Title: Unsure
Characters:
Diego: A 20 year old saxophone player. The dark and mysterious gentleman with the unsure yet inexhaustible sex appeal. His eyes will suck you in, but the wall that erects around himself is like his own personal fortress.
Lucy: The 19 year old butterfly. Lucy believes that she is still invincible; at that age when everything seems infinite, she often goes to great lengths in order to experience everything that life has to offer. Her haphazard decisions allow her to get what she wants, at the demise of something else. She believes that she is running out of time.
Plot:
The entire story is seen from Diego's point of view, where Lucy barters her virginity in order for him to take her home from a party before her curfew. With heavy dialogue, the entire scene finds our two main characters inside Diego's car, where the arguments and the climax of the story ensue. I would actually like most of the story to be based on the conversation that happens between Diego and Lucy, and most importantly, the intensity of the interaction between the two characters. I'd like to focus on the extreme tension of the situation, and the pressure it has put on Diego to resolve the matter. The entire story is very descriptive, coming from a first person point of view.
Reason for writing the story:
Losing one's virginity has grown to become a rite of passage, and i would like to explore how this could happen in a typical and contemporary setting between two unmarried people. How adolescents handle their sexuality has always been of extreme interest to me, and i have always found this to be a very fulfilling source of inspiration.
Research:
Interviews with people on their first sexual experience with another person, most importantly how it felt for them, and what particular details (a crack in the wall, the print of the bedsheets, etc) they remember of it.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Joshua's Story Proposals
1.) Eternal’s End (Tentative Title)
Characters:
Man
Woman
Synopsis:
In a world where eternal life is made available, everyone kills themselves. Stacks of little red vials named 4Ever are sold commercially. A man, wealthy and frivolous, decides to purchase two of them, for him and his wife. 4Ever stops aging and gives the consumer an immune system in overdrive, rendering him immune against all diseases. The couple enjoyed their immortality for the first ten years until everything starts falling apart. Christian in belief and lifestyle, the man’s faith is tested as he questions the existence of a God. Now that he has gained immortality, religion is rendered useless and faith becomes a thing of the past. His life becomes a meaningless cycle of repetitiveness and everything has been stripped down of its weight. Later in the story, his wife kills herself, and he is left alone – to live a life that is no longer a life, but a composition of meaningless gestures that are made to pattern what life should be. In the news, consumers of 4Ever rise in suicide rates. Thirty years after taking a sip from a vial of eternal life, he holds a gun to his head and fears a Hell that he fully believes in, awaiting him.
Reasons for Writing the Story:
Death is an essential part of human life, and death gives everything on earth its meaning. If immortal life was given, the irony is that those who obtain it would rather kill themselves for life is not life without death. I wanted to tackle the importance of death in my story so that even though it is something to be feared, it must also be something to be embraced.
Research:
Philosophy of Death and Life, Aging
2.) Tiyanak
Characters:
A young boy
A Mother
*Story will be told in the POV of the young boy
Synopsis:
In the middle of his sleep, a young boy hears infant whimpers in their bathroom. The next day, her mother confesses of aborting her child, his brother. The little boy becomes angered by this. Frequently, he dreams of his brother – the both of them playing, until he becomes bothered in his sleep by little cries emanating from his bathroom. He inspects his bathroom and finds nothing unusual except for a pile of tissues covered with blood in the trash next to the toilet. Suddenly, a zombie-like baby emerges from the toilet, covered with rotting flesh. He picks him up and cradles him in his hands, wraps him in a towel and places him on his bed, beside him as he sleeps. The next day, he awakes to find nothing but a clean towel beside him. He becomes bewildered by this. In the following nights, the baby cries become partnered with a woman singing gentle lullabies. Bothered by his curiosity, he barges into his bathroom and finds his mother cradling something wrapped in silken cloth. The mother drops the object and on the floor smashes a jar, and amongst the broken shards of glass and chemicals lie a little lump of flesh and muscle – his brother, sprawled all over the floor.
Research:
Tiyanaks, Superstitions, Philippine Ghosts and Monsters
3.) Rue
Synopsis:
A young adolescent wants to connect with her grandmother who is a writer but cannot for she is senile. He then discovers her grandmother’s journal and lives her life through her words.
Reason for Writing the Story:
The story is about my grandmother Ruffie, who is the only writer in the family. I see her only during our family reunions, and even though I have this deep desire to talk and discuss with her matters of writing, I cannot, for she is senile and can no longer talk. She is a goldmine of stories and ideas, but I cannot penetrate through her age. I want to write about her - her life, and my longing to connect with her. This story is also to prove that writers are made immortal through their works.
Research:
Further observe my grandmother.
Characters:
Man
Woman
Synopsis:
In a world where eternal life is made available, everyone kills themselves. Stacks of little red vials named 4Ever are sold commercially. A man, wealthy and frivolous, decides to purchase two of them, for him and his wife. 4Ever stops aging and gives the consumer an immune system in overdrive, rendering him immune against all diseases. The couple enjoyed their immortality for the first ten years until everything starts falling apart. Christian in belief and lifestyle, the man’s faith is tested as he questions the existence of a God. Now that he has gained immortality, religion is rendered useless and faith becomes a thing of the past. His life becomes a meaningless cycle of repetitiveness and everything has been stripped down of its weight. Later in the story, his wife kills herself, and he is left alone – to live a life that is no longer a life, but a composition of meaningless gestures that are made to pattern what life should be. In the news, consumers of 4Ever rise in suicide rates. Thirty years after taking a sip from a vial of eternal life, he holds a gun to his head and fears a Hell that he fully believes in, awaiting him.
Reasons for Writing the Story:
Death is an essential part of human life, and death gives everything on earth its meaning. If immortal life was given, the irony is that those who obtain it would rather kill themselves for life is not life without death. I wanted to tackle the importance of death in my story so that even though it is something to be feared, it must also be something to be embraced.
Research:
Philosophy of Death and Life, Aging
2.) Tiyanak
Characters:
A young boy
A Mother
*Story will be told in the POV of the young boy
Synopsis:
In the middle of his sleep, a young boy hears infant whimpers in their bathroom. The next day, her mother confesses of aborting her child, his brother. The little boy becomes angered by this. Frequently, he dreams of his brother – the both of them playing, until he becomes bothered in his sleep by little cries emanating from his bathroom. He inspects his bathroom and finds nothing unusual except for a pile of tissues covered with blood in the trash next to the toilet. Suddenly, a zombie-like baby emerges from the toilet, covered with rotting flesh. He picks him up and cradles him in his hands, wraps him in a towel and places him on his bed, beside him as he sleeps. The next day, he awakes to find nothing but a clean towel beside him. He becomes bewildered by this. In the following nights, the baby cries become partnered with a woman singing gentle lullabies. Bothered by his curiosity, he barges into his bathroom and finds his mother cradling something wrapped in silken cloth. The mother drops the object and on the floor smashes a jar, and amongst the broken shards of glass and chemicals lie a little lump of flesh and muscle – his brother, sprawled all over the floor.
Research:
Tiyanaks, Superstitions, Philippine Ghosts and Monsters
3.) Rue
Synopsis:
A young adolescent wants to connect with her grandmother who is a writer but cannot for she is senile. He then discovers her grandmother’s journal and lives her life through her words.
Reason for Writing the Story:
The story is about my grandmother Ruffie, who is the only writer in the family. I see her only during our family reunions, and even though I have this deep desire to talk and discuss with her matters of writing, I cannot, for she is senile and can no longer talk. She is a goldmine of stories and ideas, but I cannot penetrate through her age. I want to write about her - her life, and my longing to connect with her. This story is also to prove that writers are made immortal through their works.
Research:
Further observe my grandmother.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Fiction as allegiance.
And an allegation
(paper presented at the UP centennial writers' conference/workshop, dec. 1-6, 2008, UP in the Visayas-Tacloban College)
The burden of representation
As an avid reader and an amateur critic of fiction, I have found that, inevitably, dealing with fiction entails getting to a certain level of inquiry that also, inevitably, leads to one of only two results. One is what Pierre Macherey has termed as the breaking down of the story before questions it is incapable of answering, the other is my breaking down as a reader before a story I am incapable of questioning.
This is hardly unusual. I know that I am not alone in this reading practice or experience. Instead of just asking who the characters are in a story, we ask, for instance: Whose story is this, really? Is it a good/fair/innovative way of rendering these people’s lives? Is this a sound depiction of the subject him/herself? Instead of asking what the story is all about, we ask: What, ultimately, is the story saying about stories, about history, about time? Is this a sensitive rendering of a society, a culture, a social relationship, an event, a phenomenon? Instead of merely asking what the writer wants to say, we ask: What does this say about the writer? Whose interests does the writer serve? Or, even, what does this story want from me as a reader?
These questions, of course, point to concerns that are usually considered as being well beyond the pale of craft, way outside the parameters of form. I cannot disagree more. For sure, these are questions that delve into issues of ideology, representation, language and subjectivity, questions that the creative writer, as it is stressed in workshops time and time again, need not burden herself with. But these are concerns I burden myself with only because I have found that they cannot be disassociated with issues of form. No less than an appreciation of all these other aspects is demanded by fiction itself; and by narratives, in general, primarily because of its very nature, its very form.
My preferred definition of fiction is that which takes into consideration its form and the conditions that give rise to, sustain, or break, the form. Variations of this definition appear in the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Macherey, even Haydn White. Resil Mojares’s work in The Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel also comes to mind. So do the women’s stories in the anthology Fern Garden, edited by Merlie Alunan. Moreover, the stories of Eric Gamalinda, Erwin Castillo, Nick Joaquin, Chari Lucero, Gina Apostol, among others, illustrate the definition further. Their stories celebrate the form, question the boundaries between the mimetic and the marvelous and, in the process, engage quite intensely with the stories’ material and historical conditions. I pay much attention to these aspects because what, as a reader, I demand from (and enjoy about) fiction, are no different from what I, as a writer of it, aspire for. Similarly, the things I am dissatisfied with in some works of fiction are the very same things I want to avoid in my own writing -- monologism, univocalism, and objectivism. Kind of like the traits of this government which I also cannot stand.
