Monday, February 29, 2016

Beginnings and plot Week 5.1

Beginnings


'No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.'
H.G Wells (1898)


What makes a good beginning?

In the excerpt above we can identify some key aspects to a good beginning. The first is the element of surprise, as H. G. Wells repositions the importance of the human race. There is no specific protagonist at this point but instead two groups, humans and martians. However, this is enough to set the scene, situation, motivation and in a way place the protagonist when he is introduced. The author uses mainly visual cues to describe the scene. He zooms out from the humans under the microscope to reveal the bigger picture. The martians are visually described later in the book but at this point we get a glimpse into the way their minds work. All of this works together to set up tension and encourage the reader to read on.

Introduction
Below I will continue reflecting on the feedback from the workshop and try to identify which aspects of the beginning and plot of my story might be confusing or lacking in some way.

Golden rule
I feel that there are surprises in my story but they are perhaps too slow to emerge. If I need to grab the attention of the reader, I need to make this surprise more explicit in the first paragraph.

The seven ingredients



Character
Even though the character comes from reality, perhaps I need to modify some of his characteristics for my story. I think this can be helped by answering some of the questions from the workshop, such as identifying his desires.

Situation
Although I had the where and the what clearly in my head I will need to revisit the story to make this clearer. This can be done by looking at the bigger picture and perhaps by naming the city in which the story takes place. Another area I need to consider here is the when.

Special narrative voice
As I shifted perspective a great deal during the story, I might need to give each perspective a more clearly defined character. I think the changes in perspective are important for my story so I need to find a way to maintain this while still anchoring the story to the protagonist.

Motivation
What does my character want? Does he want to go to war? Why? These are the main questions I would like to answer when I go into the redrafting process. I also need to find a way of including this motivation into the first paragraph.

Action
The character is not really placed until the second paragraph so I need to decide whether to give this away at the beginning or not.

Sensory details
In the first paragraph I deliberately left of most of the senses as the character was in a virtual world. It might be a good idea to change this in some way.

No empty descriptions
I have tried my best to use every detail to develop the story but some of this story seems to have gone unnoticed, so again I need to make this clearer for the reader. 

Plot

Looking at Friedman's 'types of plot' (1955) I find it difficult to match just one of them to my story. To me it seems that within each story you can have a variety of different plot elements. However, I'm not sure if my story completely fulfils any of these plots, which makes me wonder whether my plot is rather weak. Perhaps by identifying or selecting a more specific plot type I can give my story more direction or purpose. 



Ideas for technology enhanced creative writing for beginnings and plot


I could definitely see Popplet or Mindomo being used to map out the main elements of a story in the planning stage in the same way I have mapped out the elements above. This in itself does not necessarily enhance creative writing over using pen and paper, but it does give learners the opportunity to link their ideas to other content online. Linking each element to media and websites with related content could aid the generation of ideas and help learners find initial inspiration.

These tools could also be used to create a plot diagram or you could use the ReadWriteThink website to build a story mountain. Another idea is to create your plot via a storyboard, there are a variety of tools online that combine storyboarding with images, such bubblr and Storybird.

If you get really stuck for ideas there are some websites that randomly generate story prompts, such as imagination prompt generator and writing fix.

You can always look to the internet to find advice on writing from the masters. For example, here are George Orwell's 6 question/6 rules and Stephen King's 7 tips.



References

Friedman, N. (1955) Forms of the Plot, Journal of general Education, Vol;VIII.

Wells, H.G. (1898) The War of the Worlds, William Heinemann.

The senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing Week 4.1


The senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing

This is a short description of a hotel room to practise the use of detail.

Dubai hotel room


Walking through the narrow doorway, you are greeted by a barrel shaped bedroom with shiny wooden floors and a transparent curved ceiling. The first thing that attracts your attention are the shoals of fish that glide in and out of view above you framed by the deep dark expanse to either side. You can hear the rippling and rumbling sounds of the heaving sea as it embraces your room. The wooden floors creak and click as the room gently bobs up and down with the waves. There in front of you is a bowl of mouth-watering tropical fruits pull you towards them. You take a bite of the sweet and succulent flesh as your eyes are drawn to the wine glasses and the nicely chilled bottle of champagne to your left. You decide to leave opening the bottle till later, maybe on the terrace above, as you are wary of the seemingly thin glass above. The glowing towers that stand at the back of the room guard the watery gateway beyond the bed. Their burning silhouettes project themselves through the curved glass where they wiggle and swim with the fish. You reach out and stroke your hand along the silky surface by your side feeling the movement of the room lull you into this luxury resting place. Just then the sounds of bare feet descending on the iron ladder rungs mix into the symphony of sounds around you and remind you that you're not alone.

Click to reveal image

Introducing a character

Sarah had seen it all and wore an expression that urged you to constantly point out all the beautiful things around you. Each attempt you made just seemed to make it worse, life had little more to offer, not even an under water hotel room could change that.

Introduce a character to your scene
Base your character on one of these emotions

Which one was it?

