EVALUATION

Final outcome, finished revolved stories.

Short (pointless) Stories.

Pets.

 After my dog, Amber, sadly passed away a few months ago I noticed my cat slowly began gaining weight, I presumed to myself that this was because the cat was mourning over the dogs death whom, to be honest I never even saw the cat acknowledge when she was alive. I thought this was cute, that the cat was missing the dog, a rival species, an enemy of the cat. I began putting this attitude into my everyday life, looking out for people as I passed them on the street, being nice to people that before all this, I never would of bothered with and didn’t even like. This definitely had a huge positive effect on my life, making me a kinder, happier, more generous person. This was until, I discovered the cause of my cat gaining weight was actually due the dog always eating the cat’s food; maybe this is what killed her.

Bleach.

I just sit here, locked within my prison of these tall dull blue walls; the only thing to keep me company is the sound of the never-ending dripping tap. Drip drip drip, although there is only so much of that you can sit through without it driving you insane. I hate it here, waiting in isolation, waiting in this cold confined space; occasionally the silence is broken by the shuffle of feet and muttering voices of people rushing past outside but that is only for a second or two.

Nobody ever wants to spend time in here, why would they? If I had the choice id be straight out of here. The cold walls and bland colours make it an extremely uncomfortable place to spend any amount of time in; alongside the constant overpowering smell of urine, masked by the sickly smell of cleaning products, its horrible.

Then, suddenly, someone barges in, rushes into my prison and slams the doors shut locking it. And just pisses all over me before getting straight back out of here, stopping for a split second to feed his vanity checking out his hair in the mirror; that's all i do here, wait around all day for people to piss all over me and piss off.

Express.

As I positioned myself as far away from the bickering couple as possible I though; the deafening threats coming from her mouth seemed somewhat redundant as the man was quite clearly passed out. The woman, well into for forties but dressed like she was just hitting 14.

 I isolated myself from all the other passengers hiding in a seat at the top corner on my own, the racket from all the shouting pissed people surrounding me was thankfully drowned out by the sound as the train left the station.

The last train home is never an enjoyable journey, the dull orange glow from the cheap train carriage lighting gives everything a dirty feel, which isn’t helped at all by the overpowering smell of vomit and left over takeaway. As the train powered down the tracks I attempted to look past my own reflection through the window, however all I was met with was darkness, darkness broken by the occasional passing streetlight.

As the train slowed down to allow shouting of the drunk passengers to become more apparent the doors opened to letting the next flood more drunk people stumble onto the train, followed loyally by their powerful stench of perfumes and aftershave all ready for their night out in town, I then realized, I was on the wrong train.

Light.

Every now and then in my flat the light above my bathroom door starts to flicker, however not like you'd expect a light to flicker, it looks almost as if a massive thunderstorm is happening inside it. The light turns off for a split second then with a slight bang my room is filled with a massive surge of light. It doesn't do this constantly maybe just once or twice a day, but never fails to scare me shitless. I have played with the idea that maybe somehow I was controlling these flickers by turning on or using electrical appliances, and spent my days cautiously walking through my flat constantly paranoid and scared that I would somehow induce this 'thunderbolt' in my front room. I have tried telling the maintenance man about this flickering light hoping he would fix it however every time he has been up it he has found no fault with the fixture and walked away, moaning about me 'wasting his time'... its alright for him his isn’t at risk of being blinded every time he boils the kettle.

Champagne.

I had been invited to one of my friend’s very elaborate birthday parties; the invitation described the party as a ‘ball’ although, I failed to believe a ‘ball’ would be happening in a small 2 bedroom flat in Hull. This however was going to be a very elagant party I was told, with champagne flowing as the night slowly darkens.

I had already chose out the dress I was going to wear, it was to be the same dress that blew everybody away when I last wore it, the same dress that left everyone speechless back at my brothers 40^th. As I slipped the dress on the vibrant blue satin flowed delicately down my body with the diamonds patterned across the dress helping it glisten like the waters of a clam peaceful lake under the afternoon’s sun. Not being one to usually make an effort, I thought I would pull out all the stops for tonight, cautiously coating my face in make-up even though I was never usually one to bother, possibly making me look ridiculous however it made me feel beautiful.