I do tend to agree with the idea that fiction is necessarily burdened with issues of representation – not only in the sense of Greek Classical representation as the reproduction of something, or the elaboration of a concept corresponding to a thing perceived; but also in the sense of political, everyday representation as in formal statements made to a higher authority. Representation as the communication of an opinion, or the registration of a protest! More and more, I am seduced by the idea of fiction as a claim, a contention and, sometimes, an allegation.
(I must say that I love the word allegation. Used appropriately, it can be an effective way of stating one’s belief by merely citing the plausible opposite. The exercise of alleging can be an immensely successful way of rendering the tyranny of truth as irrelevant or, at least, relative, conditional. Allegation is a very powerful legal fiction, so to speak.)
I remember a critic from New Zealand, enthusiastically presenting a paper on one of Jessica Hagedorn’s novels, in a literary conference in UP. The critic went on to praise the novel’s style and evocative language, only to be severely critiqued right after. The poor guy did not know what hit him. What more do you want, I’m sure he wanted to ask. Here I am, telling you that I love this novel, by a Filipino writer, about the Philippines, and you complain! What the critic did not anticipate was the ultra sensitivity of the audience – literature teachers, writers, and critics all – to issues of representation. The guy was severely berated for not having recognized that the reading he just offered had long been rendered inoperable, narrow-minded, and generally unsound. His only fault: to praise the book for the wrong claims; and to claim an understanding of the state of the nation, merely through the book. What really struck the audience’s nerve was that this one particular novel by a Fil-am writer was being read by a foreigner as a representation of the entire Philippines. On the contrary, readings of it in Comparative Literature classrooms have tended to treat the novel as being quite unabashedly intended for a foreign audience, and its postmodernist tendencies merely serve to mask the novel’s ideology. At some point, I remember thinking: Well, why the hell not? Why can’t one write for the audience one wants? Would it have made a difference if the author were not a Fil-American, if she were just a Filipino? Would it have made a difference if she wrote about America, instead of the Philippines, and applied the same techniques and strategies?
Apparently, yes, one can and does write for one’s ideal reader. However, one has to always account for one’s subject position, which is revealed by the mere choice of readership. And, nowadays, yes, it does make a difference who you’re writing as, what you’re writing about, and where you’re writing from.
I have my own reading of the novel, and I do tend to go with the postcolonial critique of ideology approach. I submit though that, to a certain extent, the engagement with critical theory – particularly of these kinds – can get out of hand, get in the way of pure reading pleasure. Not to mention how it can get in the way of pure fiction-writing pleasure.
Theory indeed gets in the way. But, isn’t it only right that it should? The complexity of the world we write of and the world we write in demands that it be rendered sensitively and, well, honestly. Whether one writes of a world of simple peasants in the distant Philippine past, or the underground world of punk-gothic individuals in dizzyingly fast-paced urban New Manila, one is still writing of the here and now. One has to, in a sense, theorize the world one writes in, through the fictionalized world one writes of.
All I mean is, there is no turning back, no reclaiming lost innocence, no feigning indifference. One can no longer unread what one has read. There are pressures and demands on the writing and reading of Philippine fiction, in English, at least, that cannot, and should not, be ignored.
Home as a syndrome
As a writer from the Visayas, who is based in Manila, for instance, I cannot help but react, sometimes violently, to pressures for a particular kind of representation in my fiction. I’m sure this is a familiar experience to many. For instance, in national writers workshops, it is almost always expected of us to turn out a story with a strong, local flavor, but rendered from an ironic perspective. I mean, if you merely translate into English a perfectly sensible and successful oral narrative in Waray, for instance, it would surely be considered too simplistic, unimaginative, a failure. But, really, what does local color mean? Does this mean including snippets of conversation, expletives and curses, in the local language for emotional color? Does it involve using Waray terms, written in italics, even for phrases that have an idiomatic equivalent in English? Does this mean writing about rural folks, in idyllic seaside settings, engaging in so-called native – therefore humorous, strange, or fantastic – practices? Because I am very much guilty of all that, of submitting to such pressures and demands. What’s even more unfortunate is that these are pressures I myself exert on my own writing, almost as a matter of course.
The truth is, it is only on occasions like this that I am forced to confront questions that sometimes do spoil the pleasure of writing fiction. Most of the time, I just write what I can, whenever I can. I still believe that a writer’s role is to write. I cannot use the excuse of engaging with theory as a reason for not being able to produce fiction. Neither do I see theory as an impetus to write fiction. I do not write fiction in order to illustrate a theory. I do not write fiction in order to save the country, to improve people’s lives, or to empower the marginalized. There are other activities, other kinds of writing, that I do that, to my mind, would more closely approach those objectives. As a fictionist, my first allegiance is to the story, to memory, to play. My fiction, moreover, aims to play with the concept of fiction itself, with the concept of allegiance even, as well as of memory and remembrance.
My stories have invariably been about home – home as a syndrome, a physiological disorder: a disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or an abnormal condition. The body is in one place, but the heart is someplace else. The language that is used for speech is not the language of one’s secrets. This is the main affliction, an affliction whose symptoms are not always manifest, rather latent. In my stories, the characters are always engaged with and yet distanced from home; but they never really leave it, they bring it with them wherever they go. The struggle is to accept that home is a concept, and a floating, unstable one, too. The struggle is to broaden the concept in order to encompass one’s changing conditions, one’s mobile location, one’s shifting position. The struggle is to not make everyone notice that the character is not always there; that she is, in truth, some place else; that she has actually disappeared, has established her home in the deepest recesses of her mind, a place beyond anyone’s reach.
I remember how, as a child growing up always amidst some twenty other cousins, in a small family compound here in Tacloban, or in Barugo, or Matalom, or Cebu, during the summer, I was always trying to disappear, and it was quite easy to disappear. I did it several times. I simply slipped out of the group of cousins playing out in the yard, to go back up to the house, hide in the room, go through my mother’s bags, rifle through my father’s documents, open cabinets and drawers, climb atop kitchen counters, mix up and blend condiments, write and draw figures on walls, dress and make up the saints, all the while unnoticed and unmissed. This went on for quite some time until one afternoon, when I decided to hide behind the backdoor of my grandparents’ house in Tacloban, to blend with the brooms and mops and cobwebs and dust, for about twelve hours, they say. I stood there without making any movement or sound, watching the maids, some aunts and cousins, go in and out of the house. I remember how I maintained my position even when my cousins and, eventually, the adults started looking for me. I could clearly hear and see people combing the entire house, the entire compound, looking everywhere but behind the backdoor. I stood there even when I could see my mother starting to panic and to blame hapless househelps for my disappearance. I do not, however, for the life of me, remember why I did what I did, or what was going through my mind while I stood there, very, very, very still. Neither do I know what made me step out of the dark, privileged, corner behind the door, in order to blend, inevitably, with the rest of them.
Since then, I don’t think I have been able to hide and disappear without anyone noticing. I did not mind becoming more visible only because I eventually realized that that was actually the best way to obscurity; an obscurity which served my need to observe, to create worlds within a world, story after story.
My head was always filled with stories – real and fabricated, my own and others’, for good and for bad. I think it was my father who first had the inkling that I would one day venture into writing stories, if not jokes. I think the very first time I understood what it took to make people laugh was also the time I understood how language works. I remember that it was one of those evenings, after dinner, the adults were out in the veranda, smoking, having coffee, airing themselves out. I sat next to Tatay and said, in Waray: Let’s say your name is You and my name is Me. Now answer this question: Who is the crazy one between the two of us? Tatay laughed so hard, I was instantly pleased, even if I didn’t have the foggiest idea why he found it so funny. I wasn’t trying to be funny, I don’t even think the idea for what was apparently a joke, was my original. For a while there, I was a major hit. Everyone started telling and retelling my joke, it became deeply embarrassing, especially because I was the last to actually get it. When I finally did get it, I tried formulating similar quips, a few of which elicited a wan response, none of which quite achieved the same kind of sweeping success that the first joke elicited. Until today, I am still trying.
There is nothing special about the stories I write. There is nothing special about me as a writer of stories. Everyone in my family is either a storyteller or a politician, which is basically saying that they are all fictionists. A few of them actually became highly successful writers and many became spectacularly unsuccessful politicians. My point is simply to say that the simple question of why I write has an equally simple answer: given that there have only been two fates, I think I’d rather be a failed writer than a failed politician. As for why I write the way I do and for whom I write, I think it is clear to me now: I write to please those from whom my fiction is derived. This is my fiction, my audacious allegation. Whether or not I actually do please them, can be the subject of another forum, for another time.
(paper presented at the UP centennial writers' conference/workshop, dec. 1-6, 2008, UP in the Visayas-Tacloban College)
The burden of representation
As an avid reader and an amateur critic of fiction, I have found that, inevitably, dealing with fiction entails getting to a certain level of inquiry that also, inevitably, leads to one of only two results. One is what Pierre Macherey has termed as the breaking down of the story before questions it is incapable of answering, the other is my breaking down as a reader before a story I am incapable of questioning.
This is hardly unusual. I know that I am not alone in this reading practice or experience. Instead of just asking who the characters are in a story, we ask, for instance: Whose story is this, really? Is it a good/fair/innovative way of rendering these people’s lives? Is this a sound depiction of the subject him/herself? Instead of asking what the story is all about, we ask: What, ultimately, is the story saying about stories, about history, about time? Is this a sensitive rendering of a society, a culture, a social relationship, an event, a phenomenon? Instead of merely asking what the writer wants to say, we ask: What does this say about the writer? Whose interests does the writer serve? Or, even, what does this story want from me as a reader?
These questions, of course, point to concerns that are usually considered as being well beyond the pale of craft, way outside the parameters of form. I cannot disagree more. For sure, these are questions that delve into issues of ideology, representation, language and subjectivity, questions that the creative writer, as it is stressed in workshops time and time again, need not burden herself with. But these are concerns I burden myself with only because I have found that they cannot be disassociated with issues of form. No less than an appreciation of all these other aspects is demanded by fiction itself; and by narratives, in general, primarily because of its very nature, its very form.