She was afraid
She was tired
She was overjoyed
She was disheartened
She was in love

After the workshop

After the workshop

Things to consider

As I mentioned before, I was a bit apprehensive about discussing my story, but in the end it was very interesting to see the way people had perceived it. It made me realise how much was really just in my head, or perhaps, between the words. I actually felt like I had been too explicit in my descriptions but in reality the story seemed to confuse most of the readers. To be honest, I was trying to confuse the readers but not to the extent that I couldn't communicate what was in my head. I think the main points of confusion were the changing point of view and the lack of anchoring, perhaps around the main character. Luckily, this week we are looking at point of view, so this might help me.

Filling in the gaps

I also found it interesting the way readers almost create their own idea of a story in the spaces where you left a gap. I noticed this when we spoke about Ronan's piece in which each of us had created a slightly different image in our heads or simply read a word in a way that it fit with our idea. This means that if you want to transmit something specific you need to make it very clear through details. This will be my main focus.

This can be compared to what happens with visual illusions such as the Kanizsa triangle (Kanizsa, G 1955).
Kanizsa triangle

Although no triangle exists in this image the black circles at each corner trick the viewer into seeing one while in a story, we use details create an image in the heads of the readers. Readers will fill in the gaps, but a skilful writer should be able to control the way these gaps are filled by manipulating the details or black circles.


Questions to consider

These were the questions that came up which I will reflect on for my second draft.


  1. Who is who?
  2. What is it really about?
  3. Do you get the feeling that he is a teenager?
  4. Why does the boy want a promotion? (I might even change the wording here as it sounds adult)
  5. How does he get paid?
  6. What is the offer at the end?
  7. Is it what he wants?
  8. Does he get it?
  9. What is happening in the world?
  10. Is there a war?
  11. Is the character for or against war?


Reflection on writing

Reflection on first draft
Spoiler alert!


Giphy


Introduction

To be honest, I do not really feel like a writer but I did enjoy writing this little story. I have tried to use some of the advice we have been given so far, such as using detail to drive the plot or develop the character. However, I do feel this needs a little work as some parts of my story are quite explicit. By this I mean that I am telling the reader rather and showing them. Also, there is also no dialogue in my story which could perhaps be included where the boy meets the drone. I think I will wait for the initial workshop before pondering this further.

Perspective

I wanted to experiment with different perspectives throughout the story to delay the reality of the situation. The story starts in first person, then switches to third, then to first person of a different character outside the scene. After this we switch back to third person then first again. The final letter addresses the reader as if they were the character. What perspective is this? I do not know if any of this works or if it just confuses the reader, but I will find out soon. Over the next few weeks on this course we will be doing a series of workshops in which our writing will be scrutinised. After each session we can try to take on board what was said and improve on the original.

Escher


I think I have an innate fear of the workshop as it reminds me of this video from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy


Getting started

So how did I get started on my story?


My story is actually based on someone I know and most of the details have come from the experience they are going through. The story is basically about an unwanted teenager who has been abandoned and found refuge in a virtual world. In reality, this world is the world of MOOs on PS3 with games such as GTA and Destiny.

GTA

I noticed the way he has developed a community of friends online which seem to have replaced the ones in the real world. They can even phone each other up through the game controller and arrange to meet up within the game. He also left school but is now attending a private school to catch up, fingers crossed. I do not really believe that these worlds are to blame for dropping out of school, but they do provide a convenient escape. In fact, if used properly, games could be used as a form of therapy in the future. From this reality I wondered what would happen if you could earn money in a game and what the consequences would be for society.

I had this idea in my head for a week or so but didn't write anything down, then my mum told me about an article in the guardian where an eagle was being used to catch drones. For some reason, before she had even told me, I had decided I was going to combine it with my story. This was because I felt that I needed some kind of restriction to get going, as explained in my previous post.



Time and place

My story is set in a kind of parallel universe rather than the future. I say this because the world is a mix of present and future. On the one hand, the technology seems quite advanced, even if it does already exist. On the other, the buildings in the city and decor of the house are very much present day Naples. This idea of slightly shifting reality is extremely well demonstrated in the Black Mirror series and I had this in mind as I was writing my story.




Black Mirror


Almost transmedia?

I wanted to take advantage of the blogging platform to include some fairly abstract images, use different fonts, integrate a Voki and make use of hyperlinks. In fact, these rather tentative steps into a more transmedia presentation of writing have most definitely whet my appetite for more. It's exciting to see the way a story can become non-linear or move between different media, for example videos and text to speech generators. Come to think of it, the first book I ever chose to read at primary school was a choose your own adventure story, about elves, if I remember correctly. I've actually tried using these types of stories with my classes, but up until now this has been mainly on paper.

Here is an example of a selection of video adventure stories I used as inspirationhttps://www.youtube.com/user/chadmattandrob

There is also a website for the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy with a vast array of resources and an interactive story/game based on the books.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml

And here is a link to the original radio broadcast.
http://www.induceddyslexia.com/hitchhiker.htm