Animated Narratives, Week #2

In this post, there is a mindmap, a reflective text about the mindmap, and a story text.

Reflection

This mindmap explores ideas of my wiki ‘A black mouse found a shining coin lying in a small dusty treasure box.’

I consider the mindmap a handy tool for creating stories for animation as its radiated graphics form is similar to our radiation thinking mode. By drawing the mindmap, many ideas extend based on simple words, and I can see a clear storyline when I connect them. Lots of possibilities of plots emerge.

Mindmaps are widely used in different scenarios. For example, in the book Creativity and Problem Solving written by Linda Aronson, the mindmap starts with the poverty theme.

By framing the mindmap, I can express scenarios in simple sentences as long as I include WHO, WHAT and HOW.

-WHO is the (character/agent/player)

A black mouse

-WHAT they want (goal/desire/intention)

Make his wishes come true(more and more desires come up)

-WHAT’S in the way (obstacle/challenge)

At first, wishes come true quickly. But as time goes, he needs to sacrifice something to make wishes come true.

-HOW is the goal achieved/not achieved(action/events)

Make a pious wish/ Exchange the thing that he wants with something that he has. (Increasing cost)

-HOW might the concept resolve (conclusion/goal met/not met)

The mouse loses everything and gets back to his original life.  

Story

It will start with a scene in which the main character, an ugly, sickly-thin black mouse, is driven away by humans from a three-level house. But the mouse has nowhere to go, and he waits in the rubbish bin in front of the house for a chance to get into the house again. Mid-night, when the house owners all sleep with thunder-like snores, he secretly climbs up to the attic along the water pipe on the wall. He wants a safe place to rest, so he immediately notices a very suitable box for him to sleep in. It is a dusty box with mysterious symbols embedded on the surface. He doesn’t know why it looks so attractive but cannot help himself to open it. Then he sees a shinning coin lying in the box. This coin is so magical that the mouse seems to have auditory hallucinations. He hears it is saying, ‘ I can make your dreams come true. Just Eat Me!’. The mouse cannot control himself and swallow the coin, and then he feels a strong power in his stomach. Soon, he finds himself floating in the air with two wings flipping at his back. He is shocked, but he shortly realizes what the coin says is true. He becomes a supermouse now! The mouse cannot wait to make wishes. He wants all kinds of delicious food that will never be eaten up, since he has been starving for such a long time. He wants to be a handsome mouse so humans may treat him as a lovely pet. He wants a big house and a beautiful girlfriend because he has nowhere to live and has been single since birth. In the beginning, he makes some wishes carefully and gratefully. Those wishes all come true quickly at once. However, as time goes, the mouse’s desires increase like a bottomless pit. And he notices that once he makes another wish, something he has already owned will disappear. When he makes a wish to be rich, he loses friends. When he becomes famous, he loses privacy. Even the cost of making wishes gets bigger and unaffordable. Finally, the mouse loses everything and get back to his original life: no house, no girlfriend, hungry and obnoxious. He feels angry and disappoint and thinks that this experience is just like a ridiculous dream.