How To Write A Charlie Trout...
*brushes off the dust and the neglect*
And now i stare at you without an inkling of what i'm going to say. Lemme ponder on.
Ok, so i was watching Gossip Girl yesterday, and there was a couple of scenes of Dan with this old dude and this old dude was criticising Dan's work and offering him advice on how to improve his writing. They were talking about stuff like trying something new and different in order to gain a new perspective to write from, character development and stuff like that. It was kinda interesting in a sense, sorta like "I could learn from this" and all. But it kinda irks me that i'm taking tips on writing from a TV show about rich kids living in New York.
So i'm looking through my Uni course syllabus, and i find not one module on these integral things. I wanna learn about writing stories, creating characters, developing them, structuring the story, coming up with storylines that work, blah blah blah blah. I find it hard to believe that University course on English doesn't have stuff like that. But you might say, "Kevin, you're taking Communications Studies and English. Maybe if you had taken English and English LITERATURE, there would be such a module?"
Well i looked through the Lit course syllabus as well and sad to say, NO SUCH THING! It's all about studying Literature, analysing works of literary art, blah blah blah and all that boring stuff that i didn't like about studying Literature in Secondary School. Yeah, i just liked to read the books, not analyse them and find the bloody underlying meaning, if there were any. Yeah sure you analyse the characters and you find out what makes them tick, but these are stories already written. What I want to know is how the author comes up with characters like these and why.
Kinda disappointed, when i take a Professional English Writing module and realise that it's about writing in Professional lines such as Public Relations, Journalism, letter and memo writing in the office. BORING! I learned all that in Poly and in a more advanced way. I want Writing Fiction or stuff like that. I wanna learn How To Write A Charlie Trout!
Sitting here looking at my course syllabus, i realise i'm not really that into the intricacies of the English Language. Sure, it's interesting to know, but i'm not learning anything on what i find is important to me. But you never know, maybe i'll find something interesting along the way.
And now i stare at you without an inkling of what i'm going to say. Lemme ponder on.
Ok, so i was watching Gossip Girl yesterday, and there was a couple of scenes of Dan with this old dude and this old dude was criticising Dan's work and offering him advice on how to improve his writing. They were talking about stuff like trying something new and different in order to gain a new perspective to write from, character development and stuff like that. It was kinda interesting in a sense, sorta like "I could learn from this" and all. But it kinda irks me that i'm taking tips on writing from a TV show about rich kids living in New York.
So i'm looking through my Uni course syllabus, and i find not one module on these integral things. I wanna learn about writing stories, creating characters, developing them, structuring the story, coming up with storylines that work, blah blah blah blah. I find it hard to believe that University course on English doesn't have stuff like that. But you might say, "Kevin, you're taking Communications Studies and English. Maybe if you had taken English and English LITERATURE, there would be such a module?"
Well i looked through the Lit course syllabus as well and sad to say, NO SUCH THING! It's all about studying Literature, analysing works of literary art, blah blah blah and all that boring stuff that i didn't like about studying Literature in Secondary School. Yeah, i just liked to read the books, not analyse them and find the bloody underlying meaning, if there were any. Yeah sure you analyse the characters and you find out what makes them tick, but these are stories already written. What I want to know is how the author comes up with characters like these and why.
Kinda disappointed, when i take a Professional English Writing module and realise that it's about writing in Professional lines such as Public Relations, Journalism, letter and memo writing in the office. BORING! I learned all that in Poly and in a more advanced way. I want Writing Fiction or stuff like that. I wanna learn How To Write A Charlie Trout!
Sitting here looking at my course syllabus, i realise i'm not really that into the intricacies of the English Language. Sure, it's interesting to know, but i'm not learning anything on what i find is important to me. But you never know, maybe i'll find something interesting along the way.
Kevin rode the carousel @ 15:07
1 Comments:
At October 23, 2008 at 10:47 AM,
NinjaMasterX (aka Dedrick Koh) said…
Actually, if you want to learn more about plot development, you should have taken script writing during Mass Comm.
That module touched upon a lot of the subjects you're interested in.
I think there's a reason why you do not see specific analysis of story development in literature.
Literature is an art, and though you need to understand the guidelines in which you should paint your art, you should not be burdened with preconceived ideas that are formulated on convention.
Scriptwriting, on the other hand, needs to be commercially viable, Scriptwriting is not an art, it's a business. Therefore the need for convention.
You should consider studying film if you are more interested in structured story telling.
P.S The revelation that you watch "Gossip Girls" has caused me to lose whatever measure of respect I formerly had for you. WAH LAO KEVIN!
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