Stories By Creators by roptcreate

Stories By Creators PARTICIPANT HANDBOOK

PETALZ.ORG

Stories By Creators Programme Written by Richard Ong for Petalz.org

Participants Handbook

Copyright © 2018 by Petalz International PLT Written by Richard Ong @ ROPT for Petalz.org Published by Petalz International PLT All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as expressly permitted by law, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher. Request for permission should be addressed to the Publisher. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any damages arising herefrom. Printed in Malaysia Version 1.1, Updated on 8 May 2018

About The Programme I begin with an idea, and then it becomes something else. Pablo Picasso

We are glad that you have decided to carve, narrate and share your very own story. This programme was codeveloped by a group of creative director, actor and writer. They were very clear that this was not going to be a programme to teach you how to write better. Instead, this is going to be a highly creative and experiential programme that we will be using to explore your story. You will soon experience the enjoyable process of creative story writing and artistic illustrations, both skills which you already have in you to tell your story. 3

Programme Structure This programme is divided into 4 stages and each stage is 3 hours long. It is designed to help you develop your story, illustrations and audio narration for your book. Stage 1: Concept Stage 2: Visual Stage 3: Narrate Stage 4: Read

Stage 1: Concept The writer is by nature a dreamer. A conscious dreamer. Carson McCullers

You will now have the opportunity to think both creatively and critically about your story. Think of a positive message or value that you would like to share with it. This is important because stories can create a positive impact in the lives of those who reads them. This week’s objective is to work together as a team. Start off by sharing something interesting about yourself. This is also an opportunity for you to learn more about your team members. Here are some questions that we will be 5

asking. Everyone will only be given 5 minutes to share and please have your phones silent. 1. Why do you expect from this programme? 2. What is one event that impacted you deeply? 3. Who is that special someone in your life?

Build Your Conceptual Canvas Message / Values

Start

Middle

End

Characters

Emotions

Environment

Start thinking about your story by filling up the first section on the upper left – Message / Values. It is going to be that one thing that will be driving your entire story. Next is to go on filling up the Characters and their Emotions. Ask yourself who are the characters that will 7

be delivering your message and how are they emotionally reacting to it. If you are delivering a corporate message, then you might want to think about the emotions that you want your listeners or readers to feel, effectively allowing them to better engage themselves with your company or products. The environment section is the time and place of where you story takes place. We use this to transport your listeners away from their own reality. This is where you open up their minds to take them on a journey throughout your story. By laying out these four elements for your story, you should have a rough idea on how to fill up the next 3 sections – the Start, Middle and End. Think of how to start the story, what happened in the middle and finally, how did it end. Use sticky notes to paste up your ideas, so you will get a conceptual idea of how everything will come together and don’t worry, your facilitator will be there to guide you. 8

Build Your Chapter Canvas Title: Dedication: Opening

Build-up

Climax

Resolution

Ending

Hook

Punch

Use the chapter canvas as a guide to writing a 5 part story. It will guide you to break your big ideas down to 5 main sections for the book. The sections are in the following order - Opening, Build Up, Climax, Resolution, Ending.

Referring to the Concept Canvas. The Opening is the Start, the Climax is the Middle and the End is the Ending. The last row below is for your chapter hooks, which is what we use to get people to the next chapter in your story. The punch is to re-visit your message in the story, which is what you want your listeners to take away with them after they are done. It is important to remember that we are not writing a novel here. The objective is to develop the story and not to focus on making it too lengthy. So I have a challenge for you. Try and limit the number of words for each chapter, let’s say no more than 500 words. This will help you to refine the story and reduce the unnecessary fats that will make your story too bloated and draggy.

Participant Notes For Stage 1: Concept

Stage 2: Visual Create with the heart; build with the mind. Criss Jami

By this time, you should have your draft story written down on paper. Sit with your facilitator and share your final story with them. Through reading, you are not only experiencing the power of sharing, you are also understanding the dynamics of your story. This week’s objective is for you to develop your visual story-telling. Start off the class by revisiting your pastweek activities before you go on to create your visual storyboard. Remember, we are not playing with words this time, it is really a visual experience of your story. 12

Storyboarding

Draw a series of pictures on sticky notes for the 5 main sections in the Chapter Canvas and rearrange the pictures together with your facilitator. We will then invite another participant to try and narrate your story through the pictures you just dreq. If there is a 13

gap in the story, correct it with another drawing to bring more clarity to your story. You facilitator will be giving you some strange round stickers to indicate which ones you will be using for the book. You will eventually use those selected pictures as reference for your visual illustrations.