My preferred definition of fiction is that which takes into consideration its form and the conditions that give rise to, sustain, or break, the form. Variations of this definition appear in the works of Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Macherey, even Haydn White. Resil Mojares’s work in The Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel also comes to mind. So do the women’s stories in the anthology Fern Garden, edited by Merlie Alunan. Moreover, the stories of Eric Gamalinda, Erwin Castillo, Nick Joaquin, Chari Lucero, Gina Apostol, among others, illustrate the definition further. Their stories celebrate the form, question the boundaries between the mimetic and the marvelous and, in the process, engage quite intensely with the stories’ material and historical conditions. I pay much attention to these aspects because what, as a reader, I demand from (and enjoy about) fiction, are no different from what I, as a writer of it, aspire for. Similarly, the things I am dissatisfied with in some works of fiction are the very same things I want to avoid in my own writing -- monologism, univocalism, and objectivism. Kind of like the traits of this government which I also cannot stand.
I do tend to agree with the idea that fiction is necessarily burdened with issues of representation – not only in the sense of Greek Classical representation as the reproduction of something, or the elaboration of a concept corresponding to a thing perceived; but also in the sense of political, everyday representation as in formal statements made to a higher authority. Representation as the communication of an opinion, or the registration of a protest! More and more, I am seduced by the idea of fiction as a claim, a contention and, sometimes, an allegation.
(I must say that I love the word allegation. Used appropriately, it can be an effective way of stating one’s belief by merely citing the plausible opposite. The exercise of alleging can be an immensely successful way of rendering the tyranny of truth as irrelevant or, at least, relative, conditional. Allegation is a very powerful legal fiction, so to speak.)
I remember a critic from New Zealand, enthusiastically presenting a paper on one of Jessica Hagedorn’s novels, in a literary conference in UP. The critic went on to praise the novel’s style and evocative language, only to be severely critiqued right after. The poor guy did not know what hit him. What more do you want, I’m sure he wanted to ask. Here I am, telling you that I love this novel, by a Filipino writer, about the Philippines, and you complain! What the critic did not anticipate was the ultra sensitivity of the audience – literature teachers, writers, and critics all – to issues of representation. The guy was severely berated for not having recognized that the reading he just offered had long been rendered inoperable, narrow-minded, and generally unsound. His only fault: to praise the book for the wrong claims; and to claim an understanding of the state of the nation, merely through the book. What really struck the audience’s nerve was that this one particular novel by a Fil-am writer was being read by a foreigner as a representation of the entire Philippines. On the contrary, readings of it in Comparative Literature classrooms have tended to treat the novel as being quite unabashedly intended for a foreign audience, and its postmodernist tendencies merely serve to mask the novel’s ideology. At some point, I remember thinking: Well, why the hell not? Why can’t one write for the audience one wants? Would it have made a difference if the author were not a Fil-American, if she were just a Filipino? Would it have made a difference if she wrote about America, instead of the Philippines, and applied the same techniques and strategies?
Apparently, yes, one can and does write for one’s ideal reader. However, one has to always account for one’s subject position, which is revealed by the mere choice of readership. And, nowadays, yes, it does make a difference who you’re writing as, what you’re writing about, and where you’re writing from.
I have my own reading of the novel, and I do tend to go with the postcolonial critique of ideology approach. I submit though that, to a certain extent, the engagement with critical theory – particularly of these kinds – can get out of hand, get in the way of pure reading pleasure. Not to mention how it can get in the way of pure fiction-writing pleasure.
Theory indeed gets in the way. But, isn’t it only right that it should? The complexity of the world we write of and the world we write in demands that it be rendered sensitively and, well, honestly. Whether one writes of a world of simple peasants in the distant Philippine past, or the underground world of punk-gothic individuals in dizzyingly fast-paced urban New Manila, one is still writing of the here and now. One has to, in a sense, theorize the world one writes in, through the fictionalized world one writes of.
All I mean is, there is no turning back, no reclaiming lost innocence, no feigning indifference. One can no longer unread what one has read. There are pressures and demands on the writing and reading of Philippine fiction, in English, at least, that cannot, and should not, be ignored.
Home as a syndrome
As a writer from the Visayas, who is based in Manila, for instance, I cannot help but react, sometimes violently, to pressures for a particular kind of representation in my fiction. I’m sure this is a familiar experience to many. For instance, in national writers workshops, it is almost always expected of us to turn out a story with a strong, local flavor, but rendered from an ironic perspective. I mean, if you merely translate into English a perfectly sensible and successful oral narrative in Waray, for instance, it would surely be considered too simplistic, unimaginative, a failure. But, really, what does local color mean? Does this mean including snippets of conversation, expletives and curses, in the local language for emotional color? Does it involve using Waray terms, written in italics, even for phrases that have an idiomatic equivalent in English? Does this mean writing about rural folks, in idyllic seaside settings, engaging in so-called native – therefore humorous, strange, or fantastic – practices? Because I am very much guilty of all that, of submitting to such pressures and demands. What’s even more unfortunate is that these are pressures I myself exert on my own writing, almost as a matter of course.
The truth is, it is only on occasions like this that I am forced to confront questions that sometimes do spoil the pleasure of writing fiction. Most of the time, I just write what I can, whenever I can. I still believe that a writer’s role is to write. I cannot use the excuse of engaging with theory as a reason for not being able to produce fiction. Neither do I see theory as an impetus to write fiction. I do not write fiction in order to illustrate a theory. I do not write fiction in order to save the country, to improve people’s lives, or to empower the marginalized. There are other activities, other kinds of writing, that I do that, to my mind, would more closely approach those objectives. As a fictionist, my first allegiance is to the story, to memory, to play. My fiction, moreover, aims to play with the concept of fiction itself, with the concept of allegiance even, as well as of memory and remembrance.
My stories have invariably been about home – home as a syndrome, a physiological disorder: a disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or an abnormal condition. The body is in one place, but the heart is someplace else. The language that is used for speech is not the language of one’s secrets. This is the main affliction, an affliction whose symptoms are not always manifest, rather latent. In my stories, the characters are always engaged with and yet distanced from home; but they never really leave it, they bring it with them wherever they go. The struggle is to accept that home is a concept, and a floating, unstable one, too. The struggle is to broaden the concept in order to encompass one’s changing conditions, one’s mobile location, one’s shifting position. The struggle is to not make everyone notice that the character is not always there; that she is, in truth, some place else; that she has actually disappeared, has established her home in the deepest recesses of her mind, a place beyond anyone’s reach.
I remember how, as a child growing up always amidst some twenty other cousins, in a small family compound here in Tacloban, or in Barugo, or Matalom, or Cebu, during the summer, I was always trying to disappear, and it was quite easy to disappear. I did it several times. I simply slipped out of the group of cousins playing out in the yard, to go back up to the house, hide in the room, go through my mother’s bags, rifle through my father’s documents, open cabinets and drawers, climb atop kitchen counters, mix up and blend condiments, write and draw figures on walls, dress and make up the saints, all the while unnoticed and unmissed. This went on for quite some time until one afternoon, when I decided to hide behind the backdoor of my grandparents’ house in Tacloban, to blend with the brooms and mops and cobwebs and dust, for about twelve hours, they say. I stood there without making any movement or sound, watching the maids, some aunts and cousins, go in and out of the house. I remember how I maintained my position even when my cousins and, eventually, the adults started looking for me. I could clearly hear and see people combing the entire house, the entire compound, looking everywhere but behind the backdoor. I stood there even when I could see my mother starting to panic and to blame hapless househelps for my disappearance. I do not, however, for the life of me, remember why I did what I did, or what was going through my mind while I stood there, very, very, very still. Neither do I know what made me step out of the dark, privileged, corner behind the door, in order to blend, inevitably, with the rest of them.
Since then, I don’t think I have been able to hide and disappear without anyone noticing. I did not mind becoming more visible only because I eventually realized that that was actually the best way to obscurity; an obscurity which served my need to observe, to create worlds within a world, story after story.
My head was always filled with stories – real and fabricated, my own and others’, for good and for bad. I think it was my father who first had the inkling that I would one day venture into writing stories, if not jokes. I think the very first time I understood what it took to make people laugh was also the time I understood how language works. I remember that it was one of those evenings, after dinner, the adults were out in the veranda, smoking, having coffee, airing themselves out. I sat next to Tatay and said, in Waray: Let’s say your name is You and my name is Me. Now answer this question: Who is the crazy one between the two of us? Tatay laughed so hard, I was instantly pleased, even if I didn’t have the foggiest idea why he found it so funny. I wasn’t trying to be funny, I don’t even think the idea for what was apparently a joke, was my original. For a while there, I was a major hit. Everyone started telling and retelling my joke, it became deeply embarrassing, especially because I was the last to actually get it. When I finally did get it, I tried formulating similar quips, a few of which elicited a wan response, none of which quite achieved the same kind of sweeping success that the first joke elicited. Until today, I am still trying.
There is nothing special about the stories I write. There is nothing special about me as a writer of stories. Everyone in my family is either a storyteller or a politician, which is basically saying that they are all fictionists. A few of them actually became highly successful writers and many became spectacularly unsuccessful politicians. My point is simply to say that the simple question of why I write has an equally simple answer: given that there have only been two fates, I think I’d rather be a failed writer than a failed politician. As for why I write the way I do and for whom I write, I think it is clear to me now: I write to please those from whom my fiction is derived. This is my fiction, my audacious allegation. Whether or not I actually do please them, can be the subject of another forum, for another time.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Story Proposal
Sorry this is so late, my internet connection doesn't like blogger very much...
Short Story, probably for Young Adults
Characters:
A girl, and several of her friends (have not thought of names, they usually come to me when I'm already writing).
Setting:
A fictional place, still relatively similar to the real world, except for a few things.
Short Synopsis:
A story about a girl who writes – she doesn’t really take it seriously, writes about strange things, occurrences, events, people making choices that don’t make sense, don’t follow any kind of logic at all – and one day finds that the things she writes keep coming true.
Research Method:
Nothing very substantial yet. For now, perhaps I will consult with people on what they think fiction is, and of how writers and readers have viewed fiction through the years.
Reason for Writing:
The source of the idea for my story is something that will, in all likelihood, end up being almost completely unrelated to the story: The Twilight Saga.With the rise of the whole debate about Twilight among the young literature enthusiasts/general readers, of which I am on the “against” side, I found out some troubling things about how my chosen genre, fiction, is perceived by some readers. Whenever people bring up logic and real-world reasoning in order to prove the literary inadequacy of Twilight, the fans of the said book series usually reply, “It’s just a book!” or “You just think too much!” or, most troublesome of all: “It’s just Fiction; it’s not supposed to make sense!”
