THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF STORIES

I have given several presentations and workshops over the years on "The Secret Language of Stories," exploring the plotting secrets of professional writers. In addition to working in the public schools as a speech-language pathologist and as a private dyslexia therapist, I have published three young adult novels. (Find out more about my novels HERE.)

In 2021, I combined my love of writing with my experiences working with struggling readers and writers to create Story Frames: Enhancing Student Learning Through the Power of Storytelling. It is a twelve-step story analysis I created that is inspired by The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler and various other books on story plotting for professional writers (See my blog post about How Screenwriting and Novel Writing Strategies Influenced Story Frames). I use the Story Frames method to create my novels and teach writing to kids of all ages and adults. I teach students storyboarding and a strategy called Pictography to capture important plot points through quick sketches. 

My method is broken down into twelve basic elements or Story Frames. Stories don’t necessarily contain all of the components, and they don’t always occur in the order given here. In longer stories, many of the elements are repeated. The twelve basic elements for the COMPLETE Storyboard are below:

BEGINNING:

1. Ordinary World

2. Call and Response

3. Mentors, Guides, and Gifts

4. Crossing

MIDDLE:

5. New World

6. Problems, Prizes, and Plans

7. Midpoint Attempt

8. Downtime

END:

9. Chase and Escape

10. Death and Transformation

11. Climax: The Final Test

12. Final Reward

For younger students or when analyzing simpler stories, I use a BASIC storyboard containing eight elements:

1. Ordinary World

2. Call and Response

3. Problem and Prize

4. Plan

5. Attempt 1

6. Attempt 2

7. Climax - The Final Test

8. Reward

This year, my blog posts will focus on sharing a variety of children's books that I have analyzed using this structure.  I'm always looking for ways to make the writing process fun and engaging. Chapter 6 of my Story Frames book focuses on "From Speaking to Writing: Sentences, Paragraphs, and Stories." One of the many downloadable resources from that chapter is a Story Ad Lib. It's a fun, fill-in-the-blank story writing activity similar to commercial Mad Lib games. My version gives students a fun way to practice working with narrative structure. This year, I will be giving away several PDF activities in my monthly newsletter based on Story Ad Libs. The first will come out on February 27, 2026. Sign up HERE if you would like to receive my newsletter and receive those free PDFs.

Go to Brooke's Publishing for more information about Story Frames.