Writing as revelation
Still on about Cameron's The Right to Write. Chapter 3 is a tiny little chapter, called "Let yourself Listen." To your storyteller within, basically. "Instead of being an act of pontification, writing becomes an act of revelation". Forget yourself, your need to show the world your brilliance, and accept that you are simply a means of transmission for the story.
The exercise: " pretend that you are sitting under a large tree with your back resting against the trunk. On the other side of the tree, a Storyteller sits, also resting against the trunk. Tell the Storyteller five things you'd like to hear stories about."
Okay. Five stories please:
1. How the aboriginals arrived in Australia. What sort of people were they, circa 60 kya? Who did they encounter along the way from Africa? What is it like, stepping onto a new, virgin shore?
2. There's been an apocalypse. You want to be with your loved ones, but you're in another city. How do you get home? What do you find when you get there?
3. Xmen 1. Rogue hitches a ride, they hit it off. In a nice, she's only a kid kind of way. But Logan defeats Sabretooth all by himself, thank you very much, and they keep on driving. (In Terri's immortal words. Genuflects.) What happens over the next year or so?
4. X-files verse. Scully meets her little boy again, 15 years on. What the hell is she say? "Daddy and I were being chased by the bad aliens and even badder humans, so we gave you up so you could be safe, and by the way, you may or may not be fully human. And I still don't know where your father is?"
5. The Breakfast Club (80s movie). What DID happen at school the week after that day in detention? How did John Bender explain having one of Claire Standish's diamonds in his ear? How did Claire explain it? And who did all of those characters grow up into, now that we're all pushing 40?
If anyone wants to have a bash at any of the above, feel free!!!
The exercise: " pretend that you are sitting under a large tree with your back resting against the trunk. On the other side of the tree, a Storyteller sits, also resting against the trunk. Tell the Storyteller five things you'd like to hear stories about."
Okay. Five stories please:
1. How the aboriginals arrived in Australia. What sort of people were they, circa 60 kya? Who did they encounter along the way from Africa? What is it like, stepping onto a new, virgin shore?
2. There's been an apocalypse. You want to be with your loved ones, but you're in another city. How do you get home? What do you find when you get there?
3. Xmen 1. Rogue hitches a ride, they hit it off. In a nice, she's only a kid kind of way. But Logan defeats Sabretooth all by himself, thank you very much, and they keep on driving. (In Terri's immortal words. Genuflects.) What happens over the next year or so?
4. X-files verse. Scully meets her little boy again, 15 years on. What the hell is she say? "Daddy and I were being chased by the bad aliens and even badder humans, so we gave you up so you could be safe, and by the way, you may or may not be fully human. And I still don't know where your father is?"
5. The Breakfast Club (80s movie). What DID happen at school the week after that day in detention? How did John Bender explain having one of Claire Standish's diamonds in his ear? How did Claire explain it? And who did all of those characters grow up into, now that we're all pushing 40?
If anyone wants to have a bash at any of the above, feel free!!!