March 28 Day Story Challenge

For Module 2, we have to do a 28 day writing challenge. At first I chose to do my challenge on things that I love. I would write stories about anything that I love for 28 days. Different things. Until I realized that this is the perfect opportunity to work on my story each day to get further and further. I couldn't figure out this wiki thing until recently so I just saved the stories into my word processor. So I will post one each morning and night (and maybe afternoon) until I am caught on the right day. I do not want to over whelm everyone with the amount of writing since I fell a bit behind.

I also would like to add a page so it keeps the story separate form my actual blog but on the same blog if that makes sense? Anyone know how?

Well my next post after this is the first part I wrote. It is still in development because I am taking this story very seriously. Hopefully my dream is to get it published one day!

I am going to make a new blog for my Purple Lights story. Here is the link

http://purplelightsfiction.blogspot.com/

Updated 22 steps

1. Self-Revelation, Need, and Desire: self revelation-
Self revelation- J realizes that she needs to open her eyes, change her attitude and get to the bottom of the changes in her life or she’ll lose it.
Need- To overcome the obstacles put in her path so she can find out what happened to her.
Desire- To find out the reasons of what is happening to her and around her.

2. Ghost and story world-
Ghost- In younger years when J lived in the States, she was bullied. She always wanted to fight back but she was so small and no one took her seriously. Everyone took advantage of her for being too nice. When she moved to Japan, she was convinced she was going to train under a Sensei or a ninja master (her kid dream) to become tough. But in reality she was taught by a neighborhood monk to be carefree and loving. So she never became tough, she just learned to look past it and live carefree and loving.
Story world- New York City, deep within a collection of regular looking buildings, but is a different world of technology, rules, and people.

3. Weakness and need
Weakness- J is kindhearted, giving, and loving. All maybe too much for her own good.
Need- She needs to take control of her life and attitude.
Problem- She is walked all over and considered to be too nice and too relaxed

4. Inciting Event- J finds out that the girl who gave her the chip was Sam, her now partner.

5. Desire- To find out what the chip really is and why it was given to her.

6. Ally or allies- Maximillion, Demitria, Bato

7. Opponent and/or mystery- Sam turns out to be the girl who injected J with the data chip. At first it was told to J by Sam as a piece of information claiming it a mistake, Sam not taking the blame for it. Sam turned out to be J’s partner, protecting her and watching over her. As the story goes on, it is revealed that she does it on purpose for reasons unknown.

8. Fake-Ally Opponent- Sam

9. First Revelation and Decision: Changed Desire and Motive-
revelation- Sam confesses to giving J the chip and claims it was an accident, but Maximllion- Sam’s former partner- says that it was all planned and there is more behind it.
Decision- J decides not to tell Sam she knows that she may have done it on purpose and stay partners with her.
Changed desire- To stay close to Sam to get closer to the truth about her and what is really going on about everything.
Changed motive- J is getting suspicious of all of Sam’s actions towards her and everything else.

10. Plan- J plans to discover the truth about the data chip, and why Sam and others are after her.

11. Opponents Plan and Main Counterattack-
 Opponents plan- Sam has to pick a source to inject a “special data chip” in, lure them into thinking that R.A.I.S is not what it really is, convince them to come to the “other side” which is the opponent company of R.A.I.S, and fight against them.
 Main Counterattack-

12. Drive- J’s drive is to find out why Sam is lying to her and why she put the chip inside her.

13. Attack by ally- Demi stalks out J in order to learn more about her. She confronts her about Sam and that J needs to be more aggressive if she is going to get to the bottom of everything.

14. Apparent defeat- the realization that Sam- the closest person to her helping her- may be the reason why she’s in trouble, not being able to trust anyone around her, and her self consciousness is getting in the way.

15. Second Revelation and Decision-                                                                                        revelation- Demi talks to J about Sam and J’s aggressiveness.                                                  Decision- J realizes she needs to change the way she works and To go after Sam in a more aggressive way                                                                                                                                               Changed desire- to get deeper into Sam’s thoughts                                                                    obsessive drive- finding more about the chip in her to help her get through                               changed motive-

16. Audience Revelation- The audience realizes that Sam put the chip in J for her own being claiming it was a mistake, to begin a bigger plan of hers.

