s why they won, they couldn’t let the people down.” (The Limerick people, she insists.)

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[CONCLUDING]

For my home town, Shtab City, known for hoodies and piebalds and wormy Stanley Knife scars, this Munster win, a mucky oval ball delivered over a white line, might signal the same shift in confidence. Fifteen years from now we might look back and see just how ready Limerick was to stand proud and passionate, after decades of being done down. “It’s great,” says my mother, firmly, “to see positive images of Limerick in the media for once, when they’re never nice about us.” Do you know, it is.

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YOUR WORK CREATES AN ACTIVITY STREAM.

A quick flick through Dervala Hanley, the diarist and writer, offers telling social footprints.

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ACTIVITY STREAMS REVEAL SIX DEGREES.

We are only six degrees separated from many others.

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LISTEN AND LEARN FROM STORYTELLERS

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HAVE A HIP POCKET STORY.

And be ready to share during meet-ups like Limerick OpenCoffee.

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HASHTAGGED TWEETS#LIMERICK

Hashtags represent a clever implementation of web technology.

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FLICKR ACTIVITY STREAMS

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You will capture and share your works in progress.

YOU ALSO NEED TO BE ON GOOGLE PLUS.

[MEDIA WRITING COMMUNITY]

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HELPFUL OASES

-- LinkedIn Group “Marketing Over Coffee”.-- Moodle.-- The private Media Writing Community on Google Plus.-- Read Dervala.net-- Listen to @documentally.-- Subscribe to This American Life.

It’s easy to find inspiration.

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START YOUR OUTLINES.SHARE WITH @TOPGOLD.

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• Outline

• Draft

• Compose

• Review

PRIMARY WORKFLOW

Google Docs

Moodle.lit.ie

Flickr with hashtags

Direct Tweet to @topgold

Direct Audioboo message

[email protected]

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LET’S CONNECT AND SHARE.

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Bernie.Goldbach AT LIT.iebit.ly/mw-document02InsideView.ieDervala.net

Location as narrative

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Transcript of Location as narrative