SMC Communication Personal Experience Story Paper

First performance guidelines: 

What: METAMORPHOSIS: A solo story of transformation

Time: 5 min 

This is a 5 min personal story of your choosing, that tells us about a personal transformation that you went through. Choose an event in your life that changed your life in some significant way. When you think about this event, you should think “After that happened I was never the same” or “My life has been different in some significant way since that happened.” 

This is a personal story, so not a story of someone else. Center it on your experience. 

The structure of the story should follow a basic Narrative Structure.

1. Intro: Start with a line that draws us into the story, a hook. Then, give us the pertinent details of where, who and what was happening. Set the foundation for the conflict and stakes. Who were you before this event happened? 

2. Rising Action: Build up to what happened. Build the conflict and stakes. What do you have to lose? 

3. Climax/ turning point: The Event that changed you, and you lost something, or gained something, or both. You were changed in some way. 

4. Falling action: How were you changed? What happened after, and how you were transformed? 

5. Conclusion: What have you learned since this event? What can we learn from this transformation? End with a final line or two that leave an impact on the audience. 

Please include: 

A Hook, something to draw us in

Stakes, what do you have to lose or gain? What is the conflict? 

Sensory Imagery, of all 5 senses

Appropriate/ throughout use of Metaphor, Simile and Analogy 

A button, a bow, a conclusion that is not meandering