Review: Purpose of T/F Stories
•    A true story is not necessarily a good story
•    Life is logical – Good stories have to be worked and reworked, engaging storytellers exaggerate
•    True life stories do not offer neat and relevant endings
•    Life is unpredictable
•    Can and must control events and sequences – give appearance of being lifelike
EVERY STORY STARTS WITH A CHARACTER.

Animals + Human characteristics = 😀
Character: Heart, soul, nervous system
Through characters, viewers experience emotion.
Without a character, there is no action
Without action, no conflict.
Without conflict, you have no story.
Without story, no screenplay.

DEVELOPING CHARACTERS.
Ask yourself:
1.    Who is he?
2.    What does he want?
3.    His quest?
4.    What drives him up to resolution?
Establish 3D
•    Physiology – Sex, age, height and weight, colour of hair, eyes, skin, posture, appearance, detests, abnormalities, deformities, birth marks, diseases, heredity
•    Sociology – Class, occupation, education, home life, religion, race, nationality, place in community, political affiliations, amusements
•    Psychology – Sex life, moral standards, ambition, frustrations, temperament, attitude, complexes, personality, abilities, language, talents, qualities, IQ/EQ, deep personal secret?
Separate components of life
Interior (age, home, family)
+
Exterior(takes place the moment story begins, process that reveals character)
TAXI DRIVER.
Create in relationship to other people/things

EXPERIENCE CONFLICT.
Interaction with other characters
Interaction with self
How to invent character?
Turn them upside down

WEEK 8

Good Dialogue:
– Sounds real, short
Bad Dialogue:
– Not concise, long winded, too real, cheesy

ELEMENTS OF DIALOGUE:
•    Dialogue reveals character
•    A character will talk about himself and other people will talk about him
•    Dialogue establishes relationships between characters
•    Once established main character’s POV you can use dialogue with other characters to show that they have other attitudes, creating opposite/alternative POVs
•    Helps create and sustain element of conflict between characters
•    Good effective dialogue will move the story forward
•    Dialogue communicates faces and info to audience
•    Conveys essential exposition
•    Characters will talk about what happened, establish storyline
•    Dialogue comments on the action
•    Dialogue ties the script together
•    Can use to expand and enlarge your characters
If you can see it or hear it, don’t write it
•    Dialogue should be used sparingly
•    Never tell what they can see for themselves!

DIALOGUE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTION

Hollywood, too much black, too much ink
“SHIT!!! IT’S FREEZE THE CAMERA TIME!!!”
•    Common mistake: never achieve a level of competence as they tend to reproduce conventional spoke language, long statements of “REAL TALKING”, and defend their decision by telling us that
Dialogue is affected by
•    Age (Eg. Speed)
•    Gender
•    Social status
•    Race
Good dialogue is not somebody’s ability to write authentic speech as heard in real life
Good dialogue is the illusion of reality
Common mistake: Tend to create radio shows with images
A SCREENPLAY IS A STORY TOLD IN PICTURES

WRITING EXERCISE:
•    Middle aged man returns home from work
•    Stopped for  few drinks with his friends, forgot to phone wife to tell her he’ll be late
•    Dinner is ruined

Exercise: Write short scene composed of dialogue between husband and wife

ROLE PLAY: 2 STUDENTS TO PLAY ROLES FROM THEIR STORIES
The real exercise
•    Repeat “THE EXPERIMENT” but
•    Husband and wife are your own parents
•    Get two people to read the dialogue
•    Record the reading
•    Post it to your blog

Experience
•    Storyteller should be concerned with potential of every experience
•    Everything about you is unique and irreplaceable – where you were born, what food you eat, the bump on your forehead

Universal themes:
–    Friendship
–    Love
–    Family
–    Death
–    Betrayal(may be small)
–    Loneliness
–    Hardship

Translatable:
–    Setting
–    Characters
–    Language
–    Culture

Tip:
If you don’t know what to do with a character, make him yourself for a while
See how he relates to the world he has been thrown into

Memory
==>    Memory is wonderful cabinet of past incidents which you have experienced or been told
==>    These memories are points of reference to your own past existence
Memory vs. Experience
Experience usually true, memory can be manufactured

TIP:
•    Write what you do not know because you will find some part of you that does know
Assignment Part A: 2 short stories(by Tuesday 10pm)
1 completely true, 1 completely false
Part B:
After posting visit 3 blogs below you on blogroll, vote for which is true which is false

Letter to the past:
•    A person in past, no longer speak to now
•    Write letter which expresses all things you wish you could say to the person but cannot.
•    Communicate memories of important moments you had together in the past, how your time spent together has made you a different person now than you were before

MOVIE WATCHED : SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

Principles of tragedy

What is tragedy?
Doesn’t mean that something bad happens and the story ends.
Means something bad happens and as a result of a flaw in the character, you show how this tragic fall forces character to learn something about herself/himself

