What makes a story? Mostly it is prominence, proximity, conflict and trends.
How do you generate content for a story? Personal contacts is one of the strongest ways to find stories, friends always have friends who have friends and so on. We were given a local newspaper and asked to find at least three news worthy stories from the classified section, the ideas were endless and it just goes to show that every one has a story.
We worked on our class website, which is both intimidating and exciting. the chosen name for our webmag is www.step-out.co.za, It is an entertainment guide for the midlands area with write ups on restaurants; local music news; fun activities: all the latest on fashion; stage; art; a section on cars and family fun in the berg. We are hoping to go live in April, so what this space!
We have had so much fun with creative writing, although sometimes I feel that being given a story to write is a wonderful form of mediation, faced with a blank computer screen and a dead line I am able to go totally blank.
Here are some of the off beat tasks we were given:
Using the following four words and write a paragraph story in 3 minutes:
JUG: SWING; FAMILY: ANGEL:
And here is my effort:
With the holidays just around the corner, why not gather the family together and swing by Rawdons country estate, the little angels can play safely in the Kiddies area while the lads grab a jug of local beer.
It looks a bit like a generic advert, but hey I used the words required. The other students were amazing and came up with some really clever stuff.
George Foder came to talk to us about event planning; He is currently organising a fund raiser called 'Jail or Bail' for the Cansa Association.
The plan is to get local celebrities and business people to go to "jail" for the day, their friends, family and enemies can then pay to either bail their colleagues out of jail or donate to keep them in jail. It will be held at the liberty Mall in PMB. George explained the importance of media when organising such an event. Good media will make an event where as bad or no media will ensure you of a disaster.
Then we went back to the 20 questions home work, which in all honestly I had been avoiding because it really is hard. But Phil is relentless and I was left with no other choice but to suck up and do it!
Important things to think about when preparing your questions for an interview:
The five W's and the H
- What; where; when; why; who and how.
I continued to avoid the 20 questions home work for a little longer and was encouraged to write my own story. I wrote about the chickens who live on the farm and spent hours and hours working on perfecting my grammar and spelling; only to hand it back to Phil who showed me all the things I never thought to look for: How many times can you say chicken in a story? and how many words describe a chicken?
Go on then...give us 5 other words for horse,dog and cat!
We are also given the task to write a short story with words that have only one syllable:
A long time gone there was a girl who LIVED in a cave. The cave was set deep in the wood and was hard to find. Here she LIVED with the bird and deer of the wood. The wood folk were close by her when she got food from the green shop. one day a man who kills small deer came to the wood. He had a big ugly van which made a big mess in the wood as he went.
There are a couple of words I just didn't know what to do with and nor did the grammar / spell check! funny!
More creative writing:
Write a story about a man who is standing by a big lake or dam, he has just committed a murder but you can't write about the murder; just describe how he feels by the lake:
I stood at the edge of the dark body of contained water watching the small ripples from the stone I had just thrown in increase in ever expanding circles until the tiny wave reached the shore only to be absorbed by the silty mud bank; thinking to myself how just one small stone can change the whole surface, yet leave the deep, murky depth of the lake untouched. Once the lake subsides I am left feeling as cold and dark as the water beneath wandering what secrets it holds.
Now write a similar story but the main character by the lake is a young woman who has just got engaged:
I am not what you would call a romantic so I had a much harder time with this version!
As the water gently flowed past, tickling my bare toes with its ever bubbling song, I closed my eyes and took a full breath of the clean sweet air, and as I opened my eyes I smiled at the dancing sun rays reflecting off the water; fairly like seed pods fly past as if in a hurry to find a good location to plant roots, while dragon files practice their low flying skills across the mirror like water. A frog sits on over sized armchair singing long forgotten song, while busy birds dash around constructing family homes with the most beautuful views: And I think to myself 'How perfect the world seems to be when you are in love'.
I also think I should be shot at dawn for that attempt - but hey!
And back to the 20 Questions for Ruth: well now I have got a better flow and I will be interviewing Ruth on Friday morning and lets see what I get!
There are a million other things I am learning from the media school and Phillipa is a wonderful teacher, she has a really fun and relaxed way and manages to get the best out of each of her students through basic bully tactics and genuine praise.
