Communicating Through Story Characters

Book excerpt: Writer and educator Brooke noticed that many of the stories used to convey new concepts to people in developing countries are simply bad stories and ineffective in convincing the listener or reader of the ideas being disseminated. She explains to development workers when to use a story, how people learn from stories, choosing a format and style, creating a storyline, writing a script, and bringing the story to life. Her focus is to make the characters, their situation, their values, and their actions believable to the specific audience targeted. She uses her major medium of radio drama as the example, but the principles can be applied to print, television or video, and live theater. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR