What people actually said
Read out the line somebody said in your story. Just the line, with no explanation.
Direct speech is the fastest way to make a story longer and better at the same time. It is also the fastest way to lose the tense, which is why we drill it now.
Six ways of putting speech into a story. Match each to what it does.
Where the extra two minutes come from
The same story at ninety seconds, and at four minutes
Ninety seconds: We got lost driving to my cousin’s wedding. We arrived two hours late and missed the ceremony. My mother did not speak to my father for a week.
Four minutes adds: what the car smelled like; my father refusing to stop and ask; the exact sentence my mother said at the roundabout, twice; the petrol station where a woman drew us a map on a paper bag; the fact that we still have the bag; my cousin coming outside in her dress to meet us; and what my father said eleven years later when somebody brought it up.
Three questions about the list of additions.
1. How many new events did the four-minute version add?
2. Why does the exact sentence at the roundabout get told twice?
3. The paper bag is mentioned twice — once in the story and once in the present. What does that do?
Five ways to make a minute
Where extra time comes from
| Add | Question to ask yourself | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| A sense | What could you smell, hear, or see? | 15 seconds |
| A line of speech | What did somebody actually say? | 15 seconds |
| A second scene | Where else did this happen? | 30 seconds |
| A person’s face | How did somebody look when it happened? | 10 seconds |
| A consequence | What changed afterwards, for how long? | 20 seconds |
| Now | What do you think of it today? | 20 seconds |
Put the five additions into the order they would naturally fall across a four-minute story.
Build the four minutes on paper
Task card · Planning · Individual · 6 minutes
You are about to speak for four minutes. Notes only — words and phrases, never sentences, or you will read them aloud.
A page with six headings and three or four words under each.
- Scene — and one thing you could smell or hear.
- The event that breaks it.
- One line somebody said, in their exact words.
- A second scene, somewhere else.
- What changed afterwards, and for how long.
- What you think about it now.
One to four words per gap — tenses and joints together. This is what your middle two minutes should sound like.
It was July and the car of hot plastic. We for about two hours and my father stop and ask anybody. my mother turned round in her seat and said, “We are going to miss it.” Just that. we at a petrol station outside a village nobody had heard of, and a woman us a map on a paper bag.
Four minutes, twice
Task card · Speaking · Round one · 4 minutes each
Your partner has not heard this story. Your notes are on the table and you may glance at the six headings only.
Four minutes. Not three, and not five. Your partner is timing you and will tell you when you stop early.
- Open by placing the story in time, then set a scene with something you could smell or hear.
- At least one line of direct speech, in the person’s own words.
- At least three joints from Lesson 4, including It turned out that…
- Close on now, not on the last event.
- If you run out at three minutes, go back and add a face or a second scene. Do not talk more slowly.
Listener’s job. Three columns, and you have to fill all three:
1. React out loud at least eight times. Silence for four minutes is not neutral; it is discouraging.
2. Note every tense that broke — the point where the story slipped into the present, or the scene took the simple.
3. Write the one sentence you would still repeat to somebody else tomorrow.
Between the rounds — three minutes. Read your partner’s three columns. Then decide two things and write them on your notes page.
Which addition are you going to make bigger, and which part are you going to cut? A four-minute story that grows to five is worse, not better.
Task card · Speaking · Round two · New partner · 4 minutes
Same story, new listener, same clock. The second telling of anything is better than the first; this round finds out by how much.
Four minutes again, with the one addition bigger and the one cut gone. Notes face down this time.
- No notes at all. You know it now.
- The sentence your first listener wrote down — make sure it survives.
- Your new listener keeps the same three columns.
- Compare the two pages afterwards. The second one should have fewer broken tenses and more reactions.
Where the tense broke
Five sentences from round one. Four are tense; one is a false friend.
1. So we are driving along and suddenly my mother starts shouting.
2. While she drew the map, we were waiting in the car.
3. I was not remembering the name of the village.
4. My father didn’t said anything for an hour.
5. My mother could not support it any longer.
What four minutes cost you
Two questions about your own two rounds.
1. You reached three minutes and ran out. What is the fix?
2. Compare your two listeners’ pages. What usually improves in round two?
Before next lesson. Keep both listeners’ pages. Count the broken tenses on each.
Next lesson is built out of exactly those, plus the false friends that came back when you stopped watching for them.