As I pulled up to the party the flat was worse than I though, his modern garden filled with lights and gadgets, trying to make himself look rich and fashionable however it just made him come across as a pretentious twat. I strolled down the garden path in my heals as if it was the red carpet leading me to a film premier, I noticed ahead of me that in attempt to make his ‘ball’ look more classy he had even hired someone to stand on the door taking names. With my dress fluttering behind me in the wind I reached the man on the door, the tall rugged man, and I softly whispered into his ear, ‘Mark Wood’ as i glided straight past through the door. Straight away I was blown away by the effort put into this party, everything looking perfect this was definitely the ‘ball’, which was described on the invitation, and as I looked around I straight away noticed, this

 wasn’t a fancy dress party.

Free Writing day 2

Due to allot of the stories people wrote being extremely depressing we started this free writing session with the line ‘having leprosy is great because.. and asked to cary on, hopefully sparking some fun upbeat stories from people.

I arrived late to the session so sadly I did have very long to complete this however this is the start of what I wrote.

Having leprosy is great because it has helped me form my very own hip hop group. Being a leper you get separated from other civilizations and from contact with ‘healthy’ humans, this may sound horrible however I quite like it here. The island is divided by two, separated between suffers of the wet and non-wet versions of the disease, kind of like the blood and crit gangs separating America they’re is much violence surrounding the divide.

i wish i had time to finish this, i was really getting into it and had some good ideas floating around my head. If i find time in the future hopefully i will revisit it and finish. 

Subverting Clichés

Subverting clichés to give them a modern twist, because old clichés are just ugly and to be honest, don’t even make sense any more.

Not the sharpest knife in the box

Not the brightest spark....

Not the pointiest stick in the draw

Not the strongest branch on the tree.

.....

Go out with a blaze of glory

Go in with a blaze or glory

.....

Boys will be boys

Girls will be girls

.....

Many hands make for complicated work

.....

Drunk as a Skunk

Drunk as a Monk

Drunk as a Punk 

.....

Early bird catches all the worms

Early cat catches the bird

.....

In the Nick of time

In the Eddie of time

.....

Burst you balloon

.....

Any friend of yours I immediately don't like.

..... 

Love has a Lazy eye

free writing after the 6 week gap.

Back to free writing.

After a 6 week gap and a brief introduction from Char, we quickly got straight back into free writing, after being given an opening line from the person sat next to us we began writing. This is what I wrote;

It was a cold winters morning and the car was struggling to get off the drive again, this happens every year, the car seems to go into hibernation as soon as it gets near November. After a good 10 minutes of constantly revving the engine, probably waking up all my neighbors in the process, the stupid car finally decides to set off. I’ve had this car for like 10 years now, each year it has cause me more and more problems. It probably cost more keep repairing it then it would to buy a new one. The old rusty fiat punto with a dull grey body, which im sure was once white.

After the 6 week gap I really struggled getting back into free writing, coming up with ideas, my mind just went instantly blank. As soon as I actually started writing however it all came back to me and ideas of what to write just come flowing to me.

Written piece.. first draft, a series of short, pointless stories.

Short (pointless) Stories.

Pets.

After my dog sadly passed away a few months ago I noticed my cat slowly began gaining weight, I presumed to myself that this was because the cat was mourning over the dogs death whom, to be honest I never even saw the cat acknowledge when she was alive. I thought this was cute, that the cat was missing the dog, a rival species, an enemy of the cat that he never even got on with. I began putting this attitude into my everyday life, looking out for people as I passed them on the street and being nice to people that before all this, I never would of bothered with and didn’t even like. This definitely had a huge positive effect on my life, making me a kinder, happier, more generous person. This was until, I discovered the cause of my cat gaining weight was actually due the dog always eating the cats food, maybe this is what killed her.

Toilet.

I just sit here, locked within my prison of these tall dull blue walls; the only thing to keep me company is the sound of the never ending dripping tap. Drip drip drip, although there is only so much of that you can sit through without it driving you insane. I hate it here, waiting in isolation, waiting in this cold confined space; occasionally the silence is broken by the shuffle of feet and muttering voices of people rushing past outside but that is only for a second or two.

Nobody ever wants to spend time in here, why would they? If I had the choice id be straight out of here. The cold walls and bland colours make it an extremely uncomfortable place to spend any amount of time in; alongside the constant overpowering smell of urine, masked by the sickly smell of cleaning products, its horrible.