The last statement, and many variations of it made by different Twilight readers, horrified me. People actually thought that just because it was fiction, it didn’t have to have logic. That it didn’t have to make sense or be applied to the truth of the real world. This of course, is not true – I have always been taught, by CW teachers and Lit teachers alike, that all genres of literature have to convey a human truth. The readers basically think that anything one writes, if it is in fiction, should not have to be taken seriously. That absolutely anything, with no explanations necessary, can happen because hey, it’s fictional.
The difficulty of a writer who writes fiction is in putting forth a world whose logic makes sense even to a reader who belongs solidly to the real world. If it is realistic, then it should, indeed, follow the scientific and logical rules of the natural world. In fantasy, where there are different worlds and different creatures, one has to follow logic, all the while not constraining himself/herself to the scientific laws of the actual world. But even worlds of the Fantastic follow their own logic that is constant and rational (Twilight is unfortunately set in the real world, despite having Vampires, and the author often throws out the window logic that should apply even to Vampires and Werewolves because they, too, live in the world we currently live in).
No solid plans for the next two stories yet; am probably going to try to make one that's more adult, but I have no idea yet what to do with the third.
Short Story, probably for Young Adults
Characters:
A girl, and several of her friends (have not thought of names, they usually come to me when I'm already writing).
Setting:
A fictional place, still relatively similar to the real world, except for a few things.
Short Synopsis:
A story about a girl who writes – she doesn’t really take it seriously, writes about strange things, occurrences, events, people making choices that don’t make sense, don’t follow any kind of logic at all – and one day finds that the things she writes keep coming true.
Research Method:
Nothing very substantial yet. For now, perhaps I will consult with people on what they think fiction is, and of how writers and readers have viewed fiction through the years.
Reason for Writing:
The source of the idea for my story is something that will, in all likelihood, end up being almost completely unrelated to the story: The Twilight Saga.With the rise of the whole debate about Twilight among the young literature enthusiasts/general readers, of which I am on the “against” side, I found out some troubling things about how my chosen genre, fiction, is perceived by some readers. Whenever people bring up logic and real-world reasoning in order to prove the literary inadequacy of Twilight, the fans of the said book series usually reply, “It’s just a book!” or “You just think too much!” or, most troublesome of all: “It’s just Fiction; it’s not supposed to make sense!”
The last statement, and many variations of it made by different Twilight readers, horrified me. People actually thought that just because it was fiction, it didn’t have to have logic. That it didn’t have to make sense or be applied to the truth of the real world. This of course, is not true – I have always been taught, by CW teachers and Lit teachers alike, that all genres of literature have to convey a human truth. The readers basically think that anything one writes, if it is in fiction, should not have to be taken seriously. That absolutely anything, with no explanations necessary, can happen because hey, it’s fictional.
The difficulty of a writer who writes fiction is in putting forth a world whose logic makes sense even to a reader who belongs solidly to the real world. If it is realistic, then it should, indeed, follow the scientific and logical rules of the natural world. In fantasy, where there are different worlds and different creatures, one has to follow logic, all the while not constraining himself/herself to the scientific laws of the actual world. But even worlds of the Fantastic follow their own logic that is constant and rational (Twilight is unfortunately set in the real world, despite having Vampires, and the author often throws out the window logic that should apply even to Vampires and Werewolves because they, too, live in the world we currently live in).
No solid plans for the next two stories yet; am probably going to try to make one that's more adult, but I have no idea yet what to do with the third.
Story Proposal
Story Idea 1: (Untitled)
Description:
An independent, accomplished and relatively healthy woman constantly gets pressured about “settling down” as she nears her 30s. This would all be too well and good… except for the fact that she feels more than satisfied with her status of being single.
An anti-thesis to romantic love, this is a social commentary/critique on accepted social norms and standards. It will tackle issues on gender, sexuality, the viability of personal contentment as well as aging. This is more or less a conversational piece (possibly more intrinsically directed with the character’s self-realization in the end) and has no concrete plot.
Research Method:
Articles/writings (biological and psychological) on
a) human and animal sexuality
b) common gender roles and politics
c) the myth and romanticism of love
d) self-actualization of individuals
Interviews: peoples take on the possibility of an “asexual” state of existence
Reason/s for writing:
I really want to show how an individual can – by all means – lead a well-rounded, simple and normal existence without actually having an innate (sexual) need; that one can be complete without an “other,” regardless of social expectations/dictates.
***
Story Idea 2: (Untitled)
Description:
World War III’s nuclear warfare causes earth to enter into its Second Ice Age. Due to the drastic climate change, many of the world’s species – all but one man and one woman – die off from the extremely cold weather.
A modern, pre- or post- apocalyptic (haven’t decided yet) take on the first/last man and woman which will be done in a folklore-narrative kind of style.
Research Method:
Articles/writings on
a) Darwin’s Origin of the Species
b) conditions of the first ice age
c) possible conditions/speculations on the second ice age
d) geological concepts and theories
e) creation myths: Hebrew and Greek
Reason/s for writing:
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
***
Story Idea 3: Balut
Description:
A six-year old cracks open a delicious looking balut only to uncover a tiny cockatrice inside. Not knowing what it is, he/she starts to adopt it as a pet.
Research Method:
Articles/writings on
a) anatomy and process of making of balut/duck eggs
b) medieval accounts and myths of the cockatrice
Reason/s for writing:
I think this would be really fun to write. :)
***
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Story proposal
Story Proposal: Nana and Juan-- future
Characters
1. Nana- A manananggal who is not necessarily evil, still eats babies as per her character, but acts normal and mingles with the humans otherwise.
2. Juan- A kapre that has a knack for sleeping for centuries, ends up waking up in different time periods, usually with very confusing circumstances. He is usually passive and selfish, but does not act violently unless provoked. He usually wakes up to find Nana around.
* This is not to paint aswangs as neither bad creatures nor good creatures. They are sort of like humans-- except their treatment of humans is almost the same as we would treat cute animals. Sort of like the sheep, its cute, and adorable, and it could be our friend. But it could also be food. HAHAHAHAHA.
Setting
The setting is in the future-- mankind is so dominant, we are like a plague. Overpopulation is so prevalent that people are reduced to killing each other for survival. Governments pay lots of attention to population control. The Church has separated into several factions regarding the use of contraceptions and reproduction. This situation has affected the world of the aswangs greatly.
* It could also be a pseudo-commentary about the RH bill.
Synopsis
Juan wakes up in the future, Nana is still there but looking very tired. The future is a horrible place with horrible people and world issues that have been left unsolved due to individualism and environmental ignorance. They find that most of the aswangs have been dead for a very long time now.
Research Methods
Books on aswangs, interviews with experts and seniors doing their theses on the aswangs. Also read up on issues that concern the world today, including overpopulation (RH bill), environmental issues, economics, etc. etc.
Reasons for Writing
Since I’ve already done a past and present version of Nana and Juan, it’s only fitting that I create a future for both them and humanity. This story is meant to open readers’ eyes to the possibilities of our future, good and bad, from the perspective of one who was born from both nature and man (the aswangs). It also delves into the nature of the aswang, and touches on my theory of how the aswangs came into existence.
I didn't decide on writing the romantic short story of the Chinese-Filipino relationship for lots of personal reasons, but I probably will one day.
~Margaret Kawsek
Story Proposals (Iggy)
1) The World’s Smallest Violin
Characters:
A forty-something man (nameless)
A rocking-horse
Plot:
The story is about a man who plays the violin while riding his rocking-horse, while a group of people watch him while he does this. The story won’t really have a plot; it's just going to have a lot of descriptions that would hopefully reveal the man's past and personality. It's going to be very phenomenological, with lots of describing as it is.
Reason for writing this:
My parents recently brought a reproduction of Elmer Borlongan's painting "The Rocking Horse," and the painting really took my breath away to the point that I told myself I would write something about it. A piece of fiction I read in the Phil. Free Press, "Barbed Hula" by Danielle Miller, also inspired me to do this. To add to that, I've always been interested in doing prose poetry, even if I don't really understand how it's done (but I'll try it anyway). But as I was all set to write the story, I did a bit of research on Borlongan's "The Rocking Horse," and found out that it has already been used for the children's story division of a previous Palanca contest, with over 80 entries inspired by the painting, so I guess what I'm about to do isn't going to be new anymore. But what the hell, I'm still gonna go through with it.
Research Method:
- Reread “Good Morning” by Gloria Frym, because it is an example of prose poetry
- Reread “Barbed Hula” by Danielle Miller
- Stare at the painting for hours; immerse myself in the beauty of the painting and hopefully derive a message from it
- Research on phenomenology
2) My Grandma’s Going to Eat Me (temporary title)
Characters:
A little boy (very skinny)
The little boy’s grandma
Plot:
The story is about a little boy who thinks his grandma is a witch who’s going to eat him, because she keeps telling him to “fatten up” every time they have dinner. It’s going to be told from the boy’s point of view, and is going to be slightly dark and morbid, although I intend to write it like a children's story. I'm not really sure if I can make it sound like a children's story because the theme is pretty dark, but I'll try. Bahala na.
Reason for writing this:
A friend of mine once asked me to submit a children’s story for Heights once, and this is what I thought of writing. But I was never able to start the story, because I was pressed for time and didn’t have inspiration back then. This is also going to be semi-autobiographical, because I used to feel this way about my grandma. And DM Reyes once said that if an idea stays with you for a pretty long time, then that's probably a story waiting to be written, so I want to write this down.
Research Method:
- Read “Hansel & Gretel”
- Read some children’s stories
- Reread “Fear” by Rhys Davies (hopefully pattern it after that story)
- Research stuff about a child's psychology, if there's something like that
3) (no title yet)
Characters:
Boy and girl (both nameless for now)
Plot:
A day in the life of a boy and a girl. They both live next door to each in an apartment in Quiapo, but they've never minded one another even if they bump into each other. Something brings them together a week before the girl is about to leave, It’s set in the day when the girl is about to leave for another country, and on that last day both of them reminisce about the past week they spent together, and the story follows their conversations as they go around Quiapo.
Reason for writing this:
I've had a lot of awkward moments with women. Sometimes when I like someone, I wouldn't pay her the least bit of attention, for reasons I can't fathom. This story is going to be something of a challenge for me, since I'm terrible at the art of conversation, but I like to challenge myself every now and then haha. And there are times when I like to imagine what would transpire when I've actually talked to someone I like (because there are still people out there I've never talked to and have no intention of talking to in the future), and I want to express it in the form of a lame story.
Research Method:
- Go to Quiapo to get a feel of the place (hopefully a girl will tag along with me :P)
- Talk to a lot of girls so that the conversations in the story would seem realistic.
- Watch "Before Sunset"
- Read stuff that Haruki Murakami wrote, because he's always had some interesting conversations in his stories.
Characters:
A forty-something man (nameless)
A rocking-horse
Plot:
The story is about a man who plays the violin while riding his rocking-horse, while a group of people watch him while he does this. The story won’t really have a plot; it's just going to have a lot of descriptions that would hopefully reveal the man's past and personality. It's going to be very phenomenological, with lots of describing as it is.
Reason for writing this:
My parents recently brought a reproduction of Elmer Borlongan's painting "The Rocking Horse," and the painting really took my breath away to the point that I told myself I would write something about it. A piece of fiction I read in the Phil. Free Press, "Barbed Hula" by Danielle Miller, also inspired me to do this. To add to that, I've always been interested in doing prose poetry, even if I don't really understand how it's done (but I'll try it anyway). But as I was all set to write the story, I did a bit of research on Borlongan's "The Rocking Horse," and found out that it has already been used for the children's story division of a previous Palanca contest, with over 80 entries inspired by the painting, so I guess what I'm about to do isn't going to be new anymore. But what the hell, I'm still gonna go through with it.
Research Method:
- Reread “Good Morning” by Gloria Frym, because it is an example of prose poetry
- Reread “Barbed Hula” by Danielle Miller
- Stare at the painting for hours; immerse myself in the beauty of the painting and hopefully derive a message from it
- Research on phenomenology
2) My Grandma’s Going to Eat Me (temporary title)
Characters:
A little boy (very skinny)
The little boy’s grandma
Plot:
The story is about a little boy who thinks his grandma is a witch who’s going to eat him, because she keeps telling him to “fatten up” every time they have dinner. It’s going to be told from the boy’s point of view, and is going to be slightly dark and morbid, although I intend to write it like a children's story. I'm not really sure if I can make it sound like a children's story because the theme is pretty dark, but I'll try. Bahala na.
Reason for writing this:
A friend of mine once asked me to submit a children’s story for Heights once, and this is what I thought of writing. But I was never able to start the story, because I was pressed for time and didn’t have inspiration back then. This is also going to be semi-autobiographical, because I used to feel this way about my grandma. And DM Reyes once said that if an idea stays with you for a pretty long time, then that's probably a story waiting to be written, so I want to write this down.
Research Method:
- Read “Hansel & Gretel”
- Read some children’s stories
- Reread “Fear” by Rhys Davies (hopefully pattern it after that story)
- Research stuff about a child's psychology, if there's something like that
3) (no title yet)
Characters:
Boy and girl (both nameless for now)
Plot:
A day in the life of a boy and a girl. They both live next door to each in an apartment in Quiapo, but they've never minded one another even if they bump into each other. Something brings them together a week before the girl is about to leave, It’s set in the day when the girl is about to leave for another country, and on that last day both of them reminisce about the past week they spent together, and the story follows their conversations as they go around Quiapo.
Reason for writing this:
I've had a lot of awkward moments with women. Sometimes when I like someone, I wouldn't pay her the least bit of attention, for reasons I can't fathom. This story is going to be something of a challenge for me, since I'm terrible at the art of conversation, but I like to challenge myself every now and then haha. And there are times when I like to imagine what would transpire when I've actually talked to someone I like (because there are still people out there I've never talked to and have no intention of talking to in the future), and I want to express it in the form of a lame story.
Research Method:
- Go to Quiapo to get a feel of the place (hopefully a girl will tag along with me :P)
- Talk to a lot of girls so that the conversations in the story would seem realistic.
- Watch "Before Sunset"
- Read stuff that Haruki Murakami wrote, because he's always had some interesting conversations in his stories.
Story Proposal-Joanna
Plot Summary: A middle-aged artist is apprenticed a young, shy, disoriented boy named Nathan but whom he calls Lesley. The boy's parents drop him off at De Leon's home and typically abandon him to his fate as an artist's apprentice. Complications arise when De Leon uses a model and their strange relationship ensues as master and student.
Research Method: I will try to research on different artistic methods used by artists and different terminologies used by artists. Also important is the authenticity of the setting and backdrop of the story. I will try to research on the language necessary for conversations between artists.
Why I Like to Write this story: I'd like to write this story because I think visual art is a captivating subject. Aside from priests and doctors, artists top the list of most interesting characters in fiction, notably for their temperament, tenacity, and the color they add. I think it wold be interesting to see how the story would amount to.
Research Method: I will try to research on different artistic methods used by artists and different terminologies used by artists. Also important is the authenticity of the setting and backdrop of the story. I will try to research on the language necessary for conversations between artists.
Why I Like to Write this story: I'd like to write this story because I think visual art is a captivating subject. Aside from priests and doctors, artists top the list of most interesting characters in fiction, notably for their temperament, tenacity, and the color they add. I think it wold be interesting to see how the story would amount to.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Story proposal: holy trinity by jasmine cruz
The Holy Trinity
By Jasmine Cruz
Story idea: a story about the debate world. Three debaters named Ferlize, Jhareline and Hughert want to become internationally acclaimed debaters. Their story is narrated by five characters. Everytime the story is narrated, something is ommitted and the story changes completely.
The dramatic question/ dramatic theme/message of story: truth is nothing but perception
Point of view: five vantage points:
1.) bitchy debater who is the source of all rumors
2.) Old debater god who comes back to coach the new debaters
3.) A gay debater
4.) A non-varsity debater who desperately wants to fit in
5.) A adjudicator
Characters:
1.) Ferlize=naturally good debater
2.) Jharelina= became a debater by accident
3.) Hughert= eager beaver
Events:
• Blog wars
• Backstabbing
• Partying
• Love triangle
• Rise to fame
Research method:
• I will research on psychological articles on the phenomenon of rumors.
• I will research on the philosophy of truth (Luijpen, Marcel, Descartes, Hume)
By Jasmine Cruz
Story idea: a story about the debate world. Three debaters named Ferlize, Jhareline and Hughert want to become internationally acclaimed debaters. Their story is narrated by five characters. Everytime the story is narrated, something is ommitted and the story changes completely.
The dramatic question/ dramatic theme/message of story: truth is nothing but perception
Point of view: five vantage points:
1.) bitchy debater who is the source of all rumors
2.) Old debater god who comes back to coach the new debaters
3.) A gay debater
4.) A non-varsity debater who desperately wants to fit in
5.) A adjudicator
Characters:
1.) Ferlize=naturally good debater
2.) Jharelina= became a debater by accident
3.) Hughert= eager beaver
Events:
• Blog wars
• Backstabbing
• Partying
• Love triangle
• Rise to fame
Research method:
• I will research on psychological articles on the phenomenon of rumors.
• I will research on the philosophy of truth (Luijpen, Marcel, Descartes, Hume)
Story proposal: I am always way beyond perfect
I am always way beyond perfect
by Jasmine Cruz
Elements of sub-genre (romantic comedy)
Details in story
CHARACTERS
Crazy friends
• Exa is their resident blasphemer
• Charisma is the middle class girl who feels like she’s an upper class socialite. She calls everyone honey
• Puerile always has something negative to say.
• Drea is the mind drifting gullible girl.
Crazy relatives
• Cousins Erika, Erin, Eroll, Era, Erijah, Erikson and Erlize:
o Children of Filipino (Eduardo) and Ria
o They are all one or two years apart
o They are all vertically challenged
o They are dark skinned
o They all look as though they’re septuplets
o Ada calls them Santas Elven Rejects or Eduardo and the Seven Dwarfs
o They answer back in unison
o Their voices blend harmonically
o They are sickeningly sweet
• Grandma and grandpa
o Lovesick couple
o They habitually stare into each other’s eyes
o Grandpa always has a romantic surprise for grandma
Relatives who always ask about the girl’s nonexistent love life
• Uncle-really appealing Filipino who always like to sing love songs, always asks Ada if she has a boyfriend already
Perverted relatives
• Grelk
o Cousin of Ada
o Addicted to porn
o Asks Ada awkward questions about sex
Random eccentric person
• Heylie
o Evil geek
o Neck brace that has tiny red and black stripped devil horns sticking out from certain areas of the neck brace
o Burns the bible in her spar time
Crazy lead character
• Ada
o says she is a perfect girl who lives in the imperfect world
o she is obsessed with knowledge
o she narrates simple events in a very eccentric way
PLOT
The girl is in love with bad boy and hates good boy
• Ada used to like Myrhz because although Myrhz was a popular boy, he did not act like one. Myrhz is the silent type which is very much unlike the popular boys who are usually loud, rude and sexually overcharged. He is also handsome and intelligent. However, in recent years, he has acquired this bad attitude wherein he either ignores you or snaps at you as a form of acknowledgemet. This is the reason why Ada started to dislike Myrhz.
• Now Ada has a crush on Siyen even though he is less perfect than Myrhz. Siyen is the irresponsible type who likes to party hard during exam week. He knows all the prettiest girls and does a lot of “partying” with them. He can talk to anyone and when he talks to you he makes you feel special. So there’s a danger that you might think that he likes you romantically but if that’s true then he must like everyone in a romantic way. Furthermore, due to the demise in the prince of charms quality in Myrhz, Ada began to notice Siyen and eventually she began to like Siyen despite his flaws.
Good boy acts weirdly around girl
• Myrhz acts robotically when he is around Ada
• Whenever Ada is around Myrhz friends ask him “Are you all right Myrhz?” or “Is there something wrong?”
• Ada is clueless that she is the cause of Myrhz’ peculiar behavior
The girl knows she shouldn’t fall for bad boy and thinks he cannot possibly like her for they come from different social circles
• Ada has heard a lot of rumors about Siyen like the rumor that he had sex with a seductive thirty something teacher named Ynize Puttha
• Siyen flirts with Ada but Ada doesn’t know that he is flirting with her
There is an event where the girl dresses up and the bad boy notices how beautiful she is • Ada tells Siyen that she cannot go to his party because her mother obligated her to attend the party of her mother’s new boss. The party turns out to be Siyen’s party too. Her mother’s new boss is Siyen’s mother. Siyen and his mother have a joint celebration.
• Ada looks extremely beautiful and there’s a glimmer in Siyen’s eyes that Ada couldn’t decipher but the audience knows that he is starting to desire her.
The bad boy subtly expresses interest and the girl has a comical response to his expression of interest
• Charisma happens to be at the party too. She tells Ada that Siyen has been looking for Ada. Charisma tells Ada to be careful as she may be the victim of Siyen’s birthday prank (which he does every year).
• Ada tries to avoid Siyen but she unexpectedly bumps into Siyen.
• Siyen doesn’t let her out of his sight.
• Ada becomes more and more worried but then accepts her fate and braces herself for the inevitable humiliation.
• Siyen leads her to a room and shows her a room full of roses. It is his father’s gift to his mother. Siyen just wanted to “show” Ada this beautiful place.
The girl asks her friends for some advice
• Ada asks her friends for some advice.
• Exa’s advice-“make sure he isn’t strictly catholic, make sure he isn’t involved in a cult”
“Don’t let anybody know”
• Puerile-“don’t expect anything, convince yourself that he doesn’t like you so that you don’t get disappointed”
- “subtle clues are bullshit”
- “be extremely aloof like you don’t care about him. Guys like to conquer.”
- “ignore him habitually”
• Drea-
“Love is instinct. Don’t think too much.”
• Charisma-
“Make sure you are always surrounded by many people. Act as though you are important.”
The girl tries to follow the advice of her friends but in the process she makes a fool out of herself
• Her conversations with Siyen become more awkward
She becomes even more endearing to the bad boy
• Siyen just laughs and thinks that Ada is so charming.
• Ada decides to just be herself.
Girl and bad boy become an item
• Siyen asks Ada to the prom.
• They become an item
Friends of bad boy and girl meet and a conflict erupts
• Siyen decides to throw a pre-prom party and he asks Ada to invite her friends so that they can meet Siyen’s friends.
• Siyen’s friends:
- Myrhz: introversive hot guy
- Charlize: beautiful girl who is always around Myrhz, gets high grades, party girl, slut, head of the “Red Laces” (band of kinky-Myrhz-loving followers)
- Tarrah: party girl, bimbo blond type
- Chiel: bulimic
- Greg: cool jock, large man
- Ash: hits on every girl he sees
• The two groups clash:
- Puerile tells Greg to “stop devouring the universe” when he was eating a humungous sandwich, Ada tried to explain that Puerile was really like that and that she did not mean any offense but they did not understand that.
- Exa tries to talk to Tarrah about her blasphemous insights but Tarrah is too dumb to understand.
- Charisma becomes friendly with the Red Laces. They start off well but when the Red Laces offer alcohol to Charisma and she refuses. They do not understand why she does not want to drink so they make fun of her. It is then revealed that her mother used to be a drunkard and that her mother’s drinking habit is the reason why the family lost most of their wealth.
- Drea is so gullible and trusting that she lets Ash take her to a room. He tries to have sex with her. She screams and screams. Ada and Siyen come to her rescue.
• Ada’s friends are too weird for the cool friends of Siyen while Siyen’s friends seem too cold for Ada’s friends.
EXTERNAL OBSTACLES TO RELATIONSHIP: The friends of both the bad boy and the girl say they don’t support the relationship and they try to break them up • Red Laces and Ada’s friend create a temporary alliance because they both want to break Siyen and Ada apart.
INTERNAL OBSTACLES IN RELATIONSHIP: the girl tries to change the bad boy and their relationship suffers • The bad boy characteristics of Siyen:
o Drinking
o Smoking
o Looking at other girls
• How she tries to change him:
o Subtle hints
o Then trying to hide his cigarettes and erase text messages from girls
o Refuses to go to a bar with him
o Then blatantly tells him to quit his vices.
• He promises to change.
Girl begins to have doubts about the relationship
• Ada discovers cigarettes in Siyen’s bag.
• Ada realizes that she and Siyen are totally different.
Girl and good boy unexpectedly meet and their meeting becomes subtly romantic • Ada gets in trouble for writing a subversive paper.
• She is made to do community service (garbage collector).
• Myrhz sees her and rescues her.
• It is revealed that Myrhz’ family owns the school. The school is named after and owned by his mother.
• Ada asks what else do they own and Myrhz tells her that they also own the Mashla Airlines, Morweiz Hotels, Malcheirie Restaurants (all named after and owned by his older siblings) and Madge Yachts (named after and owned by his father).
• Myrhz takes Ada back to his house
• Ada remembers Myrhz’ room because they used to play there together when they were kids.
• Ada points to different toy airplanes and says “Hey I remember this. This was the time when…”
• Ada sees an airplane that had a keyhole in it. Ada asks why there is a keyhole to that airplane and asks if they can open it.
• Myrhz seems pissed off by her question and he asks her to just shower and gives her new clothes.
There’s a magical moment where they realize they like each other but they do not verbally admit it
• They are eating and the maid comes in. The maid recognizes Ada and is surprised to see her there.
• Maid: It’s been so long since I last saw you here, Ada.
• The maid reminds them of their childhood romance.
• They blush.
A confrontation occurs between the good boy and the bad boy
• Siyen visits Myrhz and is shocked to discover that Ada is there.
• There is some sort of tension between Siyen and Myrhz.
• Siyen and Myrhz fight about the new color combination of their basketball jackets but clearly they are fighting about another thing.
The girl finds out that the bad boy is really such an ass
• During the prom, Siyen suspiciously excuses himself.
• Siyen disappears for a long time.
• Myrhz asks Ada to dance.
• Ada rejects him and says she’s waiting for Siyen.
• Siyen still is no where to be found.
• Ada gets irritated and decides to dance with Myrhz.
• After a few minutes on the dance floor, the song changes to a slow song.
• Ada hesitates.
• Myrhz assures her that they aren’t doing anything wrong.
• In the middle of the dance, Ada tells him she can’t do this because it’s not fair to Siyen.
• Myrhz reveals where Siyen went.
• He brings Ada to the garden where Siyen is.
• She sees Siyen making out with Ynize Puttha.
• Ada gets more angry at Myrhz and says a lot of hurtful words to Myrhz.
The girl breaks up with the bad boy
• Siyen and Ada break up.
The girl decides to leave
• Ada feels so heartbroken. She doesn’t want to stay in Naza anymore. Her father reminds her that he wanted her to continue her studies in France (Her father resides in France. Her father and mother are divorced).
• Ada decides to go to France.
Once they are apart, they realize that they are perfect for each other
• In the airplane, Ada’s mind seems to be drifting away. She is brought back to reality when she hears the baby boy beside her crying. “You broke it! You broke it!” the boy says. Mother says “No honey, you really open it using this key.” Ada looks at the toy and sees the exact replica of the plane with the keyhole that she saw in Myrhz’ room. She asks the mother where she got it. The mother says the flight attendant was selling some awhile ago. Ada buys the souvenir. The toy is called “Message in an airplane.” There’s a warning: do not put valuable objects inside as all airplanes can be opened by the same key. She buys one and opens it. As she holds the key, it triggers the memory that was connected to the object.
• She remembers that she was the one who gave that plane to Myrhz. She inserted a message in it and told Myrhz that she will keep the key. She had told Myrhz that she will only open it when he is mature enough to understand the message.
• Ada realizes she loves Myrhz and that Myrhz loves her too.
• She asks the flight attendant when the next flight to America will be. The flight attendant tells her most flights are full because it was holiday season. More likely it might take a week before she can get a flight back to America.
GRAND GESTURE/ CHASING SCENE? Unique expression of love
• When the plane lands, they are not in France. Ada enters a pavilion of a thousand roses. Myrhz emerges. “I decided to redirect your flight”
They express their love for each other and live happily ever after • Myrhz has the airplane and they open it. It contains a piece of paper that says “I love you.”
• They confess their love for each other and live happily ever after.
OTHERS
Accidents Everytime Ada and Myrhz meet, an accident occurs
1.) Ada and Myrhz crashed into Siyen’s large birthday cake because Charlize was trying to flirt with Myrhz while Myrhz was avoiding Charlize because he wanted to talk to Ada.
2.) Ada and Myrhz fall into the big pumpkin during the Halloween party. Ada was standing with Siyen near the edge of the plank that was stationed on top of the pumpkin. Siyen was playfully threatening to let her walk the plank. Suddenly Siyen got distracted because the seductive teacher Ynize walked into the room. He let go of Ada and she lost her balance. Myrhz tried to save her but he fell in as well.
Research method:
• Read romantic comedies
by Jasmine Cruz
Elements of sub-genre (romantic comedy)
Details in story
CHARACTERS
Crazy friends
• Exa is their resident blasphemer
• Charisma is the middle class girl who feels like she’s an upper class socialite. She calls everyone honey
• Puerile always has something negative to say.
• Drea is the mind drifting gullible girl.
Crazy relatives
• Cousins Erika, Erin, Eroll, Era, Erijah, Erikson and Erlize:
o Children of Filipino (Eduardo) and Ria
o They are all one or two years apart
o They are all vertically challenged
o They are dark skinned
o They all look as though they’re septuplets
o Ada calls them Santas Elven Rejects or Eduardo and the Seven Dwarfs
o They answer back in unison
o Their voices blend harmonically
o They are sickeningly sweet
• Grandma and grandpa
o Lovesick couple
o They habitually stare into each other’s eyes
o Grandpa always has a romantic surprise for grandma
Relatives who always ask about the girl’s nonexistent love life
• Uncle-really appealing Filipino who always like to sing love songs, always asks Ada if she has a boyfriend already
Perverted relatives
• Grelk
o Cousin of Ada
o Addicted to porn
o Asks Ada awkward questions about sex
Random eccentric person
• Heylie
o Evil geek
o Neck brace that has tiny red and black stripped devil horns sticking out from certain areas of the neck brace
o Burns the bible in her spar time
Crazy lead character
• Ada
o says she is a perfect girl who lives in the imperfect world
o she is obsessed with knowledge
o she narrates simple events in a very eccentric way
PLOT
The girl is in love with bad boy and hates good boy
• Ada used to like Myrhz because although Myrhz was a popular boy, he did not act like one. Myrhz is the silent type which is very much unlike the popular boys who are usually loud, rude and sexually overcharged. He is also handsome and intelligent. However, in recent years, he has acquired this bad attitude wherein he either ignores you or snaps at you as a form of acknowledgemet. This is the reason why Ada started to dislike Myrhz.
