Page 257 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

224 Part 3 Putting Theory Into Practice

TV meteorologists
often use a spatial
pattern to explain the
weather.

Extended Narrative

An extended narrative is a pattern of organization in which the entire body
extended narrative
of the speech is the telling of a story. In Chapter 8, we introduced narrative as a
A pattern of organization
form of support for a speech. As support, one main point of a speech might be
in which the entire body
a narrative, but the other main points might be in the form of statistics, expert
of the speech is the tell-
opinions, facts, and the like. However, an extended narrative means the whole
ing of a story.
speech is one story. In this case we tell a story in sequence, with a climactic
point near the end of the speech. This organizational pattern is often very use-
ful in speeches to entertain. Thus, if we were to tell the story of a blind date, we
might pattern our speech as follows:
I. I am asked to go out on a blind date.
II. I meet the date.
III. Disaster follows.
Sometimes a persuasive speech can also be built around an extended nar-
rative of some incident that dramatizes the problem being addressed in the
speech. An example of an extended narrative in a persuasive speech might be
the following:
I. Jim had too much to drink at a fraternity party.
II. His frat brothers dared him to hop a moving freight train.
III. Jim attempted to jump onto the moving train.
IV. He lost his balance and fell under the train; both of his legs were severed.
V. Jim lived and has dedicated his life to fi ghting alcohol abuse.
Notice that a story needs not only a plot line but also characters, including a
central character with whom the audience can identify. In this particular story,