IDEAS

TASK: Short Story Ideas

• example: a newspaper article about a truck driver man handles traffic cop. expand on this.. what things happens to him for him to lash out? Was he under pressure? death of a loved one? had he been stopped several times?

• Idea: I could start the first chapter outlining the incident, maybe his guilty verdicts at trial or news reporters broadcasting the incident. then it could jump back in time to the events leading up to the arrest.

• a twenty something woman who discovers that her mum is not actually her birth mum, instead it is a woman she believed to be her sister, her cousins now her brothers. the book outlines the fall out of the family affair

• a beautiful autistic girl - how she sees the world vs how the world sees her, maybe it's a two person point of view? or her voice followed by chapters from everyone around her? the contrast between the two to highlight autism?

• the people you meet in rehab - an addiction treatment centre filled with a diverse group of people, young and old, eccentric and quiet. Maybe it's about their different experiences? maybe they kill someone together?

POV

TASK: Describe Your Journey to Work in Both First & Third Person

First person:

It was already 7:06, which meant that I was already late, and therefore my sense of urgency disappeared alongside my timekeeping. I was going to be late anyway, I had accepted my fate. I fumbled through my worn makeup bag, brushing off the dust from my powder that had smashed inside it, giving each product a matt nude finish. I curled my eyelashes for the second time, hoping it would fix whatever I thought it was that felt ‘off’ about my look today. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, willing the day to already be over so that I can return for a much needed self care momentum, a glow up if you will. As of Monday, I will become a totally new woman if I keep up the extensive beauty and lifestyle routine I've compounded from various tiktok’s and vlogs. While this is a conversation I have with myself at least 3 to 4 times a week, I had a gut feeling that this time would be the one…

As I snapped out of my day dream, and saw the glare of the time screaming from my Alexa like a poor fate from a magic 8 ball, I leap up, grab my bag, scurry around my room trying not to alert my sleeping dog to my chaos, grab everything i could possibly need in site, stick in in and run out into my little car.

First things first, I chose my appropriate playlist for the day. Often a decision that takes some careful consideration, the mood has to be exactly what I need from the day. And today i decided i’d cried enough this week, and went with some 2010 ‘hot girl morning bangers’, i’m sure it will do! I put my fiat into reverse and rev the car rapidly down the drive way, as if I am the only person on the roads. Luckily, this time I am. I remind myself that I should check my mirrors before driving blindly onto a main road. I nod quietly to myself, and race to beat the 29 minute journey dictated by my satnav, I have 17 minutes.

The roads are quiet as usual, not many people are out in hove this early, but working in a cafe I have a pretty early start. 7 rings by Ariana Grande is playing, I get myself in the mood. Happy music, happy me. That was a note from chapter 7 of ‘How to UnFuck Your Life’. I took a sharp life up the country road straight to Falmer, and as if the car was driving itself, as if I physically was not here, to look, to check, as if my brain were somewhere else for just a moment, when my brain rejoined my body the replaying of the crunch and the scream recoiled me into my seat. If the mud and blood splattered weren't dotted all over my windscreen like an abstract trace in peace I might have thought I was dreaming.

Third Person

It was 7:06, which meant Amaya was officially late for work again. This was far from unusual as her brain seemingly disconnects from her body, and disengages the second the time hits 7:01. She is already late, and accepts her fate with this. The sense of urgency rather embodied on the bedroom floor. As the 25kg cocker spaniel scurries under the bed holding a pair of used underwear he found firmly in his mouth, the light behind her brown eyes, the lazy one to be specific, rejoins the room startled. Amaya glances at the clock's reflection in the mirror, glances back at the patch of unblended concealer on her forehead, the blackened rim of her hoop earring she picked up at Primark and subsequently kept in for a week's worth of showers. She knows now is the time to abandon it all, and go. The dichotomy between her aloof attitude to time keeping juxtaposes with the sheer look of panic as she restlessly places everything within reach into the pink patterned tote bag she found in her mums wardrobe, and rushes straight into her slightly dented fiat, and reverses blindly into the main road. It is only when she has completed the manoeuvre that she reminds herself to check her mirrors next time.

Creating Characters

Tara: 

•  she is blonde, 5 '9, her hair is down to her belly button. life / hobbies: she grew up skiing,

• job: she has started to work at a not for profit, working in social work or a charity related to troubled kids?. she did this as a kind of fuck you to her dad who is very right wing, wants her to do something like finance?

• maybe it's actually some kind of prologue to a greater career? part of an internship or community service?

