On Friday 23rd November, we experienced one very amusing but strangely odd lesson all about creating a short story. We were firstly all asked to get in age order (we all got very excited at this process, and it did take about 5 minutes to organise, only to then realise it was to get us to work with other people - bit of a disappointment!) We were all given the same opening line "Ross, a 26 year old male woke up and looked around him he was in ....", we then all got asked to write a description of the location to where Ross was, and a general background to his situation (I must say I stole an idea from my GCSE English coursework that I had written about a person being stuck in a white room!). We then all had to pass our stories onto the left (a bit like the game where a different person draws the head, body, legs, and feet but with an obvious media twist to it by using the story). The order of the story went; first person = description second person = introduces a prop, third person = introduces another character, fourth person = introduced speech, fifth person = sums up the story and brings it to a conclusion.
The Story
Ross, a 26 year old male woke up and looked around him he was in pitched black, his hands scampered around him trying to feel, to get a sense of where he was, his hand only grasping the thin air beside him. The sound of a generator rumbled in his ears, as a stark artificial light flooded the room. He was sat in a cube, every surface painted a harsh white. The sense of panic welled up inside him as stared around, each wall the same, each was lacking the essential window to the outside world
Ross looked around there was nothing, he delved into his pocket a sense of relief as he found his keys, phone and wallet.
All the money was gone though from his wallet, only his ID remand. There was a small ray of light coming from one of the walls which faded his picture on the ID as he walked over to the small light from which appeared a set of eyes, they were surrounded by wrinkles and were a dark deep colour
"Who are you, where am I" he shouted. The eyes blinked and disappeared. He stood there, wondering what to do as hid phone bleeped from his pocket. A message appeared on the screen, "I have you, you're mine now" and that was all, no caller id, not even a number to help him identify who this person was.
He throw the phone, not even bothering to look to see when it had landed. "Crap" he thought, as he realised he has just thrown his only friend away...and his lifeline. A loud beep rang through the cube and then the sound of an automatic message "Ross Stingfellow, 26, say goodbye to your life". Then nothing, no sound, no movement, no bomb...and then he saw it, a small crack slowly forming down the wall opposite him, progressively getting bigger and bigger. All of a sudden, Ross's throat become extremely dry, there were fumes coming through the crack which were quickly intoxicating him. This was it. Oh well it was inevitable that this was going to happen. These people always catch up with you one way or another.
We were then explained at the the end, that this story beginning was taken from "loop" - which I must say the ending to that seemed a bit of a plausible plot than "my" story - but my story did give me five minutes of giggling when I read it!
Link to Loop on yountube :
http://www.youtube.com/v/PArM9atP6nE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam
This was a task, that allowed us to see how other people interpret our ideas, it also helps us to develop our own ideas by thinking introducing us to ones which we may not necessarily of thought of. I most defiantly did not think of the eyes in the wall, however i think this was a really good way to go, it was quirky and different. In I was planning the short story I would of, went into describing that he himself was dressed in a hospital gown, stripped of his identity with just a number printed on the front "1076". I too had the idea of a person speaking to him without being there - however rather than referring to his name they would just refer to him as a number, which would de-humanise him and make him lose his rights and power as a person. I too was thinking of him having a message of being killed in the cube, but rather than it happening I would of left it as a cliff hanger.
My idea to the story
Ross's heart beat, his mind raced "what task, how can you fail a task which you cannot remember participating in, why him", a million questions with no one to ask, no one to answer him, all he had was time, time to wait, time to think, time until product 1076 was destroyed ....
I think that there are strengths and weaknesses to our story. The group one, I think the element of the eye was really good, it was different and strange, it added a sense of "out of this world". However I don't think there should of been the added element of the "normal" items, especially the phone as I think this added a sense of realism which degraded the sense of an unrealistic world with the eyes. I also think the death (through poisoning) was a bit of an anti-climax I think we could of developed more on the eyes, and built the suspense and tension
The story which we all derived I personally think would create a story that would make the audience ask lots of questions. I think that the added element of the eye was really good, it was different and added a sense of fright to the air. However I think that as A-level students on a minimal budget we would not be able to recreate the story as to make it look effective it would cost a lot of money in the set and lighting.
