1.13 Reading Characters
Both pieces I enjoyed - the latter I favour mainly because it generated several giggles out of me which we'll get to.
George Orwell's piece then. Short, punchy. The key point for me here is the word 'hideous'. This isn't an ordinary birthmark which shallow people might perceive as being ugly and treat the person so. Here we have the narrator, the author, telling us, that it's not just a birthmark but a hideous one! It strikes me as harsh and is (for good or ill) certainly making a powerful impression as to how he wants us to picture his character. To my eyes, drumming it in a second time with "He was quite aware of its hideousness" is overkill.
The second piece, from Zoë Heller I really like. The dry humour is British-like and very much in the vein I enjoy. Lines like "before having to mould my face into the appropriate smile", and "the loose tendrils had graduated to hanks" particularly tickle me. I love the word-choice of 'hanks', very vivid and strong.
The style is flowing, introducing different elements about her naturally and interspersed between events and actions which breaks it up from otherwise a dense paragraph of description.
I think I'll be holding on to a copy of this and drawing inspiration from it next time.
But what do you think? Am I being overly critical of George? Am I missing flaws from Zoë?
Happy Writing :-)
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
1.12 Develop a character
1.12 Develop a character from your Notebook.
Right - here we go. Proper writing mode time!
At first glance you might think 'classic geek'. The rake-like physique, the thick rimmed glasses. But taking a closer look reveals some discrepancies. Not one, not two, but three black rings pierce his left ear. A carefully shaped goatee garnishes a face with a crystal clear complexion and his blonde hair is artfully quiffed.
He stands in the lunch queue, awaiting his turn with seeming infinite patience. When asked for his order he double takes, as if blinking out of thoughts ocean deep.
"Jacket potato with chilli please."
I might have expected a West Country accent, all 'oooh aarh' farmer talk, but in a city with two universities the mix of accents is broad. His seems to be denser, something more northern. Perhaps somewhere close to Yorkshire, although there's nothing conclusive in the short sentence.
After paying he stalks past the rest of the tables, electing a quiet corner seat alone. Pushing his glasses up his nose in a unconscious gesture he thumbs open a thick book and loses himself in the pages, absently lifting forkfuls of his lunch into his mouth.
~
Time to go read about some of your characters!
Happy Writing :)
Right - here we go. Proper writing mode time!
Write a short character sketch – no more than 200 words – in which you concentrate on appearance and any particular mannerisms you noted.
At first glance you might think 'classic geek'. The rake-like physique, the thick rimmed glasses. But taking a closer look reveals some discrepancies. Not one, not two, but three black rings pierce his left ear. A carefully shaped goatee garnishes a face with a crystal clear complexion and his blonde hair is artfully quiffed.
He stands in the lunch queue, awaiting his turn with seeming infinite patience. When asked for his order he double takes, as if blinking out of thoughts ocean deep.
"Jacket potato with chilli please."
I might have expected a West Country accent, all 'oooh aarh' farmer talk, but in a city with two universities the mix of accents is broad. His seems to be denser, something more northern. Perhaps somewhere close to Yorkshire, although there's nothing conclusive in the short sentence.
After paying he stalks past the rest of the tables, electing a quiet corner seat alone. Pushing his glasses up his nose in a unconscious gesture he thumbs open a thick book and loses himself in the pages, absently lifting forkfuls of his lunch into his mouth.
~
Time to go read about some of your characters!
Happy Writing :)
1.11 The Writing Journey
1.11 The Writing Journey
Why do I write?
An interesting question. I guess I already covered the physical journey of my writing experience in the first blog, but that doesn't answer the question of why.
Lets go further back. I learnt to read at a young age thanks to the fantastic Peter and Jane book series. One of my earliest memories is of the book where they go to a birthday party. Later memories are of trawling book shops trying to find the elusive book 8c, or 12b or whatever missing part to the series I wanted to find.
From there the classic children's authors captured my imagination. Enid Blytons many many fantastic adventures - most notably Brier Rabbit, the Magic Faraway Tree and the Tales of Mr Pinkwhistle. Roald Dahl's superb collection begun by having The Twits read at school and then progressing through all his stories in my own time.
