Creative Writing Workshop

On the 4th and 5th of December we had a creative writing workshop. Our tutor put up a list of 10 different, three random things. He gave a number to everybody and we then had to pick that number from the list and create a story with it. We only got a few minutes to think of something to write.

I got number five which was :

An ex-boyfriend, a pair of binoculars and a good luck charm.

Here are a few short ideas I had for the story: 

A girl visits the places she used to visit when she was still going out with her ex- boyfriend. And looking through the binoculars her grandmother gave her she can see the good memories they spend together. But the binoculars only work when she has an object which she got or used to belong to to her ex.

An ex- boyfriend carries around an obese cat over his shoulder as a good luck charm (the cat is alive),
hoping that he will meet his ex again and that they will get back together. He looks through his binoculars from high roofs to find her.

Girl gets a good luck charm of her grandmother which is just a keychain but it enables her to see things she most loves she looking through the binoculars.

Girl can see peoples true personality when looking through the binoculars. She find out the truth about her boyfriends real personality and breaks up with him. The good luck charm shines when he finally realises what he has done wrong and regrets his decision.

Girl gets a good luck charm from her grandmothers shrine to keep evil spirits away. And using the binoculars she can see the spirits including her dead boyfriend.

Grandmother gives girl binoculars that an able her to see Spirits. Through that she can see and meet her dead ex- boyfriend. He gives her a good- luck charm to help her move on with her life.

The things we had to consider for our story:

1. The tone
2. Main Character(s)
3. The Plot
4. And the Setting

With those ideas we then were split up into groups of three and had to combine our ideas to create an other story using one out of six starting sentences on the board. 

Colm's sentence was:  Aerobics, secret diary and a welcome back

Ross's sentence was:   A blue van a pillow and a forgotten passport

Mine was                :   An ex- boyfriend, a pair of binoculars and a good luck charm





Here are our ideas combined: 

Everyone in the office turned and stared…  (it's a boring office)
as the office workers burst into the door , squishing an other worker behind it. A bulky female business woman called Dalori is in the centre front leading the group that just burst into the door. There is a serious moment of silence. Just as the office workers step forward one of them trips and lands on his face.

Mr. Longs (Boss) office hair turns and a little midget is revealed. He quickly looks through his binoculars and can see that the people who just walked in are actually alien monkeys from outer space.

The alien monkeys are trying to invade the planet by mixing into the society unnoticed and one day  plan on suddenly attacking humans to take over the world. But the binoculars are in the way because they can show the truth of what they really are. So they need to destroy it, but in order to do that they need a secret code which is kept in a secret diary file inside of the midgets head.

Knowing the situation is dangerous the midgets puts the binoculars into his jacket pocket and jumps out of the window using a wing suit (his normal suit turns into one). He tries to run away but his legs are really short so he's so slow that the aliens are about the catch up with him. Thankfully Mr. Longs arms are really long and he uses them to run.

On the way he meets a hippie in a blue Volkswagen van and he joins him. They then hop to america. (the van hops it doesn't drive)

Mr. Long tries to hide in a Motel sweat dripping down his face but the alien moneys find him. Having nothing else to defend himself with he throws a pillow at them. A pillow war starts. Then Mr. Long gets injured and the aliens are just about to extract the code of information out of his brain when the head alien gets an important phone call. The invasion to take over the world is canceled and they leave. The world was saved and Mr. Long gets back to his office work.




After writing that we had to do a few rough doodle sketches of what the characters could look like. I had to think for Mr. Long's character and we all sketched what Dalori could look like. The title was going to be : Mr. Long vs. the Semiazoids or Semanoids...can't remember.

doodles of what Mr. Long could look like. 

I was trying to thing of what kind of office chair Mr. Long would sit on. 

The doodle of the woman on the right is what I imagined Dalori to look like But in the end we decided on a bulky body for her with broad shoulders. On the right is what Mr. Long was going to look like, with short legs and long arms. 

My first random doodle.