Istoryan Writers

[galenostiel]

---

My humble "SENSATIONS" for the night:

TASTE: The salty tang of plain potato chips makes a play on my tongue, invoking memories of beer and late-night conversations in little out-of-the-way places.

SMELL: The heady fragrance of rose-and-jasmine scented lotion assails my nostrils (I had just had a massage), mercifully driving away the pungent stench of hot, humid air too long trapped in this box-shaped room.

SOUND: Seemingly endless bursts of rapid gunfire invade my thoughts, and loud explosions tear my eyes away from my computer screen. The sounds of the television beckon as I strive to hear the weak tappings on my keyboard. (I love the sound of tapping keys, but my keyboard doesn't give me that satisfaction.)

TOUCH: What I had gathered to be smooth, upon careful consideration, actually feels like lots of teeny-tiny pebbles all packed tightly together, giving the sensation of smoothness without exactly being so. (I'm still talking about my keyboard.)

[DebutsAndIDos]

[color=navy] Maayo, maayo! Thank you participating Debut, Ate Thisbe, and Shaxyra! Good effort!

Two things I have noticed.

1) We might need to work on our "smell" adjectives and vocabulary. There is some need for improvement in that area.

This is sooo true. I had the toughest time on 'smell'. I just realized i need to get a richer 'smells' dictionary.

It's great that you're posting articles for essayists and feature writers since writing should not be limited to poems, short stories and plays. I think good writers have a responsibility to raise the civic consciousness of society. When I think of the greatest writers, I think of Platos' The Republic and Winston Chruchill's wartime speeches.

Thanks!

[splendid moonlight]

TASTE: I should be tasting shawarma as I just ate one thirty minutes ago. However there is none and I wonder at it. Instead I taste my own exhaustion.

SMELL: Traces of incense that smelled terrible two days ago when the big Indian/Pakistani guy lighted them up to freshen the air, now smells heavenly. Some things are better old.

SOUND: The sound of tapping keyboards coming from different ends of the room are almost unnoticeable, however loud they really are. Which leads me to believe how one can be too much inside one's self. Three voices are speaking in three different languages. One of them is a Tagalog-speaking guy talking to his phone after it sang "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Halleluuuuu~~...jaaaah!" which reminded me so much of a local TV channel that sang the song every morning when I was a kid.

TOUCH: There is a thin sheet of cold thin air between my fingers and the keyboard. My two hands seem to be wearing invisible gloves made of cold, detached from warmer parts of my body. I never seem to touch the keys at all.

[diem]

[color=navy]Still on Writing the Setting
Writing for the Setting in a Stage play and screenplay is relatively more simple because it relies on the visual or what can be seen and not that can be observed through other senses.

In screenplays and stage plays, the setting is also termed as 'scenes'.

For a stage play, please look at the following examples.

From Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, the settings per act are displayed in the first pages of the script this way.

THE SCENES OF THE PLAY
ACT I. Algernon Moncrieff’s Flat in Half-Moon Street, W.

ACT II. The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton.

ACT III. Drawing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton.

TIME: The Present.

[color=navy]
And then, simply stated as thus near the start of per act.

[font=courier]
FIRST ACT
SCENE
Morning-room in Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in
the adjoining room.

[color=navy]For Act II

[font=courier]SECOND ACT
SCENE
Garden at the Manor House. A flight of grey stone steps leads up to the house. The garden, an old-fashioned one, full of roses. Time of year, July. Basket chairs, and a table covered with books, are set under a large yew-tree.

[color=navy]
For film and TV screenplays, settings are just introduced by a SCENE HEADING where it determines whether the scene occurs in external (EXT, such as the beach, street, the sky) or internal (INT, such as an office, kitchen, bathroom) locations. It is also followed by a Time marker (DAY, NIGHT, MORNING, DUSK etc).

The scene heading is often followed by one or two or more short paragraphs of description and action. Here are some samples from the blockbuster hit "Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl".

