These are some excellent insights into the elements of storytelling from Ira Glass of NPR's "This American Life" (which has featured some amazing storytelling, including Un-Cabaret performances by Julia Sweeney).

In this rap, Ira lays out some important building blocks of oral storytelling for radio or TV. It's also good advice for one-person shows, standup or spoken word.

Even if it's not your end goal, think about using stage or any way of talking out loud to 'write' because then you are generating material from the 'right' side of your brain.

"A plot is something you bury a body in. A story is like a level of a building. It's something that gets you closer to heaven." - Beth Lapides

Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl (or girl-boy, girl-girl, etc.). That's the classic 3-act structure; a linear chronological progression. And that's the way a lot of people try to tell their own story when they're developing a script, one-person show, personal essay or memoir. But there are other options.

Scott Brown makes some good points about the limitations of traditional linear structure and the need for modern storytelling in this month's Wired. But he doesn't offer any real solutions.

The most popular alternative to chronological structure is to use a voice-over from an omniscient (or at least more knowing) narrator who takes you through a (usually) chronological linear sequence in their past.