7 line story

Once upon a time there was an office worker who hated her job.
And every day she drove the 10 miles to work, usually speeding because she couldn't bring herself to leave home on time.
Until one day while she was speeding along, she ran into a trash can someone had left too far from the edge of the road.
And because of that her rearview mirror smacked against her passenger side window, cracking the glass in the mirror.
And because of that she took the car to the dealer who said it would cost $400 to replace the mirror.
Until finally her father thought the dealer was trying to cheat her, so he called his friend at Joe's Auto-Body, who said he'd do the job for $100.
And ever since then the office worker decided never to go to the dealership for car repairs. She still speeds to work, though.

Explanation: We did this in my improv class one day. The idea is you can summarize any story in 7 lines if you stick to the outline above. It's pretty easy to make up a story in that format, but it's surprisingly difficult to shoehorn events from your real life into it. I think it's good practice, though.

"Until one day" is the easiest line. It's where the break in the pattern--the event in your life that was out of the ordinary--occurs. People who can't tell stories well (I include myself) usually jump right to this line and often forget about the other 6. The first 2 give context: Most stories have a few different people in them. "Once upon a time" forces you to figure out who the main character is. "And every day" forces you to define what normal is, so people will know when something abnormal occurs. Lines 4-6 are all about heightening. A story's no good if it's just, "This one weird thing happened this one time." You need a plot twist: how did the one weird thing cause something else? One plot twist isn't enough, though. It's too predictable, so: how did that something else cause a third thing to occur? Having that chain of events gives you forward motion, which you then cap in a climax on line 6. Then, line 7 is the moral or punchline. It's your chance to explain why the story was worth telling in the first place.

So, I think I'm going to try some blog posts in the 7 line story format. It's not like I'm using this thing for anything else, so maybe I can refine my storytelling skills.