Assignment:

Include elements of tragedy

Eg. coping with death of someone(real tragedy)

Real tragedy is learning to get used to it, trying to adapt to it

Professional writers face problems like:
-Deadlines
-Plagarism
-Casting problems
-Problem with directors
(more experienced, want to change everything)

Storytelling tool 1:
•    Observation.
Observe in a conscious way
Things to observe:
-Dressing
-Way they carry themselves
-Way they speak(soft-spoken, loud, mumble)
-Expression
-Gestures
•    Train yourself to see and record
-Movements
-Physical characteristics
-Settings
Watch what is not said, not just what is said
•    Adopt a keen eye
•    Develop a natural sense of curiosity
CURIOUS BUT NOT INTRUSIVE
An observed event, when subject to simple questions, can set up a sequence of possibilities that will develop into a story worth telling

ASK QUESTIONS!
1.    Whom am I writing about?
2.    Who is my character?
3.    What is he/she/it like?
4.    What does he/she/it do?
5.    What happens to he/she/it in the story?

Mindless observation vs. True observation
Observe in a conscious way
Develop the ability to see and record
-Movements
-Physical characteristics
-Setting/Places

•    Walk into the canteen/library, etc. and watch people pass by
•    Eventually, one will catch your attention
•    Write down as many details as possible
•    Repeat steps 1-3 for a second character
•    Different settings, gender, age
•    Transcribe all these details into the “PEOPLE-WATCH” page that you created on your blog

What is conflict?

• Opposition of persons or forces.
• Can result internally or externally.(dilemma)
• Interaction of oppsing ideas, interests, or wills that creates the plot
• A serious/not so serious disagreement
• Hostile encounter
• Mental/emotional/physical strength

Dramatic conflict is the protagonist's struggle against something/someone

-Man vs. Man

-Man vs. Environment

-Man vs. System

-Man against self

Variations of conflict can arise from gender, age, religion and culture

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF CONFLICT

• Conflict arises when there is change
• Conflict arises when people resist changes
• Changes may be major or minor
• The intensity of conflict depends how people react to the change
• People must learn to cope with change if they want to survive
• The action in drama depends on conflict
• While change is universal and common, it’s not always accepted

Examples of changes: Seasons, lives, relationships, feelings, bodies, locations, technologies

IMPORTANCE OF CONFLICT

• Plot cannot be constructed without conflict
• Central feature of the screenplay
• As characters attempt to reach their goals, they come into conflict
• End of story nears when protagonist and antagonist approach their goals and the conflict rises to generate maximum suspense and excitement

Movies: The Call Home, The Secret Heaven

Writing for an audience:

• Screenwriter = storyteller
• The cinematic experiene is no just made up of text on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that info.
• Director to people
• Writer to people
• Camera to people
• PEOPLE TO PEOPLE

WRITER’S PURPOSE?

To connect to the audiences:

• Themselves
• Their unique vision
• The material/issue
• The drama
• Others

Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay

WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR A STORY?

Within yourself (Eg. experiences, memories, emotions)

Practice observing, ‘listening’ and reading body language of people

Figure how to connect your viewers to your story through emotions, characters, etc.

ASSIGNMENTS:

5 stories of exactly 50 words each, posted to your blog

Proper writing format:

• Present tense(Reader can imagine scenario Eg. scripts)
• Third person(Use a name)
• A visual voice(Descriptive with visual image to allow imagination of reader, only write things which can be seen in mind)

Examples.

Third person/Present tense:

1. A character narrating the story as it is ongoing. Voice over narration.
2. More exciting visually
3. Passive vs. Active

-Passive uses weak verbs, tells character’s thoughts, creates distance between reader & story

-Active uses strong action verbs, shows actions, immediate sentence structure, lively

Commonly used in

-Screenplays, story unfolds as we see it, fosters more urgent & immediate feel to story

-Thriller & suspense genres, horror scripts

TIPS 😀

NO EXCUSES YO

BIGGEST PROBLEM IS GETTING STARTED

Begin with short description of your story

When you have a writer’s block take a break

DON’T FALL ASLEEP MAN

Don’t be too hard on yourself!!

Exercise 1A: Openers

• Begin with this opener:

Leonard walks towards the box…

• Ask yourself:

-Whose story am I telling?

-What is the point of this story?

-How can I engage the attention of the audience?

Cliffhanger?

• Story comments

1. Credibility
2. Passages drawn from reality or experience
3. Passages created artificially to keep the narrative flowing

Exercise 1B:

Write 12 opening phrases in your blogs under then openers page

Example:

-Sally keeos glancing at her watch…

-Joe opens the bottle and takes a whiff

-May closes her eyes and jumps off…

-James paces around the empty hallway…

-He opens the envelope. Her hand shakes…

HOMEWORK: OPENERS AND REFLECTIONS 🙂

First class 😀