[font=courier]EXT. CARIBBEAN SEA - DAY

A gray, impenetrable wall of fog. From somewhere comes the FAINT SOUND of a LITTLE GIRL'S VOICE, singing, slow tempo, almost under her breath:

[color=navy]And for the memorable entrance of Captain Jack Sparrow

[font=courier]EXT. PORT ROYAL - HARBOR - DAY

The skeletal remains of four pirates, still clad in buccaneer rags, hang from gallows erected on a rocky promontory. There is a fifth, unoccupied gallows, bearing a sign:

PIRATES - YE BE WARNED

The top of a billowing sail passes regally in front of them. On the landward face of the sail, apparently high in the rigging, is a man for whom the term 'swashbuckling rogue' was coined: Captain JACK SPARROW.

He gazes keen-eyed at the display as they pass. Raises a tankard in salute. Suddenly, something below catches his attention. He jumps from the rigging --

-- and that's when we see that his ship is not an imposing three-master, but just a small fishing dory with a single sail, plowing through the water -- the Jolly Mon.

And it leaks. Which is why he has the tankard: to bail.

[galenostiel]

Just wanted to share this, especially for the poets.

Always Wite a Poem Like This

When you don't really feel
Like writing. Why wait
Until your head is clear
And you're sputtering along
Like a piece of bacon, all set
To start the morning right?
Some atrocity is sure to pop up,
Buttered with enthusiasm
On both sides.
No, write it now
While your head is empty
Like a belly; you'll be glad
You started off at nothing
So that
Something could arise.

-Randall VanderMey

** Poetry is a language of indirection -- "by indirection, find direction out."
** Write the spaces as well as the words.
** Sometimes a "mistake" makes your poem; don't let the good ones pass you by.
** Speak with a new voice, and you will think new thoughts.
** Six excellent lines of poetry are worth more than 600 pretty ones.
** The power of what you say is in what you don't say.
** Form speaks louder than words.
** Listen for poetry at the bus stop and on the beach.


Your thoughts?

[akoyako]

[color=navy] Maayo, maayo! Thank you participating Debut, Ate Thisbe, and Shaxyra! Good effort!

Please also feel free to post in Filipino, Bisaya other than English.

Hello Istorya Writers,

Mo-participate pod ko. Gabansay-bansay kog Binisaya. Maoy kalingawan nako ron. Balak akong ampay.
Alang ni sa pagpalambo ug pagpakaylap sa Binisaya. Gitumong ang pagpukaw sa kaamgohan sa kaugalingong kailhanan ug kaayohan. Ang pagsulat og Binisaya giisip nako nga gamayng kontribusyon. Tuguti intawon.

Gasulat pod kog Inenglis, kasagaran bahin sa adbokasiya sa lumadnong pinulongan.
Kaniadto, Inenglis ang dagan sa akong hunahuna. Gasulat kog poems, kasagaran sa tissue paper paghuma'g kaon. Unya i-shoot ra pod dayon sa waste basket. Creating, dili collecting, ang emphasis nako kaniadto. Kay miuyon  ko ron nga part of crative process ang pagcollect, mao nga gisugdan nakog kolekta ang akong mga sinulat nga balak. Diha sa diary.(kay kasagarang i-review nakog basa mga poems lang). Sa blog karon.

Nagsugod sa usa ka adlaw, nakaamgo ko nga 'dili angay hikalimtan ang kaugalingong Mother---mother tongue'. Sukad adto gabansay-bansay nakog sulat og Binisaya. Hilas sa sugod.Lingaw na ron. Naanad na kay kada-adlaw gainambitay og hikay nga binisaya didto sa balayan sa Lunsayng Binisaya.

Dili pa dugay nasaag ko dire sa Istorya.net. Tungod to sa hilisgotan sa LUDABI. Unya sa balak. Karon na pod sa Istorya writers.

sulay pod ko ani:

taste: nabinlan ma'g pilit-pilit, pait-pait akong dila. Lami ang  tinapayng pizza ug init ang sikwate. Maoy gipamahaw ug gipaniudto. Wa man tingale ko mapaso?

smell: abi na kog unsa, diin gikan'g baho-a. Diay hinungaw sa napan-os nga tinta sulod sa garapon nga ginahugasan karon.

sound: huh! mao ra gihapon, tarutot kun sirbato sa gadahunog nga sakyanan. Daplin sa dalan akong gipuy-an. Madungog ang lainlaing tingog lakip na ang mga singgit-hungihong sa mga tawong gaagi ubos sa akong bintana.

touch: unsa na man ni, girayuma na ba akong kamot? Kainit tingali sa dagitok(computer)ang hinungdan kay intawon 8 anyos na ang iyang panuigon. Galangi na. Moinit dayon kon tuslok-tuslokon. Daw ginatulisok sa gagmayng dagom (sa mga gagmayng duwende) akong mga tudlo. Dili sakit, dili hapdos. Init lang. Morag koryente sa wa tuyo-ang panagdikit sa panit sa laki ug babaye.

Akoy
2008.4.4

[diem]

[color=navy]@akoyako, welcome bai. Maayo imong gibuhat sa gabansay-bansay na sulat og Binisaya. Hinaot nga kining ehersisho makatabang ka nimo. The languages may be different, the essentials in communication are the same.

Writers Workout on Setting #2 : The Goldilocks Exercise

1. Take yourself to a place you might use for a setting in one of your stories or articles.

2. In at least one hundred(100) words, describe the setting in all its detail. (Too much)

3. Now reduce the setting description to a single sentence, no more than seven (7) words. (Too little)

4. Now describe the setting in as few words as it takes to retain the trance-inducing qualities, more than seven (7) and less than a hundred (100). (Just right!)

Here is what I wrote for this workout:

(Too much)

[font=Arial]It's an old tall house, empty and abandoned for many years. The paint from its crack-scarred walls bloat and peel in leprotic patches. It's wood is gnawed and hollowed out by rot and rats. The dust of dry decades stuck to it like skin. Broken windows allowed the wind to fill the house with dirt and leaves, into the rooms where once a family dined or where friends gathered for an occasion, a birthday party with candles and lights maybe. Now, these rooms are dark and mold grows on the corners. Shadows come and embrace this house as home. (100 words)

(Too little)

[font=Arial]An old tall house, embraced by shadows. (7 words)

(Just right!)

[font=Arial]An old tall house, empty and abandoned, with it's paint peeling and it's wood gnawed hollow by rot. Only the wind visits, bringing dust in where once a family may have gathered for a birthday party with candles and lights decades ago. Only the shadows come and embrace this house as home. (51 words)

[diem]

[color=navy]Forms for the 2008 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Literary Awards are now available through the following links.

• Rules and Regulations

[br]

• Entry Form

[br]

• Authorization Form
  

[color=navy][b]Deadline for entries is on April 30, 2008.

[backpacklife]

^let me be the first to say hello and welcome to the Istoryan writers thread, backpacklife!

@galenostiel, thanks for the welcome. i'll outstay
[br]Posted on: April 06, 2008, 08:00:07 AM_________________________________________________@ diem, matsalams bai [br]Posted on: April 06, 2008, 08:02:57 AM_________________________________________________

[color=navy] Maayo, maayo! Thank you participating Debut, Ate Thisbe, and Shaxyra! Good effort!

Two things I have noticed.

1) We might need to work on our "smell" adjectives and vocabulary. There is some need for improvement in that area.

2) Apparently, most of us who have done this workout have done it in the middle of the work at the office!

In consideration of #2, I suggest that we continue doing this workout for the week and the weekend. Try it in other surroundings, at home, at your favorite hangout or some random place you find yourself in.

You can also apply this exercise to an object, such as a toy, a meal, or anything What's important is we train ourselves to depend on our other senses, other than sight and emotions, in defining a certain setting or thing in writing.

Please also store this Workout as a future practice or warm-up before any new writing project.

To the other iStoryan Writers out there, hope you can also participate in the workout and post your sensations here!

Please also feel free to post in Filipino, Bisaya other than English.

Will post the next discussion and exercise by next week, still same on Writing the Setting!

my two-cents worth:

do not bank on the adjectives, let the verbs do the spanking. verbs that create images.
take for example in these sentences:

1. He kills the cat.
2 He skins the cat.

apparently sentence no. 2 provides the strong image.
it enriches the idea already.

and one last kiss,
instead of writing "i am sad," it is more effective if one writes "this is what sadness is...."

so there~

[shaxyra]

^^nice..

@ diem
still working on it.. hehe..