Just before becoming a teenager Brian Jacques was my new author and whilst my peers spent their pocket money on cassette tapes, LPs and later the latest CD's - I floated through the magical land of Martin the Warrior, and Redwall. To this day the delight I took in the Mole speech accent or scottish accents of the Northern Eagles is a bright glowing memory. Burr hurr, oi does loikes a gudd story oi do.
I smirk again, seeing some irony with me living in the West Country these days where Mole speech isn't a thousand miles from what I hear everyday. Ha!
I think it is pretty fair to say that a lifelong passion for reading has something to answer for when it comes to asking why I also enjoy to write.
Happy Writing :-)
Why do I write?
An interesting question. I guess I already covered the physical journey of my writing experience in the first blog, but that doesn't answer the question of why.
Lets go further back. I learnt to read at a young age thanks to the fantastic Peter and Jane book series. One of my earliest memories is of the book where they go to a birthday party. Later memories are of trawling book shops trying to find the elusive book 8c, or 12b or whatever missing part to the series I wanted to find.
From there the classic children's authors captured my imagination. Enid Blytons many many fantastic adventures - most notably Brier Rabbit, the Magic Faraway Tree and the Tales of Mr Pinkwhistle. Roald Dahl's superb collection begun by having The Twits read at school and then progressing through all his stories in my own time.
Just before becoming a teenager Brian Jacques was my new author and whilst my peers spent their pocket money on cassette tapes, LPs and later the latest CD's - I floated through the magical land of Martin the Warrior, and Redwall. To this day the delight I took in the Mole speech accent or scottish accents of the Northern Eagles is a bright glowing memory. Burr hurr, oi does loikes a gudd story oi do.
I smirk again, seeing some irony with me living in the West Country these days where Mole speech isn't a thousand miles from what I hear everyday. Ha!
I think it is pretty fair to say that a lifelong passion for reading has something to answer for when it comes to asking why I also enjoy to write.
Happy Writing :-)
1.5 Reading Fact and Fiction
1.5 Reading Fact and Fiction
Ok so it's time to check out other people's facts and fictions and answer some queries.
Ok so it's time to check out other people's facts and fictions and answer some queries.
- Is there anything that distinguishes the fictitious elements?
- Are there common elements that you and your fellow writers write about as ‘facts’?
- Do any of these passages suggest stories to you?
So I'm going to pop to the lesson comments and pull out a random paragraph :
This is from Alan Bithell
Three fiction, one fact
The walk back from Loch Mord turned a pleasantly tired feeling unto utter exhaustion. Cows, it turns out, are more dangerous than sharks, as our short cut proved. Dignity fled faster than we did, when we realised the steadily growing thundering noise was being made by a herd of enraged highland cows.
Ok I'm going to be taking a guess here. I think the green highlight is the fact. That speaks like some common saying, likely due to some statistic about deaths to cows compared with sharks used by people to defend sharks and get tourists back on to beaches. Similar to that same statistic about flying which is wheeled out every time there's a plane crash. Back-up guess that the species of cow is the fact.
The walk back from Loch Mord turned a pleasantly tired feeling unto utter exhaustion. Cows, it turns out, are more dangerous than sharks, as our short cut proved. Dignity fled faster than we did, when we realised the steadily growing thundering noise was being made by a herd of enraged highland cows.
Ok I'm going to be taking a guess here. I think the green highlight is the fact. That speaks like some common saying, likely due to some statistic about deaths to cows compared with sharks used by people to defend sharks and get tourists back on to beaches. Similar to that same statistic about flying which is wheeled out every time there's a plane crash. Back-up guess that the species of cow is the fact.
The fictions are a little trickier. I reckon the Loch name is a fabrication. It may exist, but they weren't there. The 'thundering' noise seems very 'story' like in its description. Finally I'm not convinced the cows really were 'enraged'. They're pretty placid creatures. Any 'stampede' would likely be panicked cows rather than from anger.
Hopefully Alan stops by to confirm - but otherwise an interesting exercise.
So my paragraph then.
1) It seemed strange to be 32 years old and yet still feel like a teenager. Surely I should grow up at some point and act like an adult! Running a hand through my long black hair I suppressed a sigh and picked up the next piece of ironing. Just ten more items to go!
