Video Transcript: Lesson 7

Hello and welcome back to Writing for Ministry Lesson Seven: Building Your  Structure. At this point, we have identified our audience, named our  conversation partners, chosen our form, identified some action outcomes, and  generated a lot of brainstorming and freewriting material that we can use. Now  we need to start to shape that material.  

This week we're going to talk about choosing the right structure for our  message. Now, some of the shape is going to be determined by the form we've  chosen, but let's assume you've chosen something that is a little longer than a  tweet or a Facebook status, something like a magazine article or a personal  essay or maybe even an academic paper. There are a lot of different ways you  can structure these things.  

You might have learned the following structure when you were in high school. I  know I did. The first is an introduction. This is where you tell people what your  paper is going to be about. Then you make your first point. This is usually your  

weakest point. Then you make your second point. This is your kind of middle  point. And then your strongest point. Your strongest point of your argument is  your third point. Finally, you add a conclusion where you summarize what you've written, and hopefully, in the best case, have some kind of takeaway. Everything  adds up. Point 1 plus point 2 plus point 3 equals some conclusion. And there  really are, even though this is very simple, there really are worse ways you can  structure things.  

So let's see how this structure would fit into the example that I've been  developing. Remember now, I've got a couple things I'm working from. I have  my graphic, my mind map, and I've done some free writing, so I've got a few  things that I'm going to think about.  

Okay, first the introduction. Hmm, I want to grab people right away with this, so  I'm going to start with that story about my childhood and how I didn't have any  mentors. And then the first point, first point is going to be point that Barbara  Brown Taylor makes, and and I'm going to support that. The second point, I'm  going to draw on the use of technology. That's going to be about young people  and technology, and the third point is going to be about how demographics are  changing, and people are staying with their parents longer, and can't afford  places of their own, and enjoying a church-kind of an arrested development of  sorts. And then the conclusion is going to be children need mentors, and that  maybe even some of these readers could be a mentor, but this structure to me  is not perfect. It lacks movement, and without movement, we're going to have a  hard time moving our readers, which is what we want to do. We want them  toward to move toward the action that we want them to take. 

Now, so that's that's a structure you can use. Feel free, but Nancy Duarte, I think I'm saying her name correctly, has a great take on how the structure of a  speech. She has analyzed many many speeches, and she finds they all follow  this same structure. And it's, I believe, it's something that can apply to writing as  well. I've linked, I've added a link to her video. Make sure you watch it because  I'm going to move on from this point, assuming that you you have watched it or  you you will watch it.  

The summary of her structure is this: you start with what is. This is where people are in the world. You connect with your reader on a certain level that you you  show that you know where they are and that they can trust you. Then it moves  to what could be, and then you go to what is, and then you go back to what  could be, and then you go to what is, and then what could be, and then what is,  and then you reach this new normal and you move people there. And so they've  made all these these movements from what is to what could be, and you leave  them in what is. What does this structure look like in our model?  

Well, we start with what is. Young people need direction in life, and then we  move on to what could be. We do a section. We write for a little while about  conversation partner one. Maybe we bring in Barbara Brown Taylor again and  her words on that, and we write about what she has to say, how we feel about  that. Maybe we'll disagree with it. Maybe we'll agree with it, and then we'll talk  about what is.  

Young people are very busy. They are immersed in technology. They're staying  at home longer. College is more expensive, and then we go to what could be  where the church could foster people and encourage people and and operate in  those environments, and maybe we bring in other some of our conversation  partners to support that point.  

And what is we go back to the lure of technology, the isolation of social media,  even though it's both social and isolating. And see it. We're bringing in some of  our mind mapping, free writing materials here, and then we do. There's a piece  

that the last action, that last line that goes up from what is to what could be.  Duarte calls her call to action, and it leaves us with this new normal or this new  sense of what could be. And we say the church could be a place where young  people feel welcome and loved and part of their home.  

So you can already feel-I know I can-you can feel a movement in this tension  between what is, what could be, what is, what could be, and it has that has a 

real advantage, a real power, even over that more basic introduction, point 1 2  3, and then your conclusion.  

Okay, here's your assignment: take your mind map, your free writing, and your  graphic, and create an outline for your writing. You can use the simpler  structure, but try to use Duarte's structure. Make sure you've watched her whole video; it's wonderful, and try to use Duarte's structure: her what is, what could  be, what is, what could be. This may take a little while, and the pieces of what  you're writing might not fit exactly into that structure.  

But if you can get it solid, it's going to be a lot easier to do the second part of  your assignment, which is to finally drum roll write up the first draft of your work,  yay! Once you have your outline, start writing your piece. Follow the structure  you've set out and walk through the sections as you've laid them out. Now, don't  worry about the details and be sure to ignore that voice in your head telling you,  "Oh, this is really good and this is really bad. Time for that will come later. Just  get your draft completed, and then find a way to celebrate. Once you've done  that, find a way to celebrate. The first draft really is the hardest part. Once you  once you have that done, you'll have something tangible and malleable, and  you'll be able to start to see what you're working with, and you'll be able to see,  look, I did something, and it'll be great.  

And then next time, we're going to do a little bit of an aside. So you're going to  have a longer time if you're doing these week by week, you're gonna have a  little bit longer time to work on your writing assignment. We're gonna we're  gonna do aside from the step by step process and talk about story and  storytelling. Not only is this part of my own passion, but it will give you a little  more time to work on your draft before we move on to the next part, which will  be two lessons from now, getting feedback and editing your work. Let's write.