Blog Post #4: Zambreno & More Rhetorical Tools

"Why do some stories keep returning? Modern Arthurian Fiction and the Narrative Structure of Romance" by Mary Frances Zambreno teaches us 4 tools to help us create more enticing stories. These 4 tools are Mutability or Plasticity, Piecemeal, Windows of Opportunity, and Open-Ended closures. Mutability or Plasticity are tools that describe the ability for a narrative to be rewritten and changed to appeal to a specific audience while still maintaining the same basic fundamentals. To Piecemeal is to take multiple aspects of a story from multiple sources to bring the story together while keeping it cohesive. The windows of opportunity are my personal favorite, they're parts of the story that aren't historical they're just missing parts that can allow the author to create a story that fills in the blanks. Now open-ended closures are just when the author doesn't finish the story. Open-ended closures apply to multiple more aspects though, not just the end of the story, they can apply to characters that never see the end of their story but disappear to allow the possibility that they may come back or that other stories could be written about them.

Her article taught me some other interesting things about writing for example with her thesis statement, in the past I was either told or misunderstood that the thesis was within the first paragraph and reiterated in the last paragraph. I learned through her paper that it can be in any paragraph near the beginning as long as it is clearly the thesis. Her set up of the paper was also interesting to me and I enjoyed the allusion to other works that her topic involved allowing me to explore for myself more about the topic. The facts also incurred interest and showed me she had actually done the research and had knowledge about what she was talking about. This article helped me to grow and taught me a few more tools that I can use in my personal writing.