Sketching The Visuals

First imagine the picture that you want to sketch. Refer to your own storyboard and refer to the pictures that you have already chosen for the book. Start off by outlining the picture on paper with a pencil. The above is an example of an outline. Next, you are going to start shading parts of your picture. These are areas of the subject that is darker than the other. 15

Your facilitator can teach you how to use hashing to create shades, shadows or depth in their sketch. Hashing are the repetitive parallel lines that you can see on the flower below. Once done, outline the entire picture with a black pen to complete the activity. Now it is time to lay down some colour for your sketch work. For this explanation, watercolours are used as an example, but you can proceed to use other colouring techniques of your own, like colour pencils, or just leave it as a plain sketch.

Colouring The Background As we are using watercolours, start off by wetting the paper with clean water. Prepare two colours of your choice and lay them down on the wet paper. The wet colour paint that you have prepared should blend together on paper because of the wet surface. Try and blend the two colours on the surface of the wet paper. At this point you are using a technique called ‘wash’.

Colouring The Objects Now it is time to start painting the objects in the painting. Let's start off with the flower. Start filling the petals with red paint and don't worry about shading. We will get to that part later. After you have laid down the colours, wait for it to dry. When you paint over wet paint, the results can be disastrous.

After the paint dries, we can focus on shading it by layering the same red paint only on the hashes you drew 18

earlier. If you are not sure what hashes are, you can refer to Week 4: Sketch. Do the rest for the other parts of the painting and you should be on your way towards completing your masterpiece. Completeness Checklist 1. The complete story containing 5 chapters 2. Main title for the story 3. Chapter title for the story 4. Artworks assigned for each chapter

5. A personal dedication message for the story

Participant Notes For Stage 2: Visual

Stage 3: Narration A passenger on a road journey is in the hands of a driver; a reader embarking on a book is in the hands of a narrator. Romesh Gunesekera

You are now at the third stage of the programme where you would already have the finished story and the complementing illustrations for it. Good job! You are going to shift gear into sound recording where you will be given the opportunity to narrate your own story. You can use your handphone or computer mic to record your audio narration.

The trick here is to feel comfortable in front of the microphone. Smile when you are reading something happy, or look sad when something sad is happening in the story. The emotions will reflect in the voice. Most importantly, try to read out full sentences during recording. If a mistake is made, go back to the beginning of the sentence to record it again. This will help save time during editing. The World Of Digital Marketing Yes, we will need you to start promoting your story online, so welcome to the world of digital marketing. You will be exploring the following techniques to start promoting your story. 1. Facebook Live 2. Book Page 3. Blog Posting 4. Podcasting

Participant Notes For Stage 3: Narration

Stage 4: Read Reading gives people an opportunity to share their stories. Pam Allyn

This is the last week of the programme. By now, you should be excited about what you have created and you will be sharing it with the people close to you. It is going to be a little uncomfortable, this I can assure you but you will get used to it. Invite a friend for this reading. The trick here is not to read the whole book to your listeners. There is no time for that. Instead, I would like to have you prepare your reading in 3 simple steps.

Mindmap Your Story Create a mindmap of your story with the story title placed right in the middle, and link relevant words to it so you can explain your story better. These are the words that your listeners will be referring to as you do your reading, and it will indirectly help them understand what your story is all about. Summarize Your Story Relax, shoulders down and take a deep breath. This is not a talent show. It is your time to share your story with your heart and use it to connect with your audience. Remember the words in your mindmap and start off your reading by explaining what your book is about. Simple. End It With A Punch-line To end your reading, use a sentence in your story that summarizes your message. It could be the dedication page or a sentence in your story that you are emotionally attached to. That is all to it. Apply these steps and you will do well. 25

Participant Notes For Stage 4: Read