Week 5 - structure of story shaping
For week five, I have learnt the basic idea of story shaping and two models of structure for narrative which is the 3 Stage Model/ Paradigm and The Mythic Circle. Compares to the Mythic Circle, that involves twelve stages of a hero’s journey, the “3 Acts” seems more succinct and clearer to me, and I am going to use the “3 Acts” structure to create the story of this week.
Here are three bullet points that represent “The Beginning”, “Middle” and “End”.
- In a few decades, all humans are cyborgs, lost their expression, voice and intonation
- Each person plants a flower on the head as an antenna
- People judge the emotion of others by the state of their flowers
After Kate’s comment, there are still few questions need to clarify and solve:
- Do those cyborgs plant flowers voluntarily? Do they have the awareness to do so?
- If cyborgs still have feelings and consciousness, why they need to use flower to communicate?
Combine above questions and the structure of the “3 Acts”, I have rewritten the story and added few settings at the beginning to make sure that set up has drive character, their dramatic needs, and motivations.
The Beginning: In a few decades, all humans are turning into cyborgs, they are either unable to manipulate expressions on their own or their entire faces are covered with mechanical masks. At the same, their vocal cords have also been replaced by electronic devices, so that everyone's voice sounds exactly the same, with no variations in tone. However, they are cybernetic organism, they still have emotions and desires to express themselves.
The Middle is about dramatic context of confrontation, therefore, I detailed more on “How people solve this problem – cannot express emotion” this part.
People have tried many ways to help themselves express their emotions, but in the end they all end up failing. Finally, people decide to plant a flower on their head and express their positive or negative emotions by the flower blooming and wilting. Although the flowers are organic beings and seem out of place with cyborgs, they are still researching various ways in which the flowers can survive on their heads. This is not just an experiment; the choice of flowers is also a rebellion against the cold machine. Organic flowers represent not only the vividness of life but also the warmth and affection that humans possess.
The End is where telling audiences the resolution of the story.
Finally, cyborgs succeed in planting flowers on their heads and can have the flowers follow them for as long as they live. Each person is able to judge the mood of another person by the state of the flower on their head. At the same time, some actions are also given to emotions. For example, if the flower is in full bloom, it may represent a pleasant experience and the prospect of seeing the person again, or if it is wilted, it may be an expression of sadness at parting.
Similar work is “Big Hero 6”(2014), which is an animated superhero film produced by Walt Disney. One of the main characters inside is called Baymax, who is a medical robots invent by Tadashi. Although it is a robot, Baymax is gradually learning human expression and eventually helping to deliver justice together for the benefit of society.
After this week's class, I have a better understanding of the structure shaping of the story and able to use the modules to shape a richer and more dramatic story.
