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fandomhigh2009-07-28 10:16 pm
cuff-me-once.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2009-07-28 10:16 pm
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Creative Writing [Tuesday, 5th Period]
There had been an email to meet at the Danger Shop for today's class.
Rick, who looked remarkably like a child who'd had all his Christmases come at once, greeted each of them at the entrance with a red or blue sash. The Danger Shop for its part was a mess of darkened corridors, stairways, and open spaces. Smoke drifted close to the floors.
"Write what you know," Rick began after everyone had gotten a sash. "It's good advice. Accuracy is a good thing, and if you have experience if what you're writing about you can give the appearance of authenticity even if you change things up. The problem comes if you're writing about something you can't do or experience yourself, either because it's impossible or illegal or because you just plain can't."
"This is where research is your best friend," Rick said. "Research will always be a writer's best friend, and there's a lot of ways you can go about it. Reading, is your first option, though you need to be certain that you have good sources, that you acknowledge your sources, and most importantly that you don't copy your source. That's called plagiarism, and depending on the age of the source text in question, copyright infringement. It's also the one thing that without question I will fail you for."
Rick paused before continuing. "Another option, and one that I'm personally very fond of, involves getting to know people who do know what you want to write about. I'll be talking more about that one next week."
"The option we're going to be exploring today is a bit different," he said. "It's very useful for when you're writing impossible things, for example science fiction or fantasy. It involves finding an activity you can do that's analogous to the one you can't, and extrapolating from that. For example, instead of getting involved a fire-fight, you can play a game of laser-tag. Three guesses what we're going to be doing today."
Anyone who was under the impression that Rick had designed this class solely to have an excuse to play laser-tag was only half-right. When backed up with other methods of research, he did actually consider it a valid research technique.
"Your sashes are your team, there are harnesses in your team colours, blue team gets a two minute head start into the maze, and two minutes after that, both teams guns will go live," Rick explained. "In addition, we're going to consider this something of a role-play exercise, the blue team are going to be heroic rebels fighting against the red teams oppressive galactic overlords."
"Your time starts as soon as you finish suiting up."
[OOC: OCD up.]
[Class Roster|Previous Classes]
Rick, who looked remarkably like a child who'd had all his Christmases come at once, greeted each of them at the entrance with a red or blue sash. The Danger Shop for its part was a mess of darkened corridors, stairways, and open spaces. Smoke drifted close to the floors.
"Write what you know," Rick began after everyone had gotten a sash. "It's good advice. Accuracy is a good thing, and if you have experience if what you're writing about you can give the appearance of authenticity even if you change things up. The problem comes if you're writing about something you can't do or experience yourself, either because it's impossible or illegal or because you just plain can't."
"This is where research is your best friend," Rick said. "Research will always be a writer's best friend, and there's a lot of ways you can go about it. Reading, is your first option, though you need to be certain that you have good sources, that you acknowledge your sources, and most importantly that you don't copy your source. That's called plagiarism, and depending on the age of the source text in question, copyright infringement. It's also the one thing that without question I will fail you for."
Rick paused before continuing. "Another option, and one that I'm personally very fond of, involves getting to know people who do know what you want to write about. I'll be talking more about that one next week."
"The option we're going to be exploring today is a bit different," he said. "It's very useful for when you're writing impossible things, for example science fiction or fantasy. It involves finding an activity you can do that's analogous to the one you can't, and extrapolating from that. For example, instead of getting involved a fire-fight, you can play a game of laser-tag. Three guesses what we're going to be doing today."
Anyone who was under the impression that Rick had designed this class solely to have an excuse to play laser-tag was only half-right. When backed up with other methods of research, he did actually consider it a valid research technique.
"Your sashes are your team, there are harnesses in your team colours, blue team gets a two minute head start into the maze, and two minutes after that, both teams guns will go live," Rick explained. "In addition, we're going to consider this something of a role-play exercise, the blue team are going to be heroic rebels fighting against the red teams oppressive galactic overlords."
"Your time starts as soon as you finish suiting up."
[OOC: OCD up.]
[Class Roster|Previous Classes]