Creative Writing (2 Viewers)

[renny 123]

help! I need to write a piece of creative writing for english extention in the modern gothic genre. Creative writing is definately my weak link and i have no ideas.
Any useful advice or ideas for a plot would be much appreciated

 

[Tammi105]

Hey, a safe option would be vampires so i say don't do it. Go with say weres. A were may not just be a wolf but also most animals. Weres power their change by the moon and normally move around in packs (what ever the animal). Try to place it in a 18th or early 19th century. If it is worded smartly you should pass perfectly.
Good luck!

 

[agua.fuego]

You can basically go any angle for writing this, so long as it conforms to the Gothic conventions, as you know. (Attached, if the thing works.) Those are what will define your story to the Gothic genre, and while the elements like vampirism will definitely add to that, they will not be the one that makes it Gothic. When my class did this, we were all appropriating Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and we all realised that you can basically take any aspect of it and make it into a new story. Two that stood out to me (which I didn't end up reading, I just heard about their ideas and was all, Whoa...) were firstly, one that dealt with the creating of the undead (and that was apparently really well written and philosophical), and secondly, the one set in a rainforest. THAT one I really wanted to read. My one is here: http://community.boredofstudies.org/showthread.php?t=172476. I went with the idea of 'too much of anything is dangerous' and, as the title suggests, taken from the lovely Strictly Ballroom, 'a life lived in fear is a life half lived'. If you've read Frankenstein, you'll see what I've also used.

Onto the vampiric idea - yes, it's a safe topic, what with the popularity of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and all (which I love. That's all), but if you research, you can make a completely original story. What springs into my mind with my research for a Dracula essay is the vampire (Penanggalang) from Malaysia - basically a head with trailing entrails. More are listed at these two sites:

1. http://www.istrianet.org/istria/legends/vampires/intro-world.htm
2. http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~vampire/vhist.html

And if you use the prowess of Google you can find heaps more.

I also like Tammi105's idea of the weres. Increasingly popular but not to the scale of vampires, it's a good idea.

Now - for your inspiration:

I got mine simply by sitting down and beginning to write. That idea wasn't the one I was going with. I was going to go with a Romanticised modern day story. And I was sitting down to write a different story entirely, one for my own amusement. But that's what came out of it. And voila, English assignment.

Yeah, that sounds odd, but it's what happened.

Just freewrite for a while. That'll increase your skills in creative writing, because as my parents always like to tell me, practice makes perfect. And freewriting is simple - just sit down, pull a sentence out of a book, and start with that. Just a bit of dialogue, really simple. Or even inspiration from a song - I got mine from Ben Folds Five's song Brick for parts of my Extension one, and for another one that I did as a freewrite, I took the opening line from a Fall Out Boy song Of All The Gin Joints in The World. And that really helps if you try to just do a bit, and the key thing is do not delete a single thing that you write. Not a single word. Nothing. AT ALL. That is the single most important thing and even if it sounds incredibly stupid, keep it in. It's only a draft, just messing around. I can PM you my freewriting if you want... but in all honesty, it's probably not going to help.

Another idea: appropriation. Choose a Gothic book you've read (can be modern-day as well, I'm using Twilight for a related text to Dracula), and just modernise it. Take aspects of it and appropriate - update it to how you want it to be. A list of Gothic texts is here, at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_literature#Prominent_examples.

I hope that helps. PM me if you want any more help.

--

Just remembered - here are some tips from some writers, on the Women's Weekly site.

From Monica McInerney: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64754
The process of writing: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64751
From Gabrielle Lord: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64805
The X-Factor of writing: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=72933
Writing Exercises Part 1: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64753
Writing Exercises Part 2: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=64772
Writing Exercises Part 3: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=72930
From Sue Williams: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=78514
From Louise Bagshawe: http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=97294

Obviously these are mainly centred around writing entire novels. But they still do help. After all, it's the same process, just shortened.

 

[bored of sc]

Wow Tash. Good on you. That's so kind. Now if only you get some good karma in return (i.e. get replies to your post about extension english).

 

[agua.fuego]

Gothic is easily the most boring genre I've ever been forced to study, excepting a few books.

 

[marcquelle]

Gothic is easily the most boring genre I've ever been forced to study, excepting a few books.

i agree it is extremely boring and so simple, for your creative writing basically anything can fit in, BASICALLY is the key word you could write a gothic romance invovling two vampires or were wolves and what it is like for them to be a couple.

 

[l0Ve.co x3]

i agree it is extremely boring and so simple, for your creative writing basically anything can fit in, BASICALLY is the key word you could write a gothic romance invovling two vampires or were wolves and what it is like for them to be a couple.

i instantly thought of the twilight series. x___X

& yeah. Gothic is boring.

 

[agua.fuego]

i instantly thought of the twilight series. x___X

& yeah. Gothic is boring.

Twilight...

 

[agua.fuego]

I got another one to do - starting from a paragraph from Fingers by Harry Turner. Tales of exceptional hideousness aren't my strong point.

 

[renny 123]

agua.fuego
Your creative piece is amazing. . so unique. I loved it
Thank you so much for all your tips.
Some of the links have been very usefull

 

[agua.fuego]

agua.fuego
Your creative piece is amazing. . so unique. I loved it
Thank you so much for all your tips.
Some of the links have been very usefull

Thankyou!

I'm posting up the other effort soon in order to get ideas - so asking now - ANYONE HERE HAVE IDEAS FOR CREEPY STORIES?

