To my great delight, I'm finally getting the grades I want in Critical Practice. I have to admit I found the formula Derrek gave us at the beginning of the course quite challenging. But now that we've progressed to a basic story formula, I seem to have found my feet. I think I got too bogged down in research that I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I am more of a fiction-head, so I am beginning to thrive on the new story formatting.
It's amazing how everything seems to revolve around conflict and resolve. And three is the magic number. Three scenes, three acts, three conflicts. Four is too many, one or two aren't quite enough. It's the same in film, Blake Snyder (Hollywood Script Writer) also says that all films follow a three act rule and every scene includes a micro conflict and a micro resolve.
So I'm finally on a B+ and I'm ready to make the next grade. Here is my assignment from last week. Make up your own mind as to if it follows the conventions of a classic narrative. I think it's engaging, entertaining and has a degree of dramatic irony to boot. See what you think:
Death By Banana
ONCE UPON A TIME: in Bognor Regis.
There lived a: young girl called Maeve.
WHO: Desperately wanted her older sister’s teddy bear. He wasn’t just any teddy bear; Alfie was a three ft. mountain bear, with silky black fur and beady black eyes. Maeve’s father had won the bear for her older sister Dora at the fun fair. Alfie was the same height as Maeve and when she hugged him, she got lost in his arms.
BUT: Dora thought she loved Alfie more than Maeve. Dora was cruel and callous, if she saw Maeve so much as looking at Alfie, she would administer a Chinese burn or a pinch as punishment. Once she said, “If I catch you hugging Alfie again, I will pull all your hair out. Daddy won Alfie for me. Which obviously means he loves me more than you.” This hurt Maeve’s feelings, but she made sure to avoid Dora’s evil gaze.
So it happened: One day, Dora did a really terrible thing. It was something so terrible she couldn’t tell her mum or dad. So she had to find a way to pin the blame on Maeve. Dora said, “Maeve, I’ve decided you can have Alfie.” Maeve’s eyes widened, and she did an epileptic dance around the bedroom. Dora looked on, disapprovingly and said, “Hey – don’t get too excited, you can’t have him for nothing. Come here and listen to me. I need you to admit to doing something bad.”
Maeve moved closer to her sister and said, “But I can’t lie, especially if I don’t know what it is!” Dora replied, “Look, you want Alfie, don’t you? If you want him bad enough, you’ll do this. I promise it isn’t horrid.” Maeve furrowed her brow in distrust, and said, “OK, but you have to give Alfie to me right now.” Dora snatched Alfie and shouted, “No. No. No. You must go and speak to mum first.”
BUT meanwhile: Unbeknownst to the girls, their mother Alice had discovered the reason for Dora’s wicked plot. Goldy the goldfish was dead, floating gormlessly at the top of the tank. Next to the fish tank she noticed a displaced banana skin. “That stupid girl, I saw her eating a banana earlier, looming around the tank – teasing that poor fish. Better go and give her a talking to,” Alice said to herself. She put down her cup and walked out of the kitchen.
SO unbeknownst to: Alice, Maeve was still weighing up the stakes. She finally decided that she was willing to take the blame for her sister’s carelessness, the temptation of owning Alfie proved too strong to resist.
UNTIL the time came: Dora was ready to confess her secret. “I accidentally killed Goldy. It happened earlier, when mum was busy in the kitchen. I was eating a banana, and Goldy looked so hungry. So I dropped a piece of banana into the tank for him to eat. He looked like he was enjoying it, so I went off to play. But when I checked him a bit later, he was floating at the top of the water. I killed him Maeve, but you’ve got to say it was you,” whispered Dora.
Maeve’s mouth widened and she wished she could take her promise back. She gulped and said, “Dora, that’s terrible. But I’ll still do it for Alfie.” The girls shook hands; a wry smile crept across Dora’s mouth.
WHEN suddenly: Their mum stormed in, catching the girls mid handshake. She said, “What are you doing girls? Don’t tell me you’re swearing to keep what happened to Goldy a secret? Well – there’s no point, I already know it was Dora. I saw you eating that banana earlier.”
SO it turned out: Dora confessed her misdemeanour to Alice, and begrudgingly said sorry to Maeve.
AND forever after: The situation was resolved; Alice bought a new fish called Ruby, and they were only allowed to feed it fish food. She said, “Alfie is the root of all this trouble between you two, so you must share him, or else I’ll give him to someone who really deserves him.”
Funny eh?
And don't tell anyone, but... I was that naughty older sister! However, the fight over the teddy bear was another matter, a more serious matter that happened a few years later.
My sister and I were both bridesmaids at a wedding for some friends of my parents. As a present for being such adorable little angels, we received a teddy bear each, kitted out in the same dresses to match our own from the wedding. We were stoked. We treasured those teddy bears and when one got lost, things turned nasty. Really nasty.
I can vividly remember running about in a rough and tumble way, desperately trying to claim the remaining teddy. Now, my sister is two years younger than me, but she was a mean little kid, she really gave as good as she got. One minute I'd have the teddy and then run as fast as I could into the garden, Lilli hot on my tail. Then there was hair pulling and kicking and screaming. You may ask: 'but where were your parents whilst this battle was commencing?' Well, they knew we were fighting but chose not to get involved, they wanted us to solve our own differences. Obviously, they thought it was too petty a subject to get irate about.
But we had to stop at some point, and I think it could have turned into an epic year-long battle if it was left up to our stubbornness to dictate. But when my parents saw us flagging, I think they confiscated the object of our affection. We probably cried for an hour and then cut our loses. We had lots of fights when we were young, but I'm glad to say it doesn't happen so often now, well, not the hair pulling kinds of frays anyway.
