I was late. No hiding that fact, therefore I humbly offer my apologies and promise that it will never happen again( I hope). OK, so when the very late me walked in, this was written on the board: Dramatic Writing: create a situation. Underneath the heading were lots of words which I later found out to be an impromptu story our instructor had made up. It was about a boy's conversation with his mom at home on the morning he was supposed to go get his O' level results and he was feeling quite nervous. There were two scenarios. One was where he was in the kitchen and just before he said:" Mom... I...I don't want to go to school today..", he walked towards the window. In the other situation, he was sitting on his bed and talking to his mother the whole time. We were then asked to pick which one had more tension to it. Obviously, credits went to the first "story" for the suspense created especially when the boy walked to the window.
He then told us to imagine an everyday situation(a problem). We came up with the idea of asking a teacher for an extension in the deadline for a crucial piece of work. We were then instructed to picture this in a totally different location. I was going to say the zoo or the movies, but he gave us something much better... Zouk xD yup! There we are, in Zouk. Asking our teacher for an extension in deadline. All the while trying to ignore the constant dance beats and drunken yells. To add to this, you are, a little bit tipsy... Mmmhmm, delicious scenario! Haha, here's Donna's story(she was told to present)or the rough gauge of it:
*Donna dancing with a group of friends, spots a hunky looking guy at the back and motions to friends that she is getting a drink then dances her way next to him*
*Hunky looking guy spots her*
Guy: Donna?!?
Donna: Who?
Guy: You.
Donna*takes a double look*:Mr T?!?!?!
{i humbly apologize but I forgot the middle part}
Donna: I'll hand it in by tomorrow*flees*
Haha as for me, I was having so much fun impaling myself in Zouk in front of TheGreatOne that I completely forgot the part about asking for an extension. Thus, I shall not post that up. However, interested fellows are more than welcome to ask for the rubbish I wrote :D
After that, we looked at the situation from a teacher's perspective of meeting a student in Zouk. Here, I shall post my story up as it isn't that bad:
(Teacher checks phone in Zouk. One sms from student X: Tcher, my aunt just died. Can u gimme some extension for e hw? Teacher feels generous and says yes)
Teacher*accidentally stepping on someone's shoe*: Oh, sorry!
X: OW! What the !@#$% pain sia!
Teacher: I'm really sorry.
X*recognises teacher*: Ahhh, nevermind, nevermind!! *mumbles incoherently and walks away*
Teacher: Hey, hang on... ... X?!?
X: No! No, no, no!! Not me! I'm not drunk!
Teacher: Didn't your aunt just pass away X? What are you doing here?
X: No, no!! I wasn't... I... I was just leaving! I gotta go!!
Haha. Don't think it was that bad. Stacey's story though was rather tangled up in that it was absurd and i-dunno-what-to-say-LOL. Someone should give that girl, I mean guy, a prize. xD. I would recommend people to read Mark's scandalous story though. It's totally... Mark ;D
We were asked for another scenario and we came up with buying hot dogs from the cafe on hotdog Tuesdays. The instructor then asked us for some more details and before you know it, we had a story of the runaway kid and his last meal going on xDD. The story goes that you have run away from home because of an argument with your parents who don't want you to continue with Drama(suddenly I see my life story flash out before my very eyes). For unbeknownst reasons, you still continue with school even though you are already staying over at a friend's house and you don't have any money left. So on that particular Tuesday, you were starving and only had $1.20 to pay for THAT LAST HOTDOG. As you were savouring it in your hands, you BUMPED into somebody causing your hotdog to FALL to the ground. You look up, bewildered just to see YOUR PARENTS looking at you. Haha, and here's my story:
*BUMPS*
Me: HEY! Watch where you're going, bitch!
Mum: What... ... *takes a double look* (insert name here)?!?
Me: Huh, what?? I... *Sees mum. Stops, then turns away bitterly*
Mum: Wait! Where are you going?! Aren't you coming home??
Me* rounds on mum*: What! Aren't you happy enough that you've driven me out of your house and now you've messed up my last meal and... and... Oh for God's sake, just LEAVE ME ALONE! PLEASE!!*runs*
After that, we were told that plot NOT EQUALS story. A story is a sequence of event sin real time while a plot is a sequence of events told from one person's point of view and told in such a way to gain dramatic effect.
A good story or a plot will, ultimately, follow this sequence:
- EXPOSITION (10%)
- RISING ACTION (30-40%)
- CLIMAX (10%)
- FALLING ACTION (20-30%)
- RESOLUTION (10-30%)
The exposition is the introduction of all the who, what , why, where and when. There must be a problem to which a stake is tied to, which will lead to a situation. This problem must stem from your protagonist's unconscious want. The rising action involves the characters in the story trying to overcome the problem but, inevitably, making it worse. The "solutions" they use in trying to fix the problem will invariably lead to even more problems. Here, secondary characters are introduced to help our protagonist. In the climax, the protagonist has to make a difficult choice to continue. This is the heart of the entire play. Here, we must never judge a character but must humanize him. For instance, we cannot condone the actions of the tragic hero for making the wrong choices as that will turn audiences off. Instead, we must humanize him to show why he is what he is and why he does what he does. S/He must show conflict whether it is
- physical(action flicks where the hero & villain fights)
- interest(I want to do this in my best interest but my parents don't allow me to)
- value systems(the hero & villain's value systems are different in that they fight for different reasons and hope for different outcomes)
- emotional(an internal struggle within the protagonist)
Of course, emotional conflict is of the highest order and to attain that in the audiences being on the same page and realizing what your protagonist has to do is, of course, ultimately desired in all story lines. After the climax is the falling action where the consequences of making the wrong choices by the characters(regardless who s/he is) in the climax is shown. Finally, there is the resolution. This is where there is an internal or external change. An external change is one where the world is changed because of the actions or decisions made by the protagonist. A good example is R&J where the Capulets and Montagues realize their fatal mistake and never fight again. An internal change is one where the protagonist him/herself is changed like any of the movies where s/he walks off gloriously into the sunset. :D
Oh yes, one more thing we learnt was how to create a situation. It's really simple. Just follow this 3 easy steps xD:
- Take a normal situation
- Give it an atypical location
- Change the point of view it is seen through
and voila! you have... a situation!
Finally, I would like to end this (very late) 1st review from a quote from the man himself:
*A maggie mee problem that escalates into World War II*
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