Storytelling Word Exercise

Wednesday’s Words: Focus on Details and Order

This week’s Wednesday’s Words is a bit different — and it comes with some insights as a bonus!

People who suffer from a loss in brain function often struggle to try to figure out what comes next.    It does not matter whether that change in the brain was a result of an accident, incident, disease (Parkinson’s, CVA, Alzheimer’s, etc.),  a cure for a disease (chemotherapy), or aging —  figuring out the steps to make every day things work can be a major stopping point.   This is a tough concept to understand but skipped steps or wrong order can ruin a day or even be dangerous.   Here is a storytelling exercise to help you see this whole concept better.

STEP 1:  Take out a piece of paper and pencil or open a document.   Your first task is to record every step of one of the following common tasks.   Write this out as if you were telling a story and you want your reader to really understand what you are doing.   Make sure your list is absolutely complete.

Ironing a shirt 

Making coffee

Boiling an egg

STEP 2:  Review your story.  Did you plug in and unplug as needed?  Forgetting to plug in the iron, for example, will not help it get hot and forgetting to unplug could be dangerous.  Did you remember to mention turning the appliances on and off?   Was there water in the pan?  I know a woman who burned 10 pans in month….  Thank goodness for kind her family who kept replacing them!  Did you place the shirt on the ironing board?  Did you put in a filter to hold the coffee grounds?     Go back and fill in any details you missed.

STEP 3:  Now take a peak into the mind of someone with a brain injury.  Re-arrange order of the entire list — swap steps randomly — and try to complete the task with items out of order!!!

It is the little details — every single one of them, in the correct order — that make life work well.

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