developing storytelling styles

These KBIA stories were definitely interesting and really excellent examples of storytelling, but I was surprised to find that they didn't abide by more of the suggestions that we discussed in class. There wasn't a ton of ambient/natural sound, and I didn't notice many "rule of three"s or much alliteration, really- but this made me think, in general, about what are the actual necessities for solely audio-based journalism and storytelling, and I feel like strictly adhering to rules and suggestions can almost detract from good journalism. [Also, someone once mentioned to me that its harder to record audio than it is video, and I'm becoming convinced that while its harder to produce a quality audio standalone story, it can also be more touching or valuable. As a visual person, I never saw this coming, so...this is new for me!] At this point in our journalism careers -- well, as students -- it's a good idea for us to stick with all the suggestions we're given, and try our best to adhere to all given guidelines. But as we become more advanced, the convention of storytelling will start to come more naturally and we won't need to think "okay, I need ambient sound at the beginning and end and to transition here" or "this is what it sounds like to speak in a conversational way,"-- we'll just do it. And as all of that becomes more natural and basic to us, we'll be able to actually develop our own personal conventions and little quirks to storytelling -- discovering what we do best. These stories were all really different in the amount of facts they presented, the types of information they gave and the way the stories were constructed -- but all were really valuable in different ways. It'll be interesting to see how all of our storytellling styles develop over the next few years, too!