This week was all about places and how they affect the telling of a story. This is my adaptation of a group exercise to suit the imagery of a collage I created in class.
Yuri is a Gardener, he's gardened all his life. For 60 years he has tended the gardens of the Grand Palace in the former Soviet republic of Krippleblockistan and it is said that his cutting of the lawns is the only thing that has remained agreeable and constant in the turbulent life of this small and obscure country.
All is not how it seems however. With both his sons lost to tragic accidents in the now long departed Soviet army, cancer having taken his beloved wife from him and personal debts he knows he will never be able to repay Yuri's daily routine is the only part of his world that isn't slipping into the abyss.
As civil unrest grips the country and the disorder consumes his life's work Yuri decides that escape is his only option. The only question is escape to what? To life or to death.
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Writing Course, Week 3
This week was an exercise in character-driven story telling. Here's a bullet-pointed summary of the plot we created.
- Three young people - Rob, Annie and James - stay in a cottage for a weekend.
- Annie is an aspiring journalist and wants to investigate claims of an illegal fox hunt for the university paper.
- James fancies Annie and is willing to fake an interest in journalism in order to pursue her. The cottage belongs to his family
- Rob is a friend of Annie and wants to keep an eye on her, concerned she'll get herself into trouble.
- James tries to come on to Annie, who really isn't interested
- The three of them go out and witness that the hunt is indeed illegal, and Annie's family are the organisers.
- Annie storms off into the woods, Rob follows her.
- Rob and Annie discover they have feelings for each other, James witnesses this.
- Annie confronts her family with the photos of the hunt.
- James, hoping to get back at Annie and Rob out of spite, publishes the story.
- Annie gets cut off from her family, but feels it's for the best.
Monday 3 October 2011
Short Story - The Ship
Here's a short story I wrote this lunchtime, based on an anecdote I heard many years ago. Hope you like it:
The Ship
Two centuries ago a ship set sail from New Zealand for the south coast of Australia. It was to be a short voyage and her captain, though inexperienced, was confident that the journey would be easy. Ships with square rigged sails cannot sail easily toward the wind, and so the captain was dismayed when, after two weeks of zig-zagging toward the ever constant trade winds that blow around the southern part of the globe he had made barely any headway toward his objective to the west.
It was at this time that the sailing master, a grizzled old sea dog, took the captain aside. "Sir," he said, "what we are doing clearly isn't working and we will not make landfall before we run out of supplies. I have made this trip several times before, so let me tell you what works. We need to turn east."
"What?" replied the captain, a highly educated and intelligent man, "That doesn't hold up to even a slight logical enquiry. You are telling me to sail to Australia by sailing away from Australia. We've worked so hard to get this far and you think we should turn back? Our port of destination is but a few hundred miles ahead of us to the west!"
So the ship sailed on, tossed by the waves and fighting the wind for every inch of westward progress. After another week at sea the captain was feeling quite upset. There was no way they were going to reach their destination this way. He was afraid he would lose his command if he failed to complete even such a simple voyage. He thought again about what the sailing master had said and finally decided that he should at least try what the old sailor had suggested.
So he gave the order and the ship came about, sailing due east, turning its back on its destination. Now with the trade winds behind her the ship made steady progress. Leaving New Zealand behind she sailed past the tip of South America, past the tip of South Africa and, after another three of weeks of easy sailing, she sighted the coast of Australia.
Two centuries ago a ship set sail from New Zealand for the south coast of Australia. It was to be a short voyage and her captain, though inexperienced, was confident that the journey would be easy. Ships with square rigged sails cannot sail easily toward the wind, and so the captain was dismayed when, after two weeks of zig-zagging toward the ever constant trade winds that blow around the southern part of the globe he had made barely any headway toward his objective to the west.
It was at this time that the sailing master, a grizzled old sea dog, took the captain aside. "Sir," he said, "what we are doing clearly isn't working and we will not make landfall before we run out of supplies. I have made this trip several times before, so let me tell you what works. We need to turn east."
"What?" replied the captain, a highly educated and intelligent man, "That doesn't hold up to even a slight logical enquiry. You are telling me to sail to Australia by sailing away from Australia. We've worked so hard to get this far and you think we should turn back? Our port of destination is but a few hundred miles ahead of us to the west!"
So the ship sailed on, tossed by the waves and fighting the wind for every inch of westward progress. After another week at sea the captain was feeling quite upset. There was no way they were going to reach their destination this way. He was afraid he would lose his command if he failed to complete even such a simple voyage. He thought again about what the sailing master had said and finally decided that he should at least try what the old sailor had suggested.
So he gave the order and the ship came about, sailing due east, turning its back on its destination. Now with the trade winds behind her the ship made steady progress. Leaving New Zealand behind she sailed past the tip of South America, past the tip of South Africa and, after another three of weeks of easy sailing, she sighted the coast of Australia.
Saturday 1 October 2011
Writing Course, Week 2
Here's this week's assignment. As a group exercise we created characters, outlining their... er... characters. Going on from that, we looked at character development.
Here's mine, and how he would develop:
Alessandro Cortez
Alessandro's problems all started with his father. His parents separated when he was still very young and although he now lives with his mother he spent a lot of his early life, into his late teens, around his father and his father's friends. This was where he acquired his charisma and comfortable attitude, qualities that would tend to attract to him whatever he wanted from life. Unfortunately when faced with such abundance he also found it easy to take these things for granted, as disposable; another inherited quality. He could have whatever he wanted, but he had no idea what he wanted.
Then he met her, the woman who would change everything. It wasn't as though she stood out physically from the crowd of one night stands, and yet there was just something about her that reached into him and touched parts of soul that had never been uncovered before. This scared him, and out of fear he ran, hurting her deeply in the process. She told him that he had turned out just like his father and disappeared from his life.
He looked everywhere but couldn't find her. Exhausted and feeling alone for the first time in his life he confronted his father. He was angry that his father could have taught him so much about life but not how to be happy; not how to be a man capable of making her happy.
He's changed. He's learned that in order to understand what some things are truly worth you have to experience losing them. Who knows if he'll ever find her again.
- < > -
This was quite fun. The group is predominantly female, so I chose the above character image just to see what the response would be. I'm intrigued by the very common female fantasy that whatever an attractive man's flaws are, meeting the right woman is always the solution. I guess it's what forms the basis of the romance genre.
Here's mine, and how he would develop:
Alessandro's problems all started with his father. His parents separated when he was still very young and although he now lives with his mother he spent a lot of his early life, into his late teens, around his father and his father's friends. This was where he acquired his charisma and comfortable attitude, qualities that would tend to attract to him whatever he wanted from life. Unfortunately when faced with such abundance he also found it easy to take these things for granted, as disposable; another inherited quality. He could have whatever he wanted, but he had no idea what he wanted.
Then he met her, the woman who would change everything. It wasn't as though she stood out physically from the crowd of one night stands, and yet there was just something about her that reached into him and touched parts of soul that had never been uncovered before. This scared him, and out of fear he ran, hurting her deeply in the process. She told him that he had turned out just like his father and disappeared from his life.
He looked everywhere but couldn't find her. Exhausted and feeling alone for the first time in his life he confronted his father. He was angry that his father could have taught him so much about life but not how to be happy; not how to be a man capable of making her happy.
He's changed. He's learned that in order to understand what some things are truly worth you have to experience losing them. Who knows if he'll ever find her again.
This was quite fun. The group is predominantly female, so I chose the above character image just to see what the response would be. I'm intrigued by the very common female fantasy that whatever an attractive man's flaws are, meeting the right woman is always the solution. I guess it's what forms the basis of the romance genre.
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