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clansayeed · 4 years

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The Price ― a Bound by Destiny drabble

⥼ Summary ⥽

Nadya's visions of the past are starting to take their toll, but Adrian is always there to help her recover. A century ago Gaius makes sure Adrian stays loyal to him through manipulative means.

note: This piece takes place in the year between Bound by Destiny I & II, and sheds a little more light on how Nadya coped with her visions before she knew the truth; as well as offering a glimpse into the Trinity’s movements during the 1910s.

The flashback that takes up the second half of this piece references a real historical event, but all implications, names, and the like are purely fictitious in nature and should not be taken as fact.

word count: 2,518 rating: teen+ content warnings: references to past emotional manipulation/abuse, death, grief, mention of physical violence (brief), historical references find out more: HERE

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

[READ IT ON AO3]

“Nadya?”

Her eyes are watering; sting with the burn of being held open. When she blinks it off the barest beginnings of tears cling to her lashes.

A dark blue handkerchief is held out in offering before she can even reach for her desk drawer.

“Here, just use this,” comes Adrian’s voice above her — that bare hint of concern he always seems to carry. The hallmark trait of the kindest of hearts.

“I don’t want to get mascara on it.”

“Nadya.”

“Okay, okay — fine.”

She half expects that to be that. Instead feels Adrian’s eyes on her while she takes delicate care and attention not to mess up her wingtip because it had taken a full hour that afternoon and sometimes a girl just has to be proud of a steady hand.

Only when she’s sure her hard work is spared does she look at her boss properly. Gives him a sheepish, ashamed smile because there’s no way he’s getting the dark smears out of silk. “I’ll buy you a new one?”

Because she’d go crazy if she doesn’t offer, and Adrian will humor her with a chuckle and a nod because he’s kind like that. But they both know he has half a dozen back at his loft and it doesn’t really matter. Even with all of his years of wealth he’s remained an admirable type of level-headed and frugal.

But he surprises her in pushing their usual witty banter aside, doesn’t just take the pocket square back but instead covers her hand with his. Only in his steady hold does she realize she’s shaking.

Where did that come from?

“Are you okay?” That tone should only be reserved for dire situations — like being chased through a secret museum by a crazed