Pop Culture: Television Writing; Short Fiction
Lab:
Please continue writing drafts and revisions for your portfolio and/or workshopping your writing.
Some ideas for prompts:
Prompt: Write and design a television pilot. You may work with a partner if you'd wish for this. Choose a type of TV show that inspires you, create characters, a title, an episode, etc. and write a script for the show's pilot.
Formatting tv shows is similar to film and play writing, but has its own special format. See the handouts for the television script format or here online.
Television Script Format
Feel free to read the sample scripts. These are only act 1 script samples. TV scripts are usually written in 3-acts (beginning to crisis, crisis to climax, climax to resolution). You can find full tv scripts online for models as well as the handouts. One place to look is here at Simply Scripts. Choose your favorite TV show and go to town!
Prompt: choose one of the topics from our brainstorming session and write about the topic. I.E., write about a specific problem or issue relating to trash culture, pop culture, counterculture, fads, progressive evolution, pop or media icons, popular technology, sports/leisure activities/games, music, fashion, food/lifestyle, etc. Keep writing essays, poems, scripts, stories, making documentaries, podcasting, etc. involving the topics you care or are passionate about.
Period 2: Reading; Focus on short fiction
We haven't really said much about fiction lately, so here goes.
Short fiction (fiction under 5,000 words) and short, short fiction (usually fiction anywhere from 500 words to a few thousand) are popular forms for magazines and online fare. It's certainly the kind of scope we tend to write in schools or college programs. Many professional writers insist that in order to write really good novels, one has to master the short story form first. Some writers will say that the short story form is harder to write well than novels.
There is no wrong way to write a story. Choose the method that works best for you, but you will need to decide the following at some point:
Let's read a few samples.
HOMEWORK: Please read the article on "The internet, Digital Media, and Media Convergence" and answer the questions at the end of the article for Thursday, Dec. 14.
Please continue writing drafts and revisions for your portfolio and/or workshopping your writing.
Some ideas for prompts:
Prompt: Write and design a television pilot. You may work with a partner if you'd wish for this. Choose a type of TV show that inspires you, create characters, a title, an episode, etc. and write a script for the show's pilot.
Formatting tv shows is similar to film and play writing, but has its own special format. See the handouts for the television script format or here online.
Television Script Format
Feel free to read the sample scripts. These are only act 1 script samples. TV scripts are usually written in 3-acts (beginning to crisis, crisis to climax, climax to resolution). You can find full tv scripts online for models as well as the handouts. One place to look is here at Simply Scripts. Choose your favorite TV show and go to town!
Prompt: choose one of the topics from our brainstorming session and write about the topic. I.E., write about a specific problem or issue relating to trash culture, pop culture, counterculture, fads, progressive evolution, pop or media icons, popular technology, sports/leisure activities/games, music, fashion, food/lifestyle, etc. Keep writing essays, poems, scripts, stories, making documentaries, podcasting, etc. involving the topics you care or are passionate about.
Period 2: Reading; Focus on short fiction
We haven't really said much about fiction lately, so here goes.
Short fiction (fiction under 5,000 words) and short, short fiction (usually fiction anywhere from 500 words to a few thousand) are popular forms for magazines and online fare. It's certainly the kind of scope we tend to write in schools or college programs. Many professional writers insist that in order to write really good novels, one has to master the short story form first. Some writers will say that the short story form is harder to write well than novels.
There is no wrong way to write a story. Choose the method that works best for you, but you will need to decide the following at some point:
- What is your premise? What is your story essentially about? My story is about...
- Decide on a genre. Each writing genre has tropes and motifs that affect the style and HOW the story is told. There is no difference between a good horror or comic story and a good western or romance story.
- Decide on a POV: your choice: 1st person (reliable or unreliable narrator), 2nd person, 3rd person (limited, omniscient, objective, or multiple-perspective)
- Decide on a protagonist (who has the most to lose or gain from a situation?)
- Decide on a narrative structure: conflict-crisis-resolution model, linear (chronological) or non-linear, circular, frame, pattern, stream-of-consciousness, meta-fiction, etc.
- Consider setting, plot, tone, & theme
- Start en media res, or in the middle of your story--the shorter the planned work, start closer to the climax...
Advice:
- Write the most important scene--do not worry about length; it is okay to write scene to scene. Try it now...
Let's read a few samples.
- Then go back to writing.
- Complete your first draft & bring it back with you to class (lab & classroom) on Thursday.
HOMEWORK: Please read the article on "The internet, Digital Media, and Media Convergence" and answer the questions at the end of the article for Thursday, Dec. 14.
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