17. Third Revelation and Decision-                                                                                          revelation- Sam is trying to take in J to the “other side”.                                                           Decision- To pretend to be on Sam’s side, until she knows what to do for sure.                                     Changed desire- to keep close to Sam                                                                                        obsessive drive- to get to the bottom of Sam and everyone once and for all                               changed motive-

18. Gate, Gauntlet, Visit to Death-

19. Battle-

20. Self-Revelation- J realizes that she cant escape this life, and she will learn to embrace it.

21. Moral Decision- To join R.A.I.S and become the operative she was forced to be.

22. New Equilibrium-  

22 steps

As the title goes, 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, here are my 22 steps to my story. They're still coming along, but I like how it's flowing so far. Its a challenge to get all the details together, but I find it rather fun more than anything.


1. Self-Revelation, Need, and Desire: self revelation-
Self revelation- J realizes that she needs to open her eyes, change her attitude and get to the bottom of the changes in her life or she’ll lose it.
Need- To overcome the obstacles put in her path so she can find out what happened to her.
Desire- To find out the reasons of what is happening to her and around her.

2. Ghost and story world-
Ghost- In younger years when J lived in the States, she was bullied. She always wanted to fight back but she was so small and no one took her seriously. Everyone took advantage of her for being too nice. When she moved to Japan, she was convinced she was going to train under a Sensei or a ninja master (her kid dream) to become tough. But in reality she was taught by a neighborhood monk to be carefree and loving. So she never became tough, she just learned to look past it and live carefree and loving.
Story world- New York City, deep within a collection of regular looking buildings, but is a different world of technology, rules, and people.

3. Weakness and need
Weakness- J is kindhearted, giving, and loving. All maybe too much for her own good.
Need- She needs to take control of her life and attitude.
Problem- She is walked all over and considered to be too nice and too relaxed

4. Inciting Event- J finds out that the girl who gave her the chip was Sam, her now partner.

5. Desire- To find out what the chip really is and why it was given to her.

6. Ally or allies- Maximillion, Demitria, Bato

7. Opponent and/or mystery- Sam turns out to be the girl who injected J with the data chip. At first it was told to J by Sam as a piece of information claiming it a mistake, Sam not taking the blame for it. Sam turned out to be J’s partner, protecting her and watching over her. As the story goes on, it is revealed that she does it on purpose for reasons unknown.

8. Fake-Ally Opponent- Sam

9. First Revelation and Decision: Changed Desire and Motive-
revelation- Sam confesses to giving J the chip and claims it was an accident, but Maximllion- Sam’s former partner- says that it was all planned and there is more behind it.
Decision- J decides not to tell Sam she knows that she may have done it on purpose and stay partners with her.
Changed desire- To stay close to Sam to get closer to the truth about her and what is really going on about everything.
Changed motive- J is getting suspicious of all of Sam’s actions towards her and everything else.

10. Plan- J plans to discover the truth about the data chip, and why Sam and others are after her.

11. Opponents Plan and Main Counterattack-
      Opponents plan- Sam has to pick a source to inject a “special data chip” in, lure them into thinking that R.A.I.S is not what it really is, convince them to come to the “other side” which is the opponent company of R.A.I.S, and fight against them.
      Main Counterattack-

12. Drive- J’s drive is to find out why Sam is lying to her and why she put the chip inside her.
13. Attack by ally-
14. Apparent defeat-
15. Second Revelation and Decision
16. Audience Revelation-
17. Third Revelation and Decision-
18. Gate, Gauntlet, Visit to Death-
19. Battle-
20. Self-Revelation-
21. Moral Decision-
22. New Equilibrium-

7 steps

Truby explains seven key steps of story structure in his book. I wrote down my seven steps but they have been changing slightly as I go along with the progression of my story. I keep figuring out things as I go along. So here there are, any suggestions are welcome. I also changed my premise around too because I cant seem to get the right one. This is it so far, it seems the most logical.