• Now Ada has a crush on Siyen even though he is less perfect than Myrhz. Siyen is the irresponsible type who likes to party hard during exam week. He knows all the prettiest girls and does a lot of “partying” with them. He can talk to anyone and when he talks to you he makes you feel special. So there’s a danger that you might think that he likes you romantically but if that’s true then he must like everyone in a romantic way. Furthermore, due to the demise in the prince of charms quality in Myrhz, Ada began to notice Siyen and eventually she began to like Siyen despite his flaws.
Good boy acts weirdly around girl
• Myrhz acts robotically when he is around Ada
• Whenever Ada is around Myrhz friends ask him “Are you all right Myrhz?” or “Is there something wrong?”
• Ada is clueless that she is the cause of Myrhz’ peculiar behavior
The girl knows she shouldn’t fall for bad boy and thinks he cannot possibly like her for they come from different social circles
• Ada has heard a lot of rumors about Siyen like the rumor that he had sex with a seductive thirty something teacher named Ynize Puttha
• Siyen flirts with Ada but Ada doesn’t know that he is flirting with her
There is an event where the girl dresses up and the bad boy notices how beautiful she is • Ada tells Siyen that she cannot go to his party because her mother obligated her to attend the party of her mother’s new boss. The party turns out to be Siyen’s party too. Her mother’s new boss is Siyen’s mother. Siyen and his mother have a joint celebration.
• Ada looks extremely beautiful and there’s a glimmer in Siyen’s eyes that Ada couldn’t decipher but the audience knows that he is starting to desire her.
The bad boy subtly expresses interest and the girl has a comical response to his expression of interest
• Charisma happens to be at the party too. She tells Ada that Siyen has been looking for Ada. Charisma tells Ada to be careful as she may be the victim of Siyen’s birthday prank (which he does every year).
• Ada tries to avoid Siyen but she unexpectedly bumps into Siyen.
• Siyen doesn’t let her out of his sight.
• Ada becomes more and more worried but then accepts her fate and braces herself for the inevitable humiliation.
• Siyen leads her to a room and shows her a room full of roses. It is his father’s gift to his mother. Siyen just wanted to “show” Ada this beautiful place.
The girl asks her friends for some advice
• Ada asks her friends for some advice.
• Exa’s advice-“make sure he isn’t strictly catholic, make sure he isn’t involved in a cult”
“Don’t let anybody know”
• Puerile-“don’t expect anything, convince yourself that he doesn’t like you so that you don’t get disappointed”
- “subtle clues are bullshit”
- “be extremely aloof like you don’t care about him. Guys like to conquer.”
- “ignore him habitually”
• Drea-
“Love is instinct. Don’t think too much.”
• Charisma-
“Make sure you are always surrounded by many people. Act as though you are important.”
The girl tries to follow the advice of her friends but in the process she makes a fool out of herself
• Her conversations with Siyen become more awkward
She becomes even more endearing to the bad boy
• Siyen just laughs and thinks that Ada is so charming.
• Ada decides to just be herself.
Girl and bad boy become an item
• Siyen asks Ada to the prom.
• They become an item
Friends of bad boy and girl meet and a conflict erupts
• Siyen decides to throw a pre-prom party and he asks Ada to invite her friends so that they can meet Siyen’s friends.
• Siyen’s friends:
- Myrhz: introversive hot guy
- Charlize: beautiful girl who is always around Myrhz, gets high grades, party girl, slut, head of the “Red Laces” (band of kinky-Myrhz-loving followers)
- Tarrah: party girl, bimbo blond type
- Chiel: bulimic
- Greg: cool jock, large man
- Ash: hits on every girl he sees
• The two groups clash:
- Puerile tells Greg to “stop devouring the universe” when he was eating a humungous sandwich, Ada tried to explain that Puerile was really like that and that she did not mean any offense but they did not understand that.
- Exa tries to talk to Tarrah about her blasphemous insights but Tarrah is too dumb to understand.
- Charisma becomes friendly with the Red Laces. They start off well but when the Red Laces offer alcohol to Charisma and she refuses. They do not understand why she does not want to drink so they make fun of her. It is then revealed that her mother used to be a drunkard and that her mother’s drinking habit is the reason why the family lost most of their wealth.
- Drea is so gullible and trusting that she lets Ash take her to a room. He tries to have sex with her. She screams and screams. Ada and Siyen come to her rescue.
• Ada’s friends are too weird for the cool friends of Siyen while Siyen’s friends seem too cold for Ada’s friends.
EXTERNAL OBSTACLES TO RELATIONSHIP: The friends of both the bad boy and the girl say they don’t support the relationship and they try to break them up • Red Laces and Ada’s friend create a temporary alliance because they both want to break Siyen and Ada apart.
INTERNAL OBSTACLES IN RELATIONSHIP: the girl tries to change the bad boy and their relationship suffers • The bad boy characteristics of Siyen:
o Drinking
o Smoking
o Looking at other girls
• How she tries to change him:
o Subtle hints
o Then trying to hide his cigarettes and erase text messages from girls
o Refuses to go to a bar with him
o Then blatantly tells him to quit his vices.
• He promises to change.
Girl begins to have doubts about the relationship
• Ada discovers cigarettes in Siyen’s bag.
• Ada realizes that she and Siyen are totally different.
Girl and good boy unexpectedly meet and their meeting becomes subtly romantic • Ada gets in trouble for writing a subversive paper.
• She is made to do community service (garbage collector).
• Myrhz sees her and rescues her.
• It is revealed that Myrhz’ family owns the school. The school is named after and owned by his mother.
• Ada asks what else do they own and Myrhz tells her that they also own the Mashla Airlines, Morweiz Hotels, Malcheirie Restaurants (all named after and owned by his older siblings) and Madge Yachts (named after and owned by his father).
• Myrhz takes Ada back to his house
• Ada remembers Myrhz’ room because they used to play there together when they were kids.
• Ada points to different toy airplanes and says “Hey I remember this. This was the time when…”
• Ada sees an airplane that had a keyhole in it. Ada asks why there is a keyhole to that airplane and asks if they can open it.
• Myrhz seems pissed off by her question and he asks her to just shower and gives her new clothes.
There’s a magical moment where they realize they like each other but they do not verbally admit it
• They are eating and the maid comes in. The maid recognizes Ada and is surprised to see her there.
• Maid: It’s been so long since I last saw you here, Ada.
• The maid reminds them of their childhood romance.
• They blush.
A confrontation occurs between the good boy and the bad boy
• Siyen visits Myrhz and is shocked to discover that Ada is there.
• There is some sort of tension between Siyen and Myrhz.
• Siyen and Myrhz fight about the new color combination of their basketball jackets but clearly they are fighting about another thing.
The girl finds out that the bad boy is really such an ass
• During the prom, Siyen suspiciously excuses himself.
• Siyen disappears for a long time.
• Myrhz asks Ada to dance.
• Ada rejects him and says she’s waiting for Siyen.
• Siyen still is no where to be found.
• Ada gets irritated and decides to dance with Myrhz.
• After a few minutes on the dance floor, the song changes to a slow song.
• Ada hesitates.
• Myrhz assures her that they aren’t doing anything wrong.
• In the middle of the dance, Ada tells him she can’t do this because it’s not fair to Siyen.
• Myrhz reveals where Siyen went.
• He brings Ada to the garden where Siyen is.
• She sees Siyen making out with Ynize Puttha.
• Ada gets more angry at Myrhz and says a lot of hurtful words to Myrhz.
The girl breaks up with the bad boy
• Siyen and Ada break up.
The girl decides to leave
• Ada feels so heartbroken. She doesn’t want to stay in Naza anymore. Her father reminds her that he wanted her to continue her studies in France (Her father resides in France. Her father and mother are divorced).
• Ada decides to go to France.
Once they are apart, they realize that they are perfect for each other
• In the airplane, Ada’s mind seems to be drifting away. She is brought back to reality when she hears the baby boy beside her crying. “You broke it! You broke it!” the boy says. Mother says “No honey, you really open it using this key.” Ada looks at the toy and sees the exact replica of the plane with the keyhole that she saw in Myrhz’ room. She asks the mother where she got it. The mother says the flight attendant was selling some awhile ago. Ada buys the souvenir. The toy is called “Message in an airplane.” There’s a warning: do not put valuable objects inside as all airplanes can be opened by the same key. She buys one and opens it. As she holds the key, it triggers the memory that was connected to the object.
• She remembers that she was the one who gave that plane to Myrhz. She inserted a message in it and told Myrhz that she will keep the key. She had told Myrhz that she will only open it when he is mature enough to understand the message.
• Ada realizes she loves Myrhz and that Myrhz loves her too.
• She asks the flight attendant when the next flight to America will be. The flight attendant tells her most flights are full because it was holiday season. More likely it might take a week before she can get a flight back to America.
GRAND GESTURE/ CHASING SCENE? Unique expression of love
• When the plane lands, they are not in France. Ada enters a pavilion of a thousand roses. Myrhz emerges. “I decided to redirect your flight”
They express their love for each other and live happily ever after • Myrhz has the airplane and they open it. It contains a piece of paper that says “I love you.”
• They confess their love for each other and live happily ever after.
OTHERS
Accidents Everytime Ada and Myrhz meet, an accident occurs
1.) Ada and Myrhz crashed into Siyen’s large birthday cake because Charlize was trying to flirt with Myrhz while Myrhz was avoiding Charlize because he wanted to talk to Ada.
2.) Ada and Myrhz fall into the big pumpkin during the Halloween party. Ada was standing with Siyen near the edge of the plank that was stationed on top of the pumpkin. Siyen was playfully threatening to let her walk the plank. Suddenly Siyen got distracted because the seductive teacher Ynize walked into the room. He let go of Ada and she lost her balance. Myrhz tried to save her but he fell in as well.
