Week Two – Greg

This week we continued with workshops to help improve both our writing and knowledge of tone, style etc. These involved working on character description and target audience.

We started the week with a character description session. This involved a photo being displayed and then as a class we individually to write about it.

The photo was Brian Eno by Tom Phillips.

The task was ‘Character Freewriting’ and aimed to improve the way in which a character is described. Before writing the piece I decided to write from the perspective of someone looking at the character and approach the piece through the visual aspects of the image such as colour and so on.

The piece I wrote was:

Light blue shadows caress the figures face as dark brown lines highlight prize features – yellow toned light spreads across the silhouette as the face is uncovered. Its a man, his age is hard to tell but his features are obvious.  He must be older, faded lines present wrinkled skin – signs of a long lived life. He must have been through a lot I thought as I stare into the figures eyes.

I think this piece needs developing further, I think if I were to go deeper within the piece the voice of the writing could be trying to work out the characters story through their visual appearance. I tried to approach the piece in a different way to challenge my skills and develop new voices however I don’t think the piece went as well as I was hoping; I think the vocabulary could be expanded further to create a more defined description to the character and create a better piece overall, I think my approach comes across as too artistic due to the use of colors for each description. In the future, I would hope to explore more of a story behind the character rather than just the visuals as I think just a description on the characters appearance comes across as slightly bland and boring.

After we had written our pieces we discussed the image as a class and then moved on to look at a quote on writing:

‘Characters are like seeds and the story is a tree that grows from this seeds’ 

As a class we discussed this phrase to decipher the meaning behind it. The tip suggests that a character is the root of a story and that the story grows from the character – their personality, back story and choices determine the development of the story and the direction the writing will take throughout the plot.

Following the discussion we looked at a piece by Issac Israel titled ‘In the Dancefloor’

We were tasked with writing a piece on what we saw in the painting and how this made us feel. I wrote a piece from the perspective of someone in the crowd watching both the two women and the man in the background, I wrote:

All I can see is the contrast of black and red as the figures move across the open space of the ballroom. The bluring colours of the ballgowns are eye catching – tightly pinned hair remains motionless as the two women dance against one another. As the skirts of the dresses sway a sense of elegance and beauty is portrayed through something society frowns apon – the two women should not be together is what many onlookers are thinking.  The tempo of the music changes as one woman twirls the other around before continuing to waltz along the diameter of the room. They look so in sync yet faces lurk in the distance frowning upon the sight of the women. One man hoovers in close proximity as his piercing eyes watch the women like a lion stalks its pray. His disgust is clear as I watch his head shake in despair as the women move closer.  

I approached this piece in hope of exploring the culture and beliefs at the time. When looking at the image, I thought that it looked like an older generation and that therefore two women would not easily be accepted into the social system – they most likely would have been disowned due to beliefs of the church and society. I think the piece explains the situation well however I do think my description could be improved with stronger word choice and also with the structure being improved, I think the points being made are slightly jumbled and therefore in the future I am definitely going to work on the way in which I put together my pieces in the future. I really enjoyed this task as I think it made me realize that my word choice needs developing further. I also enjoyed the idea that the painting can be perceived in some many different ways and mediums which can possibly be explored in future pieces.

We then got into pairs and explored different pieces of writing to look at target audiences. Myself and Kerrin looked at two pieces.

The first was unreliable memoirs by Clive James. When we first looked at this piece, we thought that it would have an older reading age due to the hidden humor throughout for example the first line “I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me” projects a comedic voice from the offset that i think only a mature reading audience would be able to understand. However after speaking to Greg we decided that a younger audience could also enjoy the piece but they would have to have a mature reading age to understand where Clive James is coming from. The piece mainly circulates around war and conflict therefore we decided someone who enjoys this type of genre would also enjoy the piece more so than someone who does not like war.

The second piece we looked at was a blog post on Climate change. We decided that this piece would have to have an audience that has a strong interest in geography and understands the topic well due to strong geographical terminology. We also decided that the blog would be more suitable for a more mature reading age due to the complex context such as “California’s San Mateo and Marin counties and the city of Imperial Beach in San Diego County have filed lawsuits in California Superior Court against 37 fossil fuel companies for years of damages due to climate change”.

We then had another class discussion of what constitutes news.

We came up with the following ideas:

• Natural Disasters
• Death / Conflict
• Celebrations
• Celebrities
• Politics
• Elite Nations
• Scientific Breakthroughs
• Health

We discussed how these topics ignite news as well as what people enjoy to read. This involved exploring different publications such as left wing papers such as The Independent and right wing publications such as The Daily Mail.

As a class we then looked at inverted pyramids.

The inverted pyramid is a metaphor used in the news world that illustrates how information should be prioritized and structured.

The next task involved turning a piece of media (eg story, TV programme, film) into a news article. I chose to turn an episode from The Vampire Diaries into a news article.

The piece I wrote was:

Mystic Falls has been desolate for several weeks following a chain of suspected animal attacks.

The small town of Virginia has been victim to many reports of supernatural activity since the early 17th century. Myths surrounding werewolves and vampires have surfaced with sources claiming a secret council works to ‘cover up’ the brutal vampire attacks.

In the aftermath of an aggressive gas explosion at the local restaurant The Mystic Grill, town officials have evacuated the entirety of the state in a bid to protect its residents. 

Sheriff Forbes of the Mystic Forbes police department says ‘ Our main priority is the safety of our town, we are working to discover the cause of the explosion and urge people to stay away whilst we do so.’ 

Unfortunately that is as far as I got with the piece but I am hoping to expand the piece in the future as I think its quite different to explore supernaturals within such a serious news report. I think if i continued to write this piece I would go on to possibly use social media platforms such as twitter to make peoples suspicions of Mystic Falls clearly and would also possibly touch on the origin of vampires and why people think they are in mystic falls.

I think the biggest downfall to this piece is word choice. For example I feel that i use ‘and’ to much and therefore need to expand my vocabulary within my future writing. Again I also think the structure is an issue, for example when I discuss the explosion I think that should come before I say that the town has been evacuated. I am definitely going to work on structuring my writing better in the future and also use devices such as fluttering to make sure I am not blabbing on to much and am organizing my information the best I can.

Overall, I have found this week very helpful as it has reminded me of simple things such as word choice that I lost touch on over the summer break. I also think looking into the target audiences has helped improve my knowledge significantly.

References

In the dancefloor – google.co.uk. (2017). in the dance floor issac isreal – Google Search. [online] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB764GB764&biw=1536&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=in+the+dance+floor+issac+isreal&oq=in+the+dance+floor+issac+isreal&gs_l=psy-ab.3…1790.5059.0.5305.13.13.0.0.0.0.168.908.12j1.13.0.dummy_maps_web_fallback…0…1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0….0.YZXUitbgdDo&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=tVntHMoEBUGWAM: [Accessed 29 Sep. 2017].

Brian Eno – Google.co.uk. (2017). brian eno tom phillips – Google Search. [online] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=brian+eno+tom+phillips&rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB764GB764&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikh96socrWAhXLbhQKHW2yDGwQ_AUICigB&biw=1536&bih=760&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=QnT27Rf4xLlm2M: [Accessed 29 Sep. 2017].

Climate Change – I found the geography blog post on the college blog as was not available online and it can be accessed at : https://creativewritingandjournalismstaff.wordpress.com/category/year-2/  [Accessed 28 Sep.2017].

Inverted Pyramid – Google.co.uk. (2017). inverted pyramid – Google Search. [online] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=inverted+pyramid&rlz=1C1GGRV_enGB764GB764&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJ38Wwr8rWAhWIXhQKHejwDGIQ_AUICigB&biw=1536&bih=760&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=B2zVvMnWAfIb9M: [Accessed 29 Sep. 2017].