My fact is my age, my fictions are my actually short brown hair, and I simply never do ironing! Perhaps that makes the second sentence another fact! Oops.
My second paragraph - all truth except Bogey is a cat, not a dog! Yes, we really did name a pet Bogey.
I may have more to say regarding the questions once I read some more people's examples and actually get see some answers where people
Happy Writing. :-)
1.4 Writing Fact and Fiction
1.4 Writing Fact and Fiction
1) It seemed strange to be 32 years old and yet still feel like a teenager. Surely I should grow up at some point and act like an adult! Running a hand through my long black hair I suppressed a sigh and picked up the next piece of ironing. Just ten more items to go!
2) With a start Bogey the dog looked up at my approach. Her black fur was matted, her eyes a little cloudy. Not surprising considering she's well over twenty years old. Clearly she's enjoyed a long happy life though and I can't help but smile as she licks my hand.
The first writing task on the course then :
1) Write a paragraph (50 to 100 words) containing one fact and three fictitious elements.
2) Then try the reverse – write a paragraph containing three facts and one fictitious element.
Let's see how this goes.
1) It seemed strange to be 32 years old and yet still feel like a teenager. Surely I should grow up at some point and act like an adult! Running a hand through my long black hair I suppressed a sigh and picked up the next piece of ironing. Just ten more items to go!
2) With a start Bogey the dog looked up at my approach. Her black fur was matted, her eyes a little cloudy. Not surprising considering she's well over twenty years old. Clearly she's enjoyed a long happy life though and I can't help but smile as she licks my hand.
Trickier than it seemed! Extra facts kept trying to sneak in!
Can you spot my fabrications? In the next part I'll spill the beans, as well as be taking a look at some other people's paragraphs for myself.
Happy Writing :-)
1.1 Hello!
1.1 - Greetings.
Hello!
If you made it here (via FutureLearn) and are reading this - woo! Please leave a comment linking me to your profile and I shall do my best to return the favour.
Let's begin with the generic introduction I guess.
My name is David, otherwise known as Smee and I've been writing on and off since my early twenties. It was a gaming forum which first sparked my interest. I engaged in some light text roleplay - an exercise of getting into character - and found it to be a lot of fun.
This - somewhat randomly - led me to www.cityofif.com where I spent 4 years thoroughly enjoying the art of Storygaming, both as a reader and then eventually as a writer. Storygaming works similarly to the old choose-your-own-adventure in a way. An author posts a chapter to a story, ending the chapter with a 'decision point' for the main character. Readers then discuss the chapter, decide on some possible options and the author puts those into a poll. Voting then determines the course of action for the main character and it is then down to the author to produce chapter 2 with the reader's decision leading the way.
It was a kind of interactive writing which really appealed, and helped to improve my writing dramatically over the years.
Since then I spent some time on Writing.com - producing a number of short stories for the numerous competitions with varying success. In general though my writing has slowed down significantly and I'm hoping this course (along with this blog) will help kick my muse into action.
Happy Writing :-)
Hello!
If you made it here (via FutureLearn) and are reading this - woo! Please leave a comment linking me to your profile and I shall do my best to return the favour.
Let's begin with the generic introduction I guess.
My name is David, otherwise known as Smee and I've been writing on and off since my early twenties. It was a gaming forum which first sparked my interest. I engaged in some light text roleplay - an exercise of getting into character - and found it to be a lot of fun.
This - somewhat randomly - led me to www.cityofif.com where I spent 4 years thoroughly enjoying the art of Storygaming, both as a reader and then eventually as a writer. Storygaming works similarly to the old choose-your-own-adventure in a way. An author posts a chapter to a story, ending the chapter with a 'decision point' for the main character. Readers then discuss the chapter, decide on some possible options and the author puts those into a poll. Voting then determines the course of action for the main character and it is then down to the author to produce chapter 2 with the reader's decision leading the way.
It was a kind of interactive writing which really appealed, and helped to improve my writing dramatically over the years.
Since then I spent some time on Writing.com - producing a number of short stories for the numerous competitions with varying success. In general though my writing has slowed down significantly and I'm hoping this course (along with this blog) will help kick my muse into action.
Happy Writing :-)
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