take a course and then bitch about the tutor :P

In addition the activities in the text book, the additional activities per week, AND the 'writing gym', my tutor has also added this as a tutorial:

1) I want you to stage ROMEO & JULIET in the round, on a proscemium stage, on a thrust stage as a promenade. How do you think it changes the play.

2) NOW, take a favourite film of yours and select a dramatic scene in which something important is revealed. Use a split stage technique in the round or promenade. How does it change the script? How does it effect the dialogue?

Is it me or do both of those sound far more complicated and time consuming than can be justified by the possible learning? Plus, this is a writing course, not a theatre course. (Bearing in mind this is the tutor who told me that drama is not a "genre". Plato would disagree).

Anyway, goodness knows how much time this man thinks people have. I HAVE plenty of time generally but there's no way I have enough to keep up with the tidal wave of activities, even the ones I can see the point of.

As part of my Children's Literature course I just watched a very brief documentary on a kind of production-line writing of kid's books. A team of people brainstorm an idea for a series (no individual books here apparently) and eventually produce a summary of the plot, the characters, and the themes. The guidance they produce is generally around half the length of the book to be written. So for a 60,000 word book they're getting 30,000 words of guidelines.  Thirty thousand words! That must specify pretty much every character beat and description, every plot point, and probably most of the descriptors.They then have half a dozen writers on their list submit a couple of chapters based on the guidelines and pick one with an 'interesting voice' to write the book.

This is the point I started laughing because, really, now you want your book to have some kind of individual voice? They're written pretty much by committee and the poor writer has zero input into characters, names, plot, or anything other than the mechanics of which words to choose. The guy in charge even admitted that the 'author' of the books is the company, not the person actually writing the words.

Anyway, my course material asked if I was 'shocked' now I'd seen the film and if this would affect my purchasing decisions?

Well, I'm not shocked since children's serials are notoriously formulaic and I already knew of at least one serial where the so-called 'author' is actually a pen name for a dozen or more actual writers. I do find it a little depressing to think of those poor writers who are basically working on a kind of literary production line. Not that creative production lines aren't without precedent, I'm told that a lot of the Italian renaissance paintings had students and employees doing to the background while the master concentrated on the more important parts. But those paintings at least had a controlling mind, a genuinely gifted painter, guiding the work. These committee written books don't even have that.

Would it affect my purchasing decisions? I don't have any children but if I did I suspect I'd be much less likely to buy this kind of thing, purely because I'd snobbishly assume it wouldn't be as good as some book that a children's author has worked and slaved over to perfect.

But, honestly, I'd probably simply be happy to have my child reading SOMETHING. Not every book can be a classic and not every meal is cordon bleu. I'm sure I read masses and masses of trashy books when I was a kid. In fact I'm sure I did. I read all of the  Star Trek: Original Series and Star Trek: Next Generation novels (around 300 or so), as a kid and none of them is any kind of a work of genius I'm sure. Hell when I was a kid I practically inhaled books and particularly series; Discworld, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Chronicles of Narnia, The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander, and every TV novelisation I could find. I wasn't remotely choosy about the quality of books I read and maybe that's where kids score over adults. I read anything that looked a) science fiction, b) fantasy, c) detetective fiction, and when I was a bit older d) a little bit naughty (or even better, a LOT naughty).

Now I don't read nearly as much as I like and I um and ah ridiculously over what I do read. Why? I have no idea. I'm certainly missing out on all sorts of great stuff because I'm finicky. I have a pile of novels to read and what have I been looking at this weekend? Faulkes on Fiction. A non-fiction book about all kinds of interesting fiction books and characters.

So while production line writing isn't likely to produce any classics, and makes me feel bad for children's authors generally, maybe it's not such a bad thing for the children. It's feeding their desire to read and if what they read isn't good quality then it isn't likely to hang around in their imaginations. Junk books win over junk food because they only bloat your bookshelves, not your waist line.

   

Yup, here I am again banging my head against a brick wall. If anyone could offer any suggestions, thoughts, or point out typos I'd be very grateful.

The question is:

"The fairy tale has become totally institutionalized in Western Society" - Investigate and evaluate this claim with particular reference to Little Red Riding Hood.

 

( Little Red Riding Hood, you a dirty girl )

 

 

 

 

 

(I finally got an icon for 'help!' since I ask for help so much)

I have my end of course assessment to do and it's 50% of my marks. I need to get started ASAP and for the life of me I cannot think of a single idea.

I only have 2500 words so I can't do anything particularly complicated or with lots of characters.

I'm thinking something about the relationship between a couple of people or possibly a day in the life type thing. But I can't think of any scenarios or themes. If anyone has any ideas for characters, themes, or scenarios I'd be very grateful. boudecia7  suggested a clone story which I like the idea of but I'm not sure where to go with it.

Thanks <333

This is my penultimate assignment for my evvvil Lit course. If anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, typo alerts, or anything else I would be very grateful.

 

 

( Read more... )

 

A bit of context: part of my exam in October is on theatre and plays. I've had a look at past exam questions and one that keeps popping up is about interpretation ie reimaginings, changing time period, gender of characters, how characters are presented. For instance Shylock in The Merchant of Venice now if often portrayed quite sympathetically but in Shakespeare's time he was a boo hiss villain. In order to get my head around this I'm looking for some viewpoints on how things can be reinterpreted.

So here are my questions, if you were 'remaking' Heroes and could change anything EXCEPT the general plot lines what would you do and why?
 
Would you change the time period, the tone - make it a sex comedy or a mystery perhaps - would you change the slant on some characters, would you change the race/age/gender of some of the characters? Would  you do something else completely?

What effect do you think those changes would make? If Sylar was a woman would they have shown 'her' going after Molly? If Maya had been a man would 'his' power have been crying? 

I'd really appreciate any thoughts anyone has.  

Thanks <333
 

Quote from my text book - discussing Pip in Great Expectations:

'...and Pip as deeply connected with both Joe and Miss Haversham in his secret sado-masochistic urges...'

Say what now? I'm the first person to read kinky stuff where it probably shouldn't be but Great Expectations as a book of deep S&M passions wherein Pip is in a love triangle with Joe and Miss Haversham I really can't see.

Also, EUWWWW!