Research method:
• Read romantic comedies
story proposal 1: Cops and Robbers
Cops and Robbers
By Jasmine Cruz
Story idea: This is a story for children. It is about a childhood game called cops and robbers. A group of children will pick whether they want to become cops, robbers or children. Then the cops will chase the robbers while the robbers will chase the children. In order to pay for ransom or bail, one must have enough sticks, leaves or flowers to pay the demanded price.
: No one really knows what each person picked to be. So honesty is an important part of the game. Once a child joins the group, he or she picks the role that is most consistent with his or her character. The officers of the class usually become policemen. The good girls and good boys of the class often choose to become children. The rascals in the class choose to become robbers.
:The game ends when all the robbers are jailed or all the children are kidnapped. Thus only the group of the policemen or group of the robbers can win.
Theme: tradition, honesty, rite of passage,
:musings on an interesting psychological trivia: when a child starts to lie, it is a sign of cognitive development
Plot:
1.) The children play. There is harmony amongst them.
2.) A new member of the group child decides to be a robber.
3.) He becomes pissed off by the fact that the policemen always win.
4.) He decides to go against tradition and breaks the sacred code of honesty.
5.) A robber pretends to be a child and infiltrates the jail camp and frees the robbers.
6.) The rest find out about his scheme.
7.) The children are divided. Friendship cannot be repaired anymore.
Research method:
• Go to the park and observe children play
• Read books on child psychology
By Jasmine Cruz
Story idea: This is a story for children. It is about a childhood game called cops and robbers. A group of children will pick whether they want to become cops, robbers or children. Then the cops will chase the robbers while the robbers will chase the children. In order to pay for ransom or bail, one must have enough sticks, leaves or flowers to pay the demanded price.
: No one really knows what each person picked to be. So honesty is an important part of the game. Once a child joins the group, he or she picks the role that is most consistent with his or her character. The officers of the class usually become policemen. The good girls and good boys of the class often choose to become children. The rascals in the class choose to become robbers.
:The game ends when all the robbers are jailed or all the children are kidnapped. Thus only the group of the policemen or group of the robbers can win.
Theme: tradition, honesty, rite of passage,
:musings on an interesting psychological trivia: when a child starts to lie, it is a sign of cognitive development
Plot:
1.) The children play. There is harmony amongst them.
2.) A new member of the group child decides to be a robber.
3.) He becomes pissed off by the fact that the policemen always win.
4.) He decides to go against tradition and breaks the sacred code of honesty.
5.) A robber pretends to be a child and infiltrates the jail camp and frees the robbers.
6.) The rest find out about his scheme.
7.) The children are divided. Friendship cannot be repaired anymore.
Research method:
• Go to the park and observe children play
• Read books on child psychology
Story Proposals
Story 1: Words Story
Point of View: Second Person
Concept:
The premise of this story is the limit and strength of words. When are words enough, and when are words necessary? It will be a story about the function of words in a relationship between a mute guy (I like how in this story, it’s the guy who’s in a position of waiting) and a verbally savvy girl (a girl who rationalizes, makes excuses, obfuscates endlessly because she can’t really deal).
Research method:
Use Google. Research about mute people.
Reason:
It's interesting for me.
*
Story 2: Untitled Story As Of Now
Point of View: Multiple First Person Points of View
Concept:
This might turn out to be maybe a fantasy, maybe just an alternate universe story; I haven't decided yet. There will be rivals, jilted lovers, dark pasts, irreconcilable differences and unspoken tensions between a group of interacting people. The most interesting feature of this particular story is that it years of accumulated mistakes and regrets will explode in one event; a FIST FIGHT, and how everything just intertwines to build up that one event...
Research Method:
Fight with someone.
Reason:
Personal catharsis.
- Isabela Lacuna
Point of View: Second Person
Concept:
The premise of this story is the limit and strength of words. When are words enough, and when are words necessary? It will be a story about the function of words in a relationship between a mute guy (I like how in this story, it’s the guy who’s in a position of waiting) and a verbally savvy girl (a girl who rationalizes, makes excuses, obfuscates endlessly because she can’t really deal).
Research method:
Use Google. Research about mute people.
Reason:
It's interesting for me.
*
Story 2: Untitled Story As Of Now
Point of View: Multiple First Person Points of View
Concept:
This might turn out to be maybe a fantasy, maybe just an alternate universe story; I haven't decided yet. There will be rivals, jilted lovers, dark pasts, irreconcilable differences and unspoken tensions between a group of interacting people. The most interesting feature of this particular story is that it years of accumulated mistakes and regrets will explode in one event; a FIST FIGHT, and how everything just intertwines to build up that one event...
Research Method:
Fight with someone.
Reason:
Personal catharsis.
- Isabela Lacuna
Short story proposal (Gel)
Characters:
Dr. Allen Bronson, Chief Resident psychiatrist
Dr. George Martinez, Second Year Resident psychiatrist
Minor Characters:
Patient
Clarence, Allen’s older brother
Arnold, Allen’s father
Camille, Allen’s mother
Plot:
There are two psychiatrists who were friends since college and are now colleagues in the same hospital. Though they came from similar backgrounds (financially), Dr. George came from a “normal” family of three children, still with both parents. Dr. Allen, however, has an older brother who has a record in jail, with both of them still living with their father, and gets regular visits from their mother who is now a wino living in the streets. He was taught about the harsh reality of life, how everyone is out to save his own skin, and how no one will really help you unless they want something else from you.
By becoming a psychiatrist, Dr. Allen is able to manipulate patients, some of which used to be the patients of the Dr. George. Because Dr. Allen showed them what is wrong with their lives by magnifying them immensely, he was able to free them of the confines of their pretentious worlds.
Research method:
Aside from the human tone for the characters, the research in this story will include the medications that will be used, drugs that will be consumed by the characters, and the basic information on the different psychological disorders that the patients are suffering from. Research material will come from books, the Internet, and latest news about breakthroughs on psych medicines.
Reason for doing the story:
I sort of “specialize” on topics that include psychology and/or drugs, since I read about these things a lot. Also, I’ve interviewed psychologists for past articles, and already get the hang of how they talk. As for the psychiatrist, I’ve already talked with two of them, since I went inside a psychiatry ward for an article.
GALANG, Gilda Ysobel G.
061453
Dr. Allen Bronson, Chief Resident psychiatrist
Dr. George Martinez, Second Year Resident psychiatrist
Minor Characters:
Patient
Clarence, Allen’s older brother
Arnold, Allen’s father
Camille, Allen’s mother
Plot:
There are two psychiatrists who were friends since college and are now colleagues in the same hospital. Though they came from similar backgrounds (financially), Dr. George came from a “normal” family of three children, still with both parents. Dr. Allen, however, has an older brother who has a record in jail, with both of them still living with their father, and gets regular visits from their mother who is now a wino living in the streets. He was taught about the harsh reality of life, how everyone is out to save his own skin, and how no one will really help you unless they want something else from you.
By becoming a psychiatrist, Dr. Allen is able to manipulate patients, some of which used to be the patients of the Dr. George. Because Dr. Allen showed them what is wrong with their lives by magnifying them immensely, he was able to free them of the confines of their pretentious worlds.
Research method:
Aside from the human tone for the characters, the research in this story will include the medications that will be used, drugs that will be consumed by the characters, and the basic information on the different psychological disorders that the patients are suffering from. Research material will come from books, the Internet, and latest news about breakthroughs on psych medicines.
Reason for doing the story:
I sort of “specialize” on topics that include psychology and/or drugs, since I read about these things a lot. Also, I’ve interviewed psychologists for past articles, and already get the hang of how they talk. As for the psychiatrist, I’ve already talked with two of them, since I went inside a psychiatry ward for an article.
GALANG, Gilda Ysobel G.
061453
Short Story Proposal-mari
Short Story Proposal
Title: Polka Dots
Point of View: First Person
Character Profile: She’s 18, a junior college student living alone in the city.
She’s Miss-All-Positive-Adjectives and loving it. One night, she discovers a weird circular thing on her back but she ignores it. It will go away, she thought. But after three days, it did not go away. Instead, it started growing and crawling around her back. It was a ring-like thing and it was spreading.
This story will be about a teenage girl who turns into Polka Dots. Red, white, and circular.
Research method:
1. Books on Rare Diseases
2. Google.
Reason:
I want to play with the idea: “There’s no such thing as perfection” by using a “perfect” girl and putting her in a spot which would physically, emotionally, and mentally tear her apart. It’s like a search for happiness that’s not just skin-deep.
Title: Polka Dots
Point of View: First Person
Character Profile: She’s 18, a junior college student living alone in the city.
She’s Miss-All-Positive-Adjectives and loving it. One night, she discovers a weird circular thing on her back but she ignores it. It will go away, she thought. But after three days, it did not go away. Instead, it started growing and crawling around her back. It was a ring-like thing and it was spreading.
This story will be about a teenage girl who turns into Polka Dots. Red, white, and circular.
Research method:
1. Books on Rare Diseases
2. Google.
Reason:
I want to play with the idea: “There’s no such thing as perfection” by using a “perfect” girl and putting her in a spot which would physically, emotionally, and mentally tear her apart. It’s like a search for happiness that’s not just skin-deep.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Story Proposal
Proposed Story Idea 1
· Flash fiction/ short short story
· Character: an up and coming art curator of a museum/art gallery who had the job for about 3 months after graduating college (not yet sure what gender)
· Setting: late night December in a famous museum/ art gallery where the high-society crowd usually gathers
· POV: first person narrative of the main character
· Plot:
The main character is an art curator, described by his colleagues as the best description to fit the job. Right after graduating from college, the main character was hired as a junior curator for a famous museum. He was in charge of the new art gallery that features artworks done by artists he never heard of. The art gallery has been open for three months, and the story takes place at the closing party of the art gallery.
After three months of stress from managing his first job as a curator, the main character is relieved that everything is all over. But he didn’t know that there is still one guest waiting for him at the gallery.
· Atmosphere: psychological, dark
· Research process: read on about art, and on being a curator. Look and familiarize myself with different works of art in the library and in the net. Try to visit a museum or the Ateneo Art Gallery to get the museum-feeling of the setting.
·
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)