Punctuation Points in Transformative Stories

When you read a book, go to a live play, the opera, or ballet, or watch a movie, there will almost always be bits that make you sit up and take notice, and that usually cause an emotional reaction of some kind. (Those who have attended Samuel Beckett's plays such as End Game, Waiting for Godot, in which the only reaction is boredom, more boredom, and even more boredom, will realise there are exceptions to this rule).

When you are in conversation with someone and they are telling you a story, it also always more interesting when you find yourself actively involved, wanting to know more - you will start asking questions, or providing the right noises to encourage the person to continue.

I like to call these 'punctuation points'. Usually, we won't remember the whole story but we will remember the things that made us exclaim, question, think more about something. These are usually aligned to key moments in the protagonist's journey.

For example, the slow build up of caring for a neighbour's child one day, full of routine activities like baking a cake, cutting shapes out of paper, watching Play School is not likely to engage the listener, unless of course there is a complication - 'He didn't realise the beaters were moving so fast and he jammed his fingers between them, there was blood everywhere and I panicked. What should I do?' (I bet you want to know what happened next). Or, for a less gory story, 'She got up and danced the whole Dying Swan scene, from start to finish, I couldn't believe how talented she was, you have to see it!

As you can see, these bits of excitement usually finish with some kind of punctuation - a question mark, and exclamation mark etc. These punctuation points usually preface some kind of transformation - the little boy who jammed his fingers was taken to hospital, plastic surgery was performed but he never regained full use of his fingers, the little girl's parents were astonished to hear she could dance so well, she had never done this at home - they enrolled her in ballet school and she won a dance scholarship at the age of 15.

Extending this, we can see how, in a transformational/applied story, it is important to identify the punctuation points that give life and meaning to the story, and to a person's life journey.