Week three

This week nearly everyone was late! A couple of people had kindly organised drinks but I wasn't able to go in the end, hopefully next week.
------------------
Homework:
Over the next week, choose a newspaper or magazine article that makes an impact on you. It can be a frivolous little bulletin from page XX or a major feature. The article can be about anything, but it should tell a factual story with a beginning, middle and end.

Use the article as the basis for a fictional story of your own, but don't feel constrained by its 'truth'. You might imagine a story which led up to (or followed on from) the reported event. You might like to write from the perspective of one of the characters involved. Or explore someone's point of view at the story's edges: perhaps a neighbour, a postman, a stranger... We might read the story in a diary, or 'overhear' it in a prison or at the hairdresser's. It can be hilarious, tragic, disturbing, satirical, contemplative...
Whatever you decide to do with it, please:
1 write a story, not a description
2 edit to 500 - 1000 words
3 summarise the article in 25 words or less
4 bring a copy of the article and your own story next week
--------------------
The next day I picked up a Metro on the way in to work, and unsurprisingly chose the random strange news article to write about. The basis of the story came into my head straight away but I had the lurgy all of that week and over the weekend and I find it very difficult to think when I'm being pathetic. It took a long time to bring it together in my head, on paper and on screen. I discarded the entire back plot in the end to keep the story focussed. Thank goodness for word limits or everyone would have been bored by the escape effort and the journey from rummaging through bins to living in the wild.

Notes from the class:
If in 3rd person, keep the same 'voice', so if hovering by his head and describing what he's thinking, don't suddenly switch to observations of him or authorial mode.
e.g. narrators in films now are clearly placed - person/gender/place in the story. Used to be the 'voice of God'.
If you really think through a character before you start then the adjectives etc. will come out right
The plan is the scaffolding, don't need to follow it to the letter, it's there to help you get started
Voice often needs to be balanced - if have 3 voices, give them equal time
Use the voice to get the readers on the side of each one
If going to change tenses later, then set the scene early on to avoid confusion
Adverbs can slow down the action
Make sure names aren't even remotely similar e.g. 'Joe' 'Jake', 'Bill' 'Will'