Sitting down at a blank white table I mentally drew out different scenes upon it: A woman riding a boat alone, a picture frozen in time from the depths of my memory, a young boy staring at his ice cream transforming into slithering, silky milk..... They continued, playing out upon the table, until they could play no more. One by one, I disposed of each idea until one remained, which seemed to play out in an intriguing outline of a story (This entire process takes around an hour to finish).
The story was based upon a man I had met, interesting, kind, and regretful. I came upon him in a cafeteria at a summer camp at Northwestern in 2011. He was called "Dan the Juice Man", the reason for this was based upon the fact that he was up from 6 am to 10 pm with only a two hour break, creating fresh juice and serving it with his genuinely relaxed West Indies complexion. My friends and I made a point of saving up money everyday in tips for Dan, and in the last week he sat down and told us he was in the process of sending all the money he had collected from us back to the rest of his family in Jamaica. He regretted not being able to go to school and finish his education, and he had said he was homeless and living on the streets for two years before he was able to get this job. He told us, "You four are extremely lucky and should thank God that you get education. Keep learning and comeback and teach me."
I have never forgotten those words and have been grateful ever since, but it got me thinking into creating a scene on his back story when he was living on the streets. It's a story that is unfortunately common among youth and is idolized in modern hip-hop and rap culture. Druggies (though I doubted this was Dan's story) at home are sent on the street by their parents (kicked off the street after too many offenses and jail), from there it just keeps going downhill, making their drug problem worse. A few days later I was nodding my head and tapping my feet to the beat of some extremely talented drummers. It hit me and the blank table transformed itself into a scene. A kid gets kicked out of home and school for a drug problem, on the streets goes through an experience that transforms him and ends up a reformed drummer about to get a job (like Dan). The climax though would be when his siblings and parents are ready to accept him home.
Here was the problem. I loved the story, it was original, intriguing, and awesome, but I had no connection to the characters. I tried to feel what the characters were feeling, really tried. I took the feeling of dejection and regret, but could not find anything as momentous as what had happened there. I looked back and realized a flaw with my thinking. My story was dead, emotionless and begging to be killed. What could I relate to? I hit the scratchpad again.
This time the idea hit me spontaneously while watching Project X for the second time. It was playing on T.V. I sat once again to finish trying to save my dying story. But I had to tell myself it had died and needed to rekindle a new life. My ten year old sister bounded into my room while I was working on my new story. Refer to my previous blog post in which I stated that the best things in life are often unexpected. I began writing a story about a house party held by a boy named, Jimmy (based off of me) during a weekend that his parents weren't home. He had a younger sister, Lauren. She woke up within the party scenario, and her reactions from that. this was a thought experiment for myself. How would an eight year old react to the scenes that she saw at a teenage party?
This story was fun to write unlike my dull seeming story about a drummer boy. Though it had taken five hours to come up with, write and revise, it was all worth it. I was proud of this story.
I wish that it didn't take so long for me to create these ideas for my story, but each person's brain works at their own pace. I found that I could not be content, or happy with a story that I could not relate to. As my English teacher stated at the beginning of the year, "Learning is all about making connections."
I was connecting to my characters and learning from them as I progressed with my story, and I learned the true extent of my ability. My brain was better at forming scenes as compared to dialogue I learned, and I needed to improve on it. My descriptions were superb and I just needed to work on forming my idea better by organizing it and cleaning up unnecessary detail.
Learn through yourself through emotion, connect to what you can, and your mind will be more intrigued.
The story was based upon a man I had met, interesting, kind, and regretful. I came upon him in a cafeteria at a summer camp at Northwestern in 2011. He was called "Dan the Juice Man", the reason for this was based upon the fact that he was up from 6 am to 10 pm with only a two hour break, creating fresh juice and serving it with his genuinely relaxed West Indies complexion. My friends and I made a point of saving up money everyday in tips for Dan, and in the last week he sat down and told us he was in the process of sending all the money he had collected from us back to the rest of his family in Jamaica. He regretted not being able to go to school and finish his education, and he had said he was homeless and living on the streets for two years before he was able to get this job. He told us, "You four are extremely lucky and should thank God that you get education. Keep learning and comeback and teach me."
I have never forgotten those words and have been grateful ever since, but it got me thinking into creating a scene on his back story when he was living on the streets. It's a story that is unfortunately common among youth and is idolized in modern hip-hop and rap culture. Druggies (though I doubted this was Dan's story) at home are sent on the street by their parents (kicked off the street after too many offenses and jail), from there it just keeps going downhill, making their drug problem worse. A few days later I was nodding my head and tapping my feet to the beat of some extremely talented drummers. It hit me and the blank table transformed itself into a scene. A kid gets kicked out of home and school for a drug problem, on the streets goes through an experience that transforms him and ends up a reformed drummer about to get a job (like Dan). The climax though would be when his siblings and parents are ready to accept him home.
Here was the problem. I loved the story, it was original, intriguing, and awesome, but I had no connection to the characters. I tried to feel what the characters were feeling, really tried. I took the feeling of dejection and regret, but could not find anything as momentous as what had happened there. I looked back and realized a flaw with my thinking. My story was dead, emotionless and begging to be killed. What could I relate to? I hit the scratchpad again.
This time the idea hit me spontaneously while watching Project X for the second time. It was playing on T.V. I sat once again to finish trying to save my dying story. But I had to tell myself it had died and needed to rekindle a new life. My ten year old sister bounded into my room while I was working on my new story. Refer to my previous blog post in which I stated that the best things in life are often unexpected. I began writing a story about a house party held by a boy named, Jimmy (based off of me) during a weekend that his parents weren't home. He had a younger sister, Lauren. She woke up within the party scenario, and her reactions from that. this was a thought experiment for myself. How would an eight year old react to the scenes that she saw at a teenage party?
This story was fun to write unlike my dull seeming story about a drummer boy. Though it had taken five hours to come up with, write and revise, it was all worth it. I was proud of this story.
I wish that it didn't take so long for me to create these ideas for my story, but each person's brain works at their own pace. I found that I could not be content, or happy with a story that I could not relate to. As my English teacher stated at the beginning of the year, "Learning is all about making connections."
I was connecting to my characters and learning from them as I progressed with my story, and I learned the true extent of my ability. My brain was better at forming scenes as compared to dialogue I learned, and I needed to improve on it. My descriptions were superb and I just needed to work on forming my idea better by organizing it and cleaning up unnecessary detail.
Learn through yourself through emotion, connect to what you can, and your mind will be more intrigued.