Premise- A routine data chip injection for J turns out to be the discovery of "Purple Lights" throughout the city.

1.     weakness and need

weakness- Her attitude, trust issues, and carefree-ness

need- To overcome the obstacles put in her path due so she can find out what happened to her.

2.     desire- To help R.A.I.S with their inner issues so she can find out what happened to her.

3.     opponent- Sam

4.     plan- J’s plan is to get close to Sam and have her teach about R.A.I.S to get an inside look.

5.     battle- J exposes Sam for what she really did, defeating her and getting deeper into R.A.I.S

6.     self revelation- J realizes that she needs to open her eyes, change her attitude and get to the bottom of the changes in her life or she’ll lose it.

7.     new equilibrium- After the fall of Sam, she discovers a new found friendship with the operatives in R.A.I.S and will make the decision whether or not to become one.

Building my story

So as I was reading through John Truby's The Anatomy of Story and he pretty much makes story telling a lot easier. He has some main steps and steps in between to help you out on your journey of mastering your story.

I seem to having an issue with my premise; it changed quite a few times from the discussion module. I am trying to get the needed information in it, without over doing it. In my opinion this was the hardest part.

Truby has some writing exercises in the back of his chapters that I did that helped me.

The start of exercise one is to make a premise list. Here's my premise list.

-       With new laws and security measures, a girl moves back to her homeland to have her life completely turned around.

-       Unbeknownst to J, the chip injected inside of her as a new law is not the kind of chip she thought it was.

-       Belonging to a “hero” that was part of a law enforcement agency, the chip injected in J causes life changing problems for a lot of people.

-       A company makes a slip up when it injects a chip into J that previously belonged to a “hero”.

-       An unknown chip injected into J, causes a company to have a civil war amongst themselves and her, only for J to become a “familiar” hero.

-       A carefree girl is injected a life-altering chip of an old hero that leads her to discover the truth about the “Purple Lights”. ?

I am not really sure which one to go with, but I think I'm leaning towards these two:
      - An unknown chip injected into J, causes a company to have a civil war amongst themselves and  her, only for J to become a “familiar” hero.

-       A carefree girl is injected a life-altering chip of an old hero that leads her to discover the truth about the “Purple Lights”. 

I want to call the story Purple Lights so I think the last one makes sense. I'm open for some help.

 

Slackin'

I've been slacking at my blogs lately. I am usually so good at keeping up with them. I get excited to see how many people look at my page whenever I check on it. It's almost an accomplishment, a thrill rather.

Anyways, I was on twitter tweeting with Himanee and the class when a point was brought up. We were talking about story webs, and how characters tie into webs and how they have their own webs and so on and so forth. She mentioned hip hop and webs and I mention the Gorillaz. I told her to look them up and she repsonded back saying to blog about it, how links help also. So here I am.

They are considered a hip hop group. It's really an English musical and visual project. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillaz )They are a "virtual band" made up of four cartoon characters if you will. They have some Japanese inspirations but they originate from the UK. They live in this extensive fantasy world that most definitely has character webs and story webs behind it.  ( http://gorillaz.com/ )

I find it really interesting that story webs can be found almost anywhere if you look hard enough. And if they aren't there, given the right information you can most likely make one up.

They're pretty cool. More along my style. Check them out. Even if you don't like them, they're certainly memorable.

First post

Storytelling was always a passion of mine, but my stories were always inside of my head. I have attempted to write out a few stories, but I never knew where to begin. I plan one day having a story of mine published, but only this class and much more guidance will help me out. Another dream of mine is to have that story become a cartoon, sort of like an anime. This class and this blog is really going to help me. Another idea I had was make a story on a blog (perfect start) and broadcast it weekly. Add more to the story week by week and have a live time put so everyone can read it. I have a lot of ideas and this is going to help me execute them more accurately. I can't wait to get started!