Then, suddenly, someone barges in, rushes into my prison and slams the doors shut locking it. And just pisses all over me before getting straight back out of here, stopping for a split second to feed his vanity checking out his hair in the mirror; that's all i do here, wait around all day for people to piss all over me and piss off.

Train.

As I positioned myself as far away from the bickering couple as possible I though; the deafening threats coming from her mouth seemed somewhat redundant as the man was quite clearly passed out. The woman, well into for forties but dressed like she was just hitting 14.

I isolated myself from all the other passengers on the train hiding in a seat at the top corner on my own, the racket from all the shouting pissed people surrounding me was thankfully drowned out by the sound of the train leaving the station.

The last train home Is never an enjoyable journey, the dull orange glow from the cheap train carriage lighting gives everything a dirty feel, which isn’t helped by the overpowering smell of vomit and left over takeaway. I tried to look past my own reflection through the window however all I am met with is darkness, darkness broken by the occasional passing street light.

As the train slowed down to allow shouting of the drunk passengers to become more apparent the doors opened to letting the next flood more drunk people stumble onto the train, followed by their powerful stench of perfumes and aftershave ready for their night out in town, I then realised, I was on the wrong train.

Light.

Every now and then in my the light above my bathroom door starts to flicker, however not like you'd expect a light to flicker, it looks almost as if a massive thunderstorm is happening inside it. The light turns off for a split second then with a slight bang my room is filled with a massive surge of light. It doesn't do this constantly maybe just once or twice a day, but never fails to scare me shitless. I have played with the idea that maybe somehow I was controlling these flickers by turning on or using electrical appliances, and spent my days cautiously walking through my flat constantly paranoid and scared that I would somehow induce this 'thunderbolt' in my front room. I have tried telling the maintenance man about this flickering light hoping he would fix it however every time he has been up it he has found no fault with the fixture and walked away, moaning about me 'wasting his time'... (its alright for him he isn’t at risk of being blinded every time he boils the kettle.)

(not finished, needs re-working/wording)

Party.

needs finishing.

Feedback

I was quite  nervous when it came to be my turn to read out the stories we had written, what i had wrote was allot different to the stories previous students had wrote before me and i didnt know how everyone would react to them. We had to chose another class member to read out our stories for us, this was so we could also listen back to them being read out loud so we could make notes of any mistakes and errors we heard. I chose Sophie to read out mine, an obvious choice, she is good reader and very confident reading out loud, also with the soft 'upper class' tone within her voice i thought it would work well. The feedback I received wasn’t too bad actually, just a few slight changes to be made to them, I heard a few mistakes with things such as grammar as Sophie read them out which could be changed as well as not trying to give away the location of the place too early ‘show don’t tell’. Other than people probably thinking I was some weirdo because of these strange stories I had thoughts giving an insight to my strange mind and my inner thoughts I thought they sounded quite good.

Cliches

Researching into what a cliche is and gathering some examples.


Cliche - is a saying, expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, rendering it a stereotype, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

- is language that has lost its freshness and registers with a listener or reader as overused and boring. Although the term cliché is often is used to refer to language that has been overused over a long period of time, it is not necessarily true of older expressions and, by definition, may be true of new language that has been repeated too often. Some examples of cliches; Getting hitched- getting married. Hard to swallow- difficult to believe. To think outside the box- being creative and unconventional. All hands on deck - everyone needs to help All for one, and one for all - everyone should work as a team and not for themselves Early bird catches the worm - arriving early to work helps you get what you want busy as a bee - Very active; working constantly. Wish upon a star- to wish or hope that something will happen drunk as a skunk - Highly inebriated. free as a bird - Having no ties; completely free. sick as a dog - Very ill, especially from a stomach malady. sly as a fox - Very sly, very cunning The 5 cliches which i choose to take to the session with me are; 1. busy as a bee 2. sick as a dog 3. drunk as a skunk 4. early bird catches the worm 5. free as a bird.

photographs.

We were asked to bring 4 photographs with us to the next session.
2 photographs of people that we asked if we could take their photo, i asked these two interesting looking people that i spotted in manchester.

and 2 of people who did not know that they were having their picture taken.

