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Q&A Where are the six honest serving men?

A lifetime ago I learned about Rudyard Kipling's 5W1H framework: I have six honest serving men They taught me all I knew I call them What and Where and When And How and Why and Who ...

0 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:28:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/18263
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:28:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
A lifetime ago I learned about Rudyard Kipling's 5W1H framework:

> I have six honest serving men  
> They taught me all I knew   
> I call them What and Where and When   
> And How and Why and Who

(from [The Kipling Method](http://creatingminds.org/tools/kipling.htm).)

I don't hear about them anymore. Is this still in use in writing non-fiction? How is it used?

BTW: I use the servants for my sequence diagrams which I use to visualize non-fiction stories.

Let us assume that I want to write a story about me and my mapmaking obsession. Then I would start like: ![My mapmaking story](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l54qr.jpg)

_(if the diagram is not readable you can download the diagram and open it with a picture viewer)_

On the top and bottom row are the story's actors and participants (humans, object, places, moments in time etcetera, or the **who** , the **what** and the **where** ). The arrows visualize the activities (the **how** ) between the participants. You read the sequence diagram top-down following the arrows in sequence (the **when** ). You can put notes in the diagram to explain the **why** or for other things which need attention or to give more detail on the who, what, were, when or how.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-07-17T18:01:42Z (over 9 years ago)
Original score: 2