Creative Writing (2 Viewers)

[marcquelle]

Yeah, my extension teacher liked he said it's "horribly-beautiful" lol, my mum thinks i'm deranged and pyschotic lol

 

[agua.fuego]

I really like the only thing i didn't like was this part
"he turns and looks out towards the stage light – a moon." it seemed to planned, taught description. But i still really liked it.

BTW has anyone else finished New Dawn?

Yes, I need to change that. I'd hand-written that part and I was tossing up whether to use the stage light or moon. I think I'd chosen moon. Anyway, forgot to change it, so editing it.

 

[Aerath]

Yeah, my extension teacher liked he said it's "horribly-beautiful" lol, my mum thinks i'm deranged and pyschotic lol

Don't take this the wrong way, but I agree with her.

 

[marcquelle]

The thing is i based it around a real murder and just kind of made it sound like that lol

I'm not deranged just random

 

[asdf.cosmo]

Gothic generally has these elements:
Mystery portrayed through setting (ie, night occurances, stormy, rainy weather, basically everything happens at night so it leaves an excuse for certain things not to be seen properly, etc)
Heroic Male
Submissive Female (or female who needs rescuing, a damsel in distress)
Supernatural Themes
Duality of Purpose/Ideals is a big one. (This is your typical story of Jekyll and Hyde, or Frankenstein. Jekyll and Hyde discusses "Man is not truly one, but truly two" and Jekyll attempts to seperate his "good" side and his "evil" side. Frankenstein shows how a hideous monster can also have feelings and emotions of human beings)

There is also horror and terror-
Terror being a mental idea, ie hearing something horrifying but not seeing it so your mind imagines what is happening
Horror being physical, ie, you can see it happening.

 

[beve]

You can basically go any angle for writing this, so long as it conforms to the Gothic conventions, as you know. (Attached, if the thing works.) Those are what will define your story to the Gothic genre, and while the elements like vampirism will definitely add to that, they will not be the one that makes it Gothic. When my class did this, we were all appropriating Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and we all realised that you can basically take any aspect of it and make it into a new story. Two that stood out to me (which I didn't end up reading, I just heard about their ideas and was all, Whoa...) were firstly, one that dealt with the creating of the undead (and that was apparently really well written and philosophical), and secondly, the one set in a rainforest. THAT one I really wanted to read. My one is here: http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=172476. I went with the idea of 'too much of anything is dangerous' and, as the title suggests, taken from the lovely Strictly Ballroom, 'a life lived in fear is a life half lived'. If you've read Frankenstein, you'll see what I've also used.

Onto the vampiric idea - yes, it's a safe topic, what with the popularity of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and all (which I love. That's all), but if you research, you can make a completely original story. What springs into my mind with my research for a Dracula essay is the vampire (Penanggalang) from Malaysia - basically a head with trailing entrails. More are listed at these two sites:

1. http://www.istrianet.org/istria/legends/vampires/intro-world.htm
2. http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~vampire/vhist.html

And if you use the prowess of Google you can find heaps more.

I also like Tammi105's idea of the weres. Increasingly popular but not to the scale of vampires, it's a good idea.

Now - for your inspiration:

I got mine simply by sitting down and beginning to write. That idea wasn't the one I was going with. I was going to go with a Romanticised modern day story. And I was sitting down to write a different story entirely, one for my own amusement. But that's what came out of it. And voila, English assignment.

Yeah, that sounds odd, but it's what happened.

Just freewrite for a while. That'll increase your skills in creative writing, because as my parents always like to tell me, practice makes perfect. And freewriting is simple - just sit down, pull a sentence out of a book, and start with that. Just a bit of dialogue, really simple. Or even inspiration from a song - I got mine from Ben Folds Five's song Brick for parts of my Extension one, and for another one that I did as a freewrite, I took the opening line from a Fall Out Boy song Of All The Gin Joints in The World. And that really helps if you try to just do a bit, and the key thing is do not delete a single thing that you write. Not a single word. Nothing. AT ALL. That is the single most important thing and even if it sounds incredibly stupid, keep it in. It's only a draft, just messing around. I can PM you my freewriting if you want... but in all honesty, it's probably not going to help.

Another idea: appropriation. Choose a Gothic book you've read (can be modern-day as well, I'm using Twilight for a related text to Dracula), and just modernise it. Take aspects of it and appropriate - update it to how you want it to be. A list of Gothic texts is here, at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_literature#Prominent_examples.

I hope that helps. PM me if you want any more help.

--

Just remembered - here are some tips from some writers, on the Women's Weekly site.

From Monica McInerney: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64754
The process of writing: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64751
From Gabrielle Lord: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64805
The X-Factor of writing: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=72933
Writing Exercises Part 1: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64753
Writing Exercises Part 2: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64772
Writing Exercises Part 3: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=72930
From Sue Williams: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=78514
From Louise Bagshawe: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=97294

Obviously these are mainly centred around writing entire novels. But they still do help. After all, it's the same process, just shortened.

You just helped me a whole damn lot too. Cheers.

 

[agua.fuego]

You just helped me a whole damn lot too. Cheers.

No prob. It's the part of English I like best.

 

[agua.fuego]

BTW has anyone else finished New Dawn?

Breaking Dawn? The new one?

Yep.

 

[marcquelle]

Breaking Dawn, opps my bad

I read it too but i leant it too a friend and i couldn't look at the title lol

my bad

 

[agua.fuego]

Breaking Dawn, opps my bad

I read it too but i leant it too a friend and i couldn't look at the title lol

my bad

Me too, I leant mine... I MISS IT!

 

[marcquelle]

it was sooooooooo good
I'm re-reading them again

 

[agua.fuego]

Me too. I bought them all (go staff discounts, working in a bookshop has its perks) and am going through them all. While using Twilight as a related text for Extension. Love it, definitely my fave... and it even made me love Jacob.

Where's the Twilight thread?

 

[Aerath]

Is every other girl going to use Twilight too?

 

[Aplus]

What's Twilight?

 

[agua.fuego]

Is every other girl going to use Twilight too?

Advantage of Distance ed - who knows!!!

I'm using it so that when I get told off for reading it, I can use the "It's for school" argument.

Aplus - Twilight is a series by Stephenie Meyer... basically uses vampires and whatnot... best series in the world. There's a movie coming out next year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_series

 

[marcquelle]

Is every other girl going to use Twilight too?

NO
1, I'm not a girl
2, I'm using Vampire Academy by Richell Mead & The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and a few others are on the list

 

[Aplus]

Aplus - Twilight is a series by Stephenie Meyer... basically uses vampires and whatnot... best series in the world. There's a movie coming out next year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_series

Is it that book that they were showing on A Current Afair/Today Tonight like ages ago promoting it as some new Harry Potter?

 

[Aplus]

Hahaha. As the new Harry potter? It's an over-exaggerated book. It became dull after the first book.

Dunno, I remember some sensationalised news report last year about some Vampire story which would be the next big thing lol.

 

[Aerath]

What's Twilight?

You're kidding. Every fucking girl in Sydney has been seen reading the series. You see them at the Central, sitting in a circle, all with a copy. Heh - even some guys.

 

[12o9]

You're kidding. Every fucking girl in Sydney has been seen reading the series. You see them at the Central, sitting in a circle, all with a copy. Heh - even some guys.

ROFL. so true.