 

[-tal-]

Lol, I may not be the best person to talk about "creative" or creepy ideas, but I'll give my 2c anyway:

A villainous main character that appears only in dreams, and controls and messes up the minds of its victims? And maybe whenever the full moon/solar eclipse/retrograde mars (I'm thinking I have to relate all this to the gothic genre) happens, the whole town/village eyes turn orange - and accidentally, a person kills their own (insert important person here). Then they get angry, they go on rampages - and somehow meets the main character ..... I couldn't figure out the rest.

Hope this helped.

 

[agua.fuego]

I like parts of those ideas! They're better than what I've got, anyway, as creepiness isn't my forte (as I've said).

This is my sad excuse for my story. It starts off with a paragraph from Harry Turner's Fingers, and as of yet I can't figure out where I am going with it. I suggest nowhere. It obviously has to be edited, but here we go.

--

Lonsdale Prince surveyed his female companion over the rim of his brandy glass. She was fortyish, but had the well-preserved, handsome look of a successful career woman. Her well-cut clothes and carefully arranged hair suggested Bond Street, or even Paris, as did the gentle bouquet of perfume that lingered about her.
“What I am about to tell you,” he said, “is considerably unpleasant. Indeed I would go so far as to say that it is a tale of exceptional hideousness.”
The woman drew deeply on her cigarette and met his gaze unblinkingly.

Prince’s fingers curled around his glass, a smile lingering on his lips. It was lost on his companion, however – she simply raised an eyebrow expectantly, slowly dropping the cigarette from her scarlet lips. “Will you start?” she said dryly.
He nodded slightly, wetting his lips with the brandy. “Back… a long time ago,” he said, settling back into the chair. “It was before this civilisation –”
“Mr Prince, can you please continue?” she snapped, shaking her long, flowing sleeve back to reveal a golden watch. “For goodness’ sake!”
He sat back, mollified. “Of course.” He opened his mouth, and began…

The scene is dark and empty. It certainly plays out as though there is a stage there – a production of sorts, minimal light, minimal life.
A man is briskly stalking the stage, his eyes alight. They are a vivid green, and he turns and looks out towards the moon. “And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,” he quotes, brushing his hair off his pale forehead. He sighs a soft hum, and ducks his head again, starting his steps once again.
The curtain moves slightly, a convulsion of Prussian clouds in the corner of his eye, and he moves – sudden – eyes on the prize.
There is nothing, and he continues on his way.

Behind the clouds, she grips at her last chance to life, trying not to breathe. The life is ebbing away as she counts. Un… deux… trois…
Her eyes match the darkness, shrouded in the cloud’s heart. How do you determine life? Quatre, cinq, six… It seems to her that in there, those deeply coloured masses surrounding her, there is more life, there is more of what she is.

The woman – for now known as Francesca – derisively exhaled her previous breath, the plumes veiling her impassive features. Her topaz eyes regarded him gravely as the fog abated. “Mr Prince,” she said, tapping the cigarette on the ornate bowl sitting on the table between them; Lonsdale repressed a shudder as he met her stony gaze.
“There really doesn’t seem to be much of a story here,” she continued, placing the cigarette in her mouth once more. “‘Exceptional hideousness’, I believe you said. I do not see much of that.”
Lonsdale looked at her. “It is only beginning,” he whispered – ominously, he liked to think… though whether Francesca’s mind was on the same path, he was unsure.

Nothing is sure.

“And how is there more life in clouds?” Francesca looked irritated, Lonsdale rotated the glass in his hands, and together neither looked at each other. “A person, Mr Prince, certainly has more life than that. This tale is too fanciful.”
“As I said, Francesca –” her lips visibly tightened at Lonsdale’s cavalier usage of her first name – “it is only beginning.”

He reaches a hand out to the moon and it falters, he steps back, and he rocks lamely on his heels. The light shuts off – it flickers as the last embers die and he wonders what it means.
Why is the moon dead now? Why does it no longer shine?
He slips over to the clouds and looks at them. His head aches with confusion, and suddenly snaps across to the outer edge of the stage.

There are two stairs, two stages. He is only on one.
The staircase is grand, and wide, and bold. He cannot remember the walk up it. He cannot remember much else, besides the beginning of this oddity where he appeared on a stage adorned with blue. Blue – that is all. And began his fruitless steps.
Yet now, there is nothing.
The stage which he does not know is higher, and surrounded by green, and he cannot reach it. The staircase winds around the one that led him here and he contemplates running to find the beginning. Should he?

--

That is it so far. Um... the part underlined - which perspective did you think it'd go to? Lonsdale and Francesca, or the two nameless ones? And also - timeframe. What do you all think about time?

 

[marcquelle]

I really like the only thing i didn't like was this part
"he turns and looks out towards the stage light – a moon." it seemed to planned, taught description. But i still really liked it.

BTW has anyone else finished New Dawn?

 

[marcquelle]

.

 

[marcquelle]

bump

 

[Aerath]

It's a good description - but personally, I don't really like it, cause it is really gory.

 

[bored of sc]

Marcquelle - the extract from your story is well-structured, clearly articulated and frighteningly gothic/fantasy! Although I don't understand what's comic about it.

 

[marcquelle]

um this part is not really comic (unless you look at smoother than his bottom-prachett style low level)

The Story basically is serial killings, with a comic detective (he has a sick sense of humour), subverts parts of dracula

Thank you

 

[bored of sc]

um this part is not really comic (unless you look at smoother than his bottom-prachett style low level)

The Story basically is serial killings, with a comic detective (he has a sick sense of humour), subverts parts of dracula

Thank you

Oh, I see - well that saddistic madness from the serial killer came through when I was reading it.