Identify the emotional shapes of your 3 favorite stories that you picked in week 2. Draw them out and annotate the key moments that create those shapes.
Create a 3-act story spine of your favorite "What if.. " scenario. Fill it in with the beats for each of the acts, but no need to go into small details. A paragraph or a few bullet points per act would do.
Read nielsen_FromUserToCharacter.pdf Download nielsen_FromUserToCharacter.pdf, select 3 quotes and write one paragraph response to each one.
From user to character – an investigation into user-descriptions in scenarios
“To understand the character’s motivation for action it is necessary to have background information about the character. Actions can either stem from changes in the character’s environment or from the character’s own inner contradictions thereby creating a development in the character”
When I was reading this, I started to think of many different characters that I know of on top of my head. Then I thought of their backgrounds and their actions or next move made sense to me. The quote “actions can stem from changes in the character's environment” helps me think of ways to enhance and make characters deeper. This quote helps me equip myself with the knowledge and information to create a better character in story-making.
“An example is that the sentence “she feels happy” should be replaced with “she smiles”: that is the visual expression of the feeling. This forces the reader to imagine the transformation of visual information in the script. But it also forces the author to be aware of what lies behind the visual expression. The author must be fully aware of the feeling that is behind the smile, and what created the feeling in order to communicate this in the script.”
This one opened my eyes to how to create imaginative, engaging, and expressive story-telling. Instead of writing “she feels happy”, we instead write “she smiles”, this one change made me realize that writing can change feeling and leave readers with more room for interpretation and curiosity. Smiling can mean so many different things, depending on the context, and the expression helps us readers visualize what’s happening in the scene. I think this is very useful and great information to know.
“Knowing the place and time makes knowing the character much easier”
This quote helps me calm down and makes me feel like I am thinking too much. Sometimes when doing a task we can get clouded and meet a roadblock. When I read this, it helped me zoom out and think about the context, background, and time. Time and place aren’t something I really think about when creating a character, at least it's not something that I prioritize. I know what it is, but it’s on the back of my head, so bringing this up when creating a character helps me visualize who this character is.