• she is 27, in a relationship who works in tv, at the. bbc. his name is Jared. jared is also a tory but more subtle that her father,

Jared: 28:

• he genuinely thinks he’s fairly woke, or open. He says things that are insensitive or ignorant with the best intentions. But he does all of these things through a lens of privileges and class isolation.

• hes anti positive discrimination, everyone has the same 24 hours kinda way. His dad is a classics professor? - a job that isn’t too cliche. I'm super rich but it shows privilege. not like law on banking

Tabby: 

• mixed race employee at the charity. she is 24, curly hair with blonde highlights. Her hair is about 2 inches below her collar bones. 

• she went to a modest uni, nottingham trent or something. she is from a lower middle class family. 

• Her mum is a homeopath, not sure what her dad is. She has a younger brother who is 23. They are very close. she is 5:5, about a size 8-10, very beautiful, light brown eyes, perfect big teeth, she has the 2 little front pieces of curly hair that falls in front of her face. Maybe she studied textiles or drama at uni? 

• Her dads name is Tony. Her mum's name is Denise, her brother's name is Nathan. Her best friend is called Sara, another colleague, they have worked together for 2.5 years. tabby did 6 months at a fashion company and left because it was so out of her comfort zone, issues surrounding class, things they all just ‘knew’ because of their class, they all said ‘super’

The conflict: Tara has just left her old job (i’m not sure why yet) to come and work at the charity. She has her heart in the right place, thinks she's almost doing the world a favor by being her and being in this job, like she's a celeb slumming it, but this is much more subtle narcissism. She's out of touch, she's patronising, she cannot relate to the kids. She partnered up with Tabby to train her, show her how to connect. Tabby hates her, thinks she is privileged, better than everyone else. Tara has never been disliked by anyone before, she was doing everything ‘right’. not really sure how the story goes on from here without being cliche.

 

Use of Setting

TASK: Write Paragraphs Describing 3 Settings

Frome

After a painfully silent drive up from my home town of London, 4 hours later my mum told me that we had arrived. we were here. my new town, my new life. My entire existence now encapsulated by what appeared to be one of those new build trading estates that green peace would have protested their construction.

The houses are all built in a pale yellow brick, the roofs, trimmings and door frames a dark grey. The roads are all laid with fresh tarmarc, yet several equidistant roadwork markings follow the cul de sac. As we drive through in what feels like a figure 8, I start to feel both sick from the motion, but also overcome with the feeling that we had in fact, not moved at all. All of the houses were identical, uniform, square, matching garages. people were scared & it was eerily quiet. Reminiscent of somewhere you might ship off people you wanted to exclude from society, and trap them in a circle of endless monotony. It was a far cry from my life back home. Granted, our house was much bigger and thus much more expensive than this one would be following the divorce, but it was something deeper than the size of the house. It was a lack of character, and lack of charm, a lack of soul. it wasn’t what i was expecting my look to the countryside to be like. I had pictured quaint cottages, and middle class boomers in barber jackets walking their cocker spaniels and running errands at the organic food market before home for picky bits and orange organic wine. Instead, I was met with brick, and a huge Tesco extra.

Blackheath

As Sophia walked up to the gate of her temporary home, she noticed an air of silence, nothing but a few birds chirping. Back in Brixton ‘birds chirping’ meant something entirely different than I did here in Hampstead. Lily’s house was narrow, tall, and draped in vines. She had a large garden planted with perfectly kept flower beds, of which she was not middle class enough to know the names of. She knocked on the door, to Lily’s mum’s warm welcome. “Hi Darling! Welcome, Lil’ is so happy to have you here with us. Make yourself at home, I'll just go get her!”. Dinner will be ready soon, I’ve made Roasted Salmon in a Spanishy kind of sauce, I hope that’s okay with you!”. It was more than okay, Sophia’s mum was more of a ‘That’s why mums go to iceland’ and a tray in front of the tv kind of mum. But she could smell the time, the effort, and the expensive produce flowing through the house. At the door, where a series of Hunter wellies, burning insense and keys to an aldi. Sophia had been to the house before, but everything looks different when you view it through the lens of home.

 

Plot

TASK: My Plot Ideas

• the people you meet in rehab - an addiction treatment centre filled with a diverse group of people, young and old, eccentric and quiet. Maybe it's about their different experiences? Maybe they kill someone together?

