yeSH! i’m finally posting one reflection up early!!!

Today, we read our letters to the past within our groups to each other. Though my group did not really comment much on each others’ letters, but personally, i think that they were great!!! For my own letter, i guess its more of a summary and it did not really involve people emotionally other than myself. Some comments on this assignment – it is a little depressing – as far as i know, most people wrote about sad things which is easier to bring about. Also, i realise, as we move on in our lives, we will slowly lose contact with people… even with the people we are once dearest to… =( thats how life is, right? hmm… this sounds a bit pessimistic… so we have to move on!!! Look into the future!!!

Through this, we get to know, perhaps the another side of the person and know more about him/her. Actually, i wanted to write to my parents since i have more things to say about but after seeing the instructions, we are supposed to write to someone we no longer talk to…so, too bad! Through this assignment as we chatted on after reading the letters, i got to know that there are people who actually have friends who died. Well, this shocked me as i have little contact with ‘death’ – guess i’m quite lucky – all my friends and relatives are healthily living on. If i have a friend who dies, i guess i will take it real hard and regret all the nasty stuff i ever do and say to her/him and for sure, I will really miss the person alot alot!!! *touch wood*

Then, we were supposed to write a true and false story… hoho.. guess it’ll be quite fun guessing each other stories whether they are true or false. well, i guess mister ryan’s stories… both seem to be false… hEe… it’s a little unbelievable that someone would actually concoct one dish from other dishes and be that picky… the second story seems even more unbelievable. i guess that you all did travel through the vehicle from the post office but not through buying yourself so much stamps?!?!?!

Well, talking about backpacking around the world, i want to try it too! It seems so fun to be traveling round the world with friends and such small luggage. My friends and I even planned that we will backpack~travel after we graduate, but we – poly students – have one more year than them till we graduate. Then, they have to go on to university for another 4 more years… that’s so longgggg away… But… its a good time to start saving up the money needed for the journey too! Backpacking is just carrying a backpack and visiting various countries right? hMm, i just cannot figure out how is it possible to fit so many things in to the backpack when many things are needed for a trip! Perhaps when time comes to travel, i’ll probably know. Looking forward to it!! *excited*

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Storytelling Techniques
• Writing for audience

Screenwriter = storyteller
• The cinematic experience is not just made up of words you might put on paper, but the audiences’ emotional reaction to that information.

Director to People (NO)
Writer to People (NO)
Camera to People (NO)
It’s People TO People!!! (YESH!)

Writer’s purpose
To connect:
• Themselves
• Their unique vision
• The material
• The drama
• Others
• Audiences want to be transported by a screenplay.

Where do u look for a story?
• Inside yourself
• Everything to learn about other people is already in you.
• Now you need to figure out how to connect to it.

First storytelling tool: Observation
Second storytelling tool: Memory
• It’s like just remembering the fun time.
• Is it true??? After a while, the memory changes like you only remember the specific things.
o Filter through reality
o E.g. you hate the time spent in school but when you looked back after a few years, you only remember e fun parts of school.
Third storytelling tool: Experience
• Its like u learnt a lesson from experience.
• Is it true??? It is in reality!

All people have fragments of stories.
These potential ideas prompt your desire to know more.
Respond emotionally and intellectually to what you heard.
Good stories are born in the heart, not the head.
Remember the role of an audience.
After all, you are the audience!

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Review
• 3 storytelling tools
o Observation
o Memory
o Experience
• Aristotle’s storytelling theories
• 3 act structures
• Developing 3 dimensional characters
• Writing for an audience

oOPs… still, another late entry. …but first i’ll paste my story with the characters from the “PEOPLE WATCH” assignment in.

People Watch Story
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Leonard boards the bus and sits beside this nerdy guy calls Zhi Wei. He slams his bag onto his laps as he plops down hard on the seat. Zhi Wei turns and looks at him. Leonard, oblivious to the staring, eases himself comfortably on the seat. He starts to shake his hands a little, following the beat from the music playing in his ears. Then, he shakes vigorously as if drumming on a guitar. This time, Zhi Wei turns and stares at him hard.

‘Excuse me, you are disrupting me with your actions!”

Leonard retorts back, ‘I’m so sorry, but my hands just couldn’t keep to my side. I bet you don’t know about this kind of things…”

“Who says I don’t, I plays musical instrument too, k?’ Zhi Wei says back.

“Oh really, what you plays? I play the guitar and drums.” Then, Leonard begins to demonstrate with an imaginary drum set.

Zhi Wei hesitates for a while, “Well, guess this!” He then put his hands out and plays on his imaginary musical instrument.

Leonard laughs out loud, “I know, you learnt that in primary school, right? Everybody knows that, for goodness sake – it’s just a recorder.”

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Hmm.. if the story seems to be of primary school standard, I’m not a primary school kid! The ending was probably nothing interesting or what, but my thoughts are stuck at the end, not knowing how to continue…….

I agree that characters are VERY important to a story… without them, a story would not work!!! However, i rather have a plot than having just the characters to start a story with. It’s much easier to me than with characters. Having a plot, we would roughly know what characters are needed thus its much easier to think of. If we only have the various characters, there are many possibilities of a plot and i do not have much creativity in me, its alot tougher! Also, a plot is whole lot more important than characters. Without a good plot, good characters means nothing too…

thoughts for the assignment for this week — a lETTER to the past… actually, i have already thought of what and whO to write to, till i discovered that the letter must be written to a person i no longer taLK to… aLl goNe for my thoughts… Now, i have to start over again thInking of thoSe pEople that i’ve lost contact with… even if there’s such a person to write about, its quite difficult to share out to others since its so personal……. but i finally decide on one of my best friend… sad to say, we lost contact even in the secondary school after we changed class… slowly, we have nothing to share or say to each other anymore.. Life has to go on anyway, and as time passes, we are always losing contact with the people we seldom see… its so sad… But due to the high technology, there is this internet with the e-mailing system… and there are so many e-mails going around out there about friendship now… One of them mentions that if you got something to say to the person, even if its a sentence saying i miss you or you are my best friend that kind of thing, say it now! No one knows what will happen the next day… probably we are not given the chance to say it the next day… *touch wood* so… if you love your friends, love your family members, tell them now!! Don’t wait on… Don’t expect them to know without you telling… =) *feels like i’m writing a e-mail now… anyway, such things arae quite hard to say out.. so there is this E-mailing thing and SMS to send your regards to them…

*thinking in process*

*thinking*

*think*

*tink*

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