Post 4: Diagrammatic Storytelling

The story “Great Rock n’ Roll Pauses” is about a family told from the daughter, Alison’s, point of view. Alison tells this story through a diagrammatic slide show. In this slide show, she goes through the past, describes the characters, and explains how her dad is struggling to understand his son’s obsession with pauses in songs. 

The conflict occurs when the dad tries to figure out Lincoln’s obsessions with music, specifically the pauses in songs. Lincoln was playing the songs with pauses when his dad asked him why he liked them so much. He didn’t get the answer he was looking for so he snapped, causing Lincoln to cry and causing him to run inside. The mom explained the importance of the pauses and followed Lincoln into the house to comfort him. The conflict was resolved when Alison and her dad went on a walk into the desert. During their walk, Alison and her dad talk about many things. But most importantly she helps her dad understand the importance of the pauses. 

The characters’ changes throughout this story are internal. Especially with the dad, after he talks with Alison about Lincoln’s obsession with pauses, we know that he changes because the story ends with different graphs of pauses that he helped Lincoln recreate. This shows that he has begun to understand and connect with Lincoln and his obsession. 

The diagrammatic form of the story expressed the story elements of the plot and characters very well. I think this format helped the reader visualize the story better. For example, when Alison was talking about her mom’s collages she organized that slide to look like a collage. Also, when she was talking about saying good night to her brother through their shared wall, she used a block in between the text to represent the wall. For my diagrammatic story, I will use a lot of visual elements like shapes and charts. I’m not the best at storytelling so I think adding these different graphics will help the reader to better visualize the story. Along with the graphics I will use colors that represent that part of the story similar to how colors were used in “Great Rock n’ Roll Pauses’. 

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