These are two more which i took in manchester of unsuspecting people.

homework task

1. Write up your learning journal for these two days- ASAP, remember, your learning journal counts for 25% of your marks.

2. Do your written homework- ASAP (as in the course brief outline "your own written piece- either a series of poems, or a short story, or the the synopsis for an opening scene of a stage/radio/TV drama.")- then put it aside until a few days before the next session, the read it through and edit it with a fresh eye. Bring in both the first draft, and the edited version because both will be required when reviewing editing techniques.

3. Bring in a list of 5 cliches that interest me. 

4. Bring in 4 photographs that YOU have taken. 

It would be great if they are completely new photos, inspired by the content of the writing course so far, rather than stock items from your portfolio.

All four must be of PEOPLE. They must all be people who are OLDER THAN YOU. This is to prevent all bringing in pictures of peers, and to avoid the issues raised with bringing in photographs of children.

TWO of the photographs must be of people who you have talked to and asked to pose in some way- e.g. maybe you ask them not to smile, or ask them to look angry, or in love with each other...be creative!

The other TWO must be photographs were none of the people in the photos knew they were being photographed.

We will be sharing these out amongst everyone and writing stories from them. You won't be working with your own photos- so you can choose whether you are going to go for utterly obscure shots, or are going to be less cruel to your fellow students!

Use this as a creative oppurtunity to talk to people you wouldn't otherwise have any social contact with- e.g, elderly people, non-students, shopkeepers, builders, office workers, etc etc. Treat it as an excercise in itself- in terms of building up your bank of future characters to work on and with. Explain to people that this is a project from your course, and, of course, back off if they don't wish to participate. 

Have fun with your photographs- and try not to come back with too many black eyes!

ideas for my own written piece

For my written outcome of my elective i had planned on writing a series of weird short stories, similar to the ones by Stanley Donwood. Stanley Donwood is the artistic mind behind all of radioheads artwork and merchandise, designing every album cover artwork and basically everything since the first album. Being a massive radiohead fan i first heard these stories when they were included within a promotional film for the album 'In rainbows' the film was called 'scotch mist' where they played each song from the album live broken up with artistic montages and cuts between songs, where these stories were included. Since hearing them a couple of years ago i have pretty much become obsessed by them, the way stanley donwood is able to describe a locations so poetically and perfectly in a way you would never expect to hear making it sound as if this story was going somewhere however just ends with a blunt strange often humorous ending. The best example of this is within the story 'Midsummers day in the graveyard', the story is only short mainly consisting of beautiful descriptions of his surrounding, really painting the image in your head of where he was and what is going on, however just ends with, 'and i wasn't their for very long before i thought, that i should leave.'

Here are the stories which were included within the radiohead film narrated by Ric Jerrom;

Their are tons of these stories on his website, http://www.slowlydownward.com/irony.html
each just weid and poetic but funny in a strange way, here are a few of my favourites.

I hope to write a series of my own stories based on those of stanley donwood.

creating a story linking two newspaper articles

in groups of four we were given two unrelated newspaper clippings.  The aim of the task was to think of a storyline to link the stories by thinking of a film plot.

The first story was about the results of an inquest of a baby who had died in a Nottingham hospital after a ‘drug error’  The second story was a South Wales woman aged 21 years old who had received 160 parking fines.

Our group came up with the following plot:

Louisa Swinburn was sacked after the dreadful mistake and moved from Notts to South Wales. She had a breakdown, is unemployed and got 160 parking fines.  She has also discovered she is having a baby.

Introduce a red herring to surprise the reader

The reason for the mistake.  Louisa had been really drunk after splitting up with her boyfriend.  Really stressed at work

Louisa’s best friend bumps into her ex in Nott’s and spills the beans about Louisa’s pregnancy (his baby)

Who are the characters?

Louisa Swinburn

Age 21

Just qualified as a nurse when ‘drug’ mistake’ happened

Was living with her boyfriend however night before mistake she had a big argument with her boyfriend.  She got very drunk drowning her sorrows.

After accident she runaway to Wales

Smoker

Not very strong, insecure.  Outside she appeared confident.

Best friend is Danielle from Notts.

Boyfriend is Paul

We then worked by ourselves to write the story around the plot which we had created.

