Contact me at bala@balaramadurai.net.
It was the year 1837. Charles woke up with the sound of ding-ding. He knew what that was, the pigeons had arrived, at least one of them. He slipped into his robe and slippers and almost jumped the stairs leading him to the yard. He scanned the pigeon holes. About 40 of them in all. Each pigeon hole was meticulously labelled and cleaned overnight to welcome the visitors. Only two of the holes seem to be occupied.
In the COEXIST method of storywriting, you have chosen your hero, issue (in the step C) and you wrote a one-liner of your story (in the step O). Now what? The story has to start somewhere and sometime. But this somewhere, sometime has to be pivotal that it changes the normal course of life for our hero. This is the essence of what we try to accomplish in E (Eventful start). Let’s take the heroes from some popular movies.
Marlin, Nemo’s dad, gets out his anemone, to look for his son. (Finding Nemo)
Neo, gets out of The Matrix to find the truth about his real world. (The Matrix)
Rose, gets out of her protected life, to experience life in the third class. (Titanic)
Ben, gets out of his human life, to become one of the many aliens. (Ben 10 and the ultimate alien)
“Gets out” is the big event here. So, how do you write the E step for your story? Take any favourite movie. Make the hero step out (or “get out”) of their comfort zone.
A woman, engaged to someone, meets and falls in love with another man onboard a ship, which sinks a few hours after they meet.
A hacker, on discovering that the world that he is in is a computer program, teams up with a few rebels to overthrow the guardian programs of the system.
A father fish embarks on a long and challenging journey across the ocean to find his missing son.
A teenager, with the help of a watch that can transform him into powerful aliens, battles evil forces.
Which movies or TV shows do these one-liners describe?
This post is about the O (One-liner) step in the COEXIST methodology. This is part of a series of posts on the topic.
What does Coexist mean? “It means living in harmony with any being and all the surroundings.”
One of our young authors (let’s call her Sashi) answered in a workshop we had organized for middle school students. Just like Sashi, many of the students in workshops were fascinated about heroic stories about their own cherished surroundings. Some of them had written stories in the past, but it was on a whim or part of an assignment at school. Not only did Sashi want to make a change but also make her classmates aware of the state of the environment that she lived in. But she wondered – How do I write a story? What should I do about all the changes I see in the environment? Should I just be an innocent bystander of anything happening around me? In this series, we will explore the construct that the young authors in our workshops used to write stories. Not simple stories, but Actionable Stories for a Sustainable Change. (All stories are available to download as an e-book)
Try to eliminate interruptions — by other people, email, your phone, or poking around the Internet — but don’t tell yourself that you can only work with complete peace and quiet.
I loved this point from an article, I read. I thought about how I to achieve this in my schedule.
Easy DND - Do Not Disturb mode. Switch this on and all the unnecessary calls, messages, internet based distractions are all off. Use a pomodoro® technique by using a timer to focus on the (writing) task at hand.
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise”. These words shaped much of my growing up, when I watched Captain James Kirk take on adversary after adversary and win over challenging situations. As a tribute to the magnificent series which has had so many spin-offs and movies, I wrote a fan fiction screenplay of what might be one episode of the Star Trek show. I’ll publish the entire screenplay chapter by chapter. Enjoy!
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise”. These words shaped much of my growing up, when I watched Captain James Kirk take on adversary after adversary and win over challenging situations. As a tribute to the magnificent series which has had so many spin-offs and movies, I wrote a fan fiction screenplay of what might be one episode of the Star Trek show. I’ll publish the entire screenplay chapter by chapter. Enjoy!
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise”. These words shaped much of my growing up, when I watched Captain James Kirk take on adversary after adversary and win over challenging situations. As a tribute to the magnificent series which has had so many spin-offs and movies, I wrote a fan fiction screenplay of what might be one episode of the Star Trek show. I’ll publish the entire screenplay chapter by chapter. Enjoy!
Title From an Idea to a Novel: A Write-A-Thon
Subtitle: Develop an idea into a framework for a novel
Venue: Online (Zoom)
Date&Time: Tuesday, Aug 18, 10 am to 4 pm (1-2pm - Lunch break)
Fees: Free (if you request politely, we may you give you a 10% discount :-p)
Workshop Facilitator: Bala Ramadurai
Register here - https://www.meetup.com/Pune-Writers-Group/events/272502914/
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise”. These words shaped much of my growing up, when I watched Captain James Kirk take on adversary after adversary and win over challenging situations. As a tribute to the magnificent series which has had so many spin-offs and movies, I wrote a fan fiction screenplay of what might be one episode of the Star Trek show. I’ll publish the entire screenplay chapter by chapter. Enjoy!
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