• step one: the protagonist breaks up with her boyfriend, he dumps her for her drug use, lying. he is the one who restricts this

• step 2: she spirals, goes on benders, nearly loses her job, in debt to drug dealers, and then a catastrophic fall out with her friends

• → this leads to an almost suicide attempt. she, through her private health insurance for the job she is about to lose, uses it to check herself into rehab

• She meets a boy in rehab, they feel like kindred spirits, he gets her, they have the same struggles. She is warned about dating someone in rehab. but she ignores them and does it anyway

• fluctuations happen in rehab, outlines all the different characters. She reflects on the people she’s lost to drugs and alcohol, and wants to save the boy.

• When she gets out of rehab a few weeks after he does, she does everything to help him get sober. She thinks she can save him, even at the detriment to her own sobriety.

• Eventually, she relapses, and through his guilt, blaming himself for taking her down with him, he kills himself.

• she regains her sobriety, in memory of him and in his honour. She would do it and be happy for the both of them.

Aiden

• brain dump

• book idea: a girl was abandoned by her father as a child, amongst other domestic issues that went on. After 15 years he returns to say that he is dying from cancer. The book will unravel the impacts and events from this. Hi dad, bye dad.

• print out a couple of first pages / pages from favourite books

• book character - he can from a council estate, maybe they both did. he supported his mother (is this too cliche?) they both went to top universities - they succeeded their way out of the ‘’hood’

 

Dialogue

TASK:

• write dialogue between 2 students who are studying for an exam.

• dialogue between 2 female neighbours who are having an argument

• between any 2 people - chose who they are

2 Students studying for an exam

Oliver & Alisha

I walked through the library looking for Oliver. It was exam season, so almost every student on campus was here. Like me, they had most likely spent the rest of their study leave at east slope, the student bar, and were now frantically cramming the week before.

I see Olly beaming and waving at me. He’s usually quite hard to miss. 6ft 5, gangly, and wearing something oh so fabulous and flamboyant. This time, it was a vintage fur coat his aunt gave him last Christmas, paired with leather trousers. Luckily, the Animal Rights Union had dispersed for a break…

“Lish! Hey Babe, how are you!” He says. I look as the other students glance over to see where the shouting Scouser is coming from.

“Hey Olls, meh, I’ve been better but I’m plodding through. Ish”. I say. “Why what's wrong? To be fair you do look like shite love.”he says, as true to form as ever. I’ve come to learn that this is a scouse form of endearment. While to others, this could be an insult, it actually means ‘I love you enough to be 100% myself and say everything that comes to mind’ in Liverpudlian.

“Well, I’ve not slept in about 3 days, stressing about the exam. But simultaneously I have achieved 27 minutes of actual studying time. I spent the rest, completing an ever growing list of optimal conditions I convinced myself were crucial for me to begin my studying. So I cleaned the whole house, everything showered, decided I might feel more put together if I got my nails done, reorganised all of my study folders, and came up with a stunning study plan that took me 7 hours. And then once 8pm hit, it was suddenly too late for me to start studying effectively. so i stared at the ceilings thinking about all of the studying I SHOULD have done, and didn’t. I then repeated the following day”.

He looked at me with bewilderment, nodding along but I could see that he could barely follow what I'd send. I don’t blame him.

“Well, I mean at least everything’s clean? So at least you’ll pass a health inspection exam?” he giggles and puts his hand on mine as I sit down. I attempt to laugh back, but clearly not convincingly. He looks at me longingly and says “It’s gonna be okay you know, none of this shit even matters, it's all a social construct! Do you think Paris and Lindsey thought like this the night before a big event? It's the first year it doesn’t even count. You get yourself set up for love and I’ll go grab us some scran.”.

“Love you” I said, I shrugged my shoulders in defeat.

2 Female Neighbors Arguing

“Lina, hey! It’s Elle from 43b, can I have a word?” I sheepishly trotted towards her. “Oh, Hi um, Elle was it?” she said with an air of disdain. She looks around in confusion. “What seems to be the problem?”. “It’s my parcel,” I replied. “I’ve had a bunch marked delivered, but they have been taken from the mail room. I asked Stefan the concierge, and he said " you’d pick them up for me?”. She huffs and folds her arms. “Sorry WHO told you this? clearly not a concierge I have ever met. Are you accusing me of stealing your parcels? Honey I need not steal anything if that wasn’t already very clear.” She gestures to her Channel Bag, her expensive blow out, and what I would guess is a 4 carat yellow diamond ring. “I wasn’t exactly accusing, as much as asking. And it’s Stefan, he’s on the door 5 nights a week and has been for the past 4 years. Lina wouldn’t have noticed him if he’d been standing outside her apartment for 4 years, unless he was holding a wad of cash and a hermes bag.