I started mine by writing dialogue, but really struggled, after speaking with Gary he advised me to avoid dialogue as if was clearly not my strong point and try to find a way of working around it.

Here another free writing exercise writing up the start of the story which we put together.

Stepping out of the scruffy 2 bedroom flat, Louisa apathetically tears last nights parking ticket from her window and throws it amongst the pile of rubbish building up in  the  back of her car. The car door let out a deafening screech as she slammed it shut. She lethargically leans back in her seat and pulls her seatbelt across her, the heat from the sun pounding against the pile of rubbish in her car creates a sickly musky scent surrounding her. However not even seeming to notice the smell she just places her key in the ignitions and gets ready to drive off into the sun. ‘’ring,ring,’’ Louisa is stopped suddenly by the ringing of her phone.

I struggled with this task,  the group which I was put in didn’t seem to work very well together and our ideas just didn’t seem to go anywhere, I constantly felt as if the group were dismissing my ideas as if they had already created an idea  of where they though the story was going and I was just trying to twist it around.

resolved dialogue script

After looking at how genre could affect a script we then tried to revolve our scripts.

Here is the revolved final version on my script.

paul: Yalright mate?

Taxi: Yeh where you going pal?

Paiul: just round the corner, duck street, you knoe it?

Taxi: Yeh yeh cheers..

…awkward silence…

Taxi: So hows It going? You ok?

Paul: Yeh…

Taxi: you had a good day?

Paul: yeh…

Taxi: …so what you been up to?

Paul: Look, im not really in the mood to talk, ok?

Taxi: ah, sorry… ok.

Paul: sorry I didn’t mean to yell. Its just not been a very good day.

Taxi: ahhh its fine, don’t worry about it.

Taxi: so whats up with you then?

Paul: I really shouldn’t say..

Taxi: hmmm.. alright then.  Well if somethings bothe..

(paul interrupts)

Paul: well, if you must know, I witnessed something the other day, its been messing with my head since.

Taxi: witness something? Like a robbery or a… murder?

I never finished my script, i just didnt feel like it was going anywhere and struggled with writing in dialogue. Really didn’t enjoy doing script writing, I just didn’t feel that I could be creative enough and that my stories where going anywhere interesting, definitely to practice this some more.

dialogue within genres

Testing our scripts in a different genre.

Gary introduced us next to genres, and how genre can effect a script, these are some quick tests to see how our script would work in other genres.

Horror

…man just gracefully strolled in the taxi saying nothing.

Taxi: where you going pal?

Paul: sharply just shouts the words, Duck street!

Taxi: erm… ok

Romance

…man gets into a taxi and is taken back for a second by the driver before nervously stuttering.

Paul: hh hh hh hi?

business - creating dialogue

 We did some more free writing now for 10 minutes, however this time writing in dialogue, we was given a scenario by another member of the class and asked to fit dialogue around it.

                  A TAXI DRIVER PICKING A PASSANGER UP, the passenger being the character Paul from the previous exercise.

paul: Yalright mate?

Taxi: Yeh where you going pal?

Paiul: just round the corner, duck street, you knoe it?

Taxi: Yeh yeh cheers..

…awkward silence…

Taxi: So hows It going? You ok?

Paul: Yeh…

Taxi: you had a good day?

Paul: yeh…

Taxi: …so what you been up to?

Paul: Look, im not really in the mood to talk, ok?

Taxi: ah, sorry… ok.

Paul: sorry I didn’t mean to yell. Its just not been a very good day.

Taxi: ahhh its fine, don’t worry about it.

Taxi: so whats up with you then?

Paul: I really shouldn’t say..

Taxi: hmmm.. alright then.

Paul: well, if you really must know, which you wont want to, I witness something the other day, its been playing on my mind ever since.

Taxi: witnessed something? Like a robbery, a murder?

Paul: sigh… yes

Taxi: well which one?

Paul: look were almost here now, just pretend I never said anything, ok?

Taxi: but… mate, this sounds quite serious

Paul: look, if I could just get out here that would be great, I really shouldn’t be telling you this, I can walk the rest of the way, thanks.

DIALOGUE – I really didn’t enjoy writing dialogue, it just never seemed to go anywhere, at least not anywhere interesting, your not about to describe things and write about your surroundings, you just have to write out boring everyday conversations, maybe it is something I can work on, try to improve my skills.