Friday 19 May 2017

Handwriting aids retention.

When I should be #editing book two ~ the hand doodles the character Anathon as a warrior of 'The Heaven Stone'. Focus, Trace, focus.
From http://absolutewrite.com ~ Handwriting aids retention.
Handwriting allows us to use the parts of our brain that we don’t when we keyboard; there’s a thing that happens when we’re doodling or brainstorming with a pen in our hand where we solve problems, whether of plot, narration or character motivation, or planning. Some of it is perhaps not conscious, but as we write, we formulate a solution.

Writing by hand also uses different parts of the brain, and more of them, than keyboarding does, which may have something to do why those writing demonstrate better retention than those who keyboard.
Because of the way we concentrate on what we are doing and because it is slower than a keyboard, writing by hand gives us time to think.
Lifprasira (Chance's Letter)
Writing by hand changes our mechanics, and consequently, our memory. As we concentrate on forming the letters, we’re using parts of our brain that we don’t use when we keyboard, and that appears to assist both memory and recall. Researchers and Psychology professors Dung Bui, Joel Myerson, and Sandra Hale from Washington University discovered that students taking lecture notes via a computer keyboard demonstrated better immediate recall than students creating well-organized lecture notes by hand, but that about twenty-four hours later students who keyboarded their notes performed worse on tests about the material than those who wrote their notes by hand. The researchers concluded that keyboard notetakers had poorer recall than those taking notes by hand because they were not actively summarizing and synthesizing key points, as much as they were engaged in transcription.
Read more HERE
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Monday 15 May 2017

An Introduction to Screenwriting.

An Introduction to Screenwriting.
UEA (UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA)
via Future Learn - HERE

I wanted to share this wonderful and free class found via Futurelearn Online. Week Two has just started but it's still not too late to join (link above). So far, it has been fun, nice fresh inspiration, and really interesting. The development reminds me much of what is used in novel writing craft as far as character, plot, mood, etc, is concerned. Which excites me as I would like to transform the books in ACoPF series into script format. That is once I've completed book two, Awake in Purple Dreams hopefully to be published in the autumn of 2017.
The script I'm developing is for book three - Shining Sword (future story) in the series. Half of the first draft is written and I thought this would be a fun way to further develop the story.
This week we are learning about 'CHARACTER, WRITING THE SCENE AND FIRST DRAFT'. This involves exercises to further develop characters and exploring scene construction.
and hear approaches and tips from our four educators.
2.12
A WORKFLOW FOR WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT OF A FEATURE-FILM SCREENPLAY
2.13
SCREENPLAY FORMATTING
2.14
PREPARING FOR WRITING YOUR FIRST DRAFT
2.15
SCREEN FORMATTING
2.16
WRITING - AND FINISHING - THE FIRST DRAFT
2.17
WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT
There are four fabulous educators who have varying viewpoints in techniques and how they're inspired. This is helpful and most people should be able to relate to one.
For study, I choose Excalibur (film seen)  1981. A  British dramatic fantasy film directed, produced, and co-written by John Boorman that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, based solely on the 15th century Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory (1469–70) .
Boorman had planned a film adaptation of the Merlin legend as early as 1969, but when submitting the three-hour-one-film script written with Rospo Pallenberg to (United Artists), they rejected it deeming it too costly and offered him J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings instead.
Boorman was allowed to shop the script elsewhere, but no studio would commit to it. Returning to his original idea of the Merlin legend, Boorman was eventually able to secure deals that would help him do Excalibur.
Much of the imagery and set designs were created with his original vision of The Lord Of The Rings in mind, and it has been noted that certain scenes are reminiscent of Monty Python's 1975 comedy film, Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
In addition to Malory, the writers incorporated elements from other Arthurian stories, sometimes altering them. For example, the sword between the sleeping lovers' bodies comes from the tales of Tristan and Iseult; the knight who returns Excalibur to the water is changed from Bedivere to Perceval; and Morgause and Morgan Le Fay are merged into one character.
The sword Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are presented as the same thing; in some versions of the legends they are separate. In Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, is actually the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman follows the earlier version of the tale as told by Chrétien de Troyes, making Perceval the grail winner.
Some new elements were added, such as Uther wielding Excalibur before Arthur (repeated in Merlin), Merlin's 'Charm of Making' (written in Old Irish), and the concept of the world as "the dragon" (probably inspired by the dragon omen seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Merlin's life).
According to linguist Michael Everson, the "Charm of Making" that Merlin speaks to invoke the dragon is an invention. The phonetic transcription of the charm as spoken in the film is [aˈnaːl naθˈrax, uːrθ vaːs beˈθʌd, doxˈjeːl ˈdjenveː]. Although the pronunciation in the film has little relation to how the text would actually be pronounced in Irish, the most likely interpretation of the spoken words, as Old Irish text is:

Anál nathrach,
orth’ bháis’s bethad,
do chél dénmha

In modern English, this can be translated as:

Serpent's breath,
charm of death and life,
thy omen of making.
According to Boorman, the film was originally three hours long; among scenes that were deleted from the finished film but featured in one of the promotional trailers was a sequence where Lancelot rescued Guenevere from a forest bandit.

 The Perks of a Wallflower (film unseen). 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age epistolary novel by American writer Stephen Chbosky which was first published on February 1, 1999, by Pocket Books.
 Chbosky took five years to develop and publish The Perks of Being a Wallflower, creating the characters and other aspects of the story from his own memories. The novel addresses themes permeating adolescence, including introversion, sexuality, and drug use, while also making several references to other literary works, films, and pop culture in general.Although Chbosky's first book was a commercial success, it was banned in some American schools for its content.
Since he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Chbosky aspired to adapt it into a film, calling this "a lifelong dream of mine." After the publication of the novel, the author said he received film offers, refusing them because he "owed the fans a movie that was worthy of their love for the book."
The film boosted the novel's sales, and the book reached The New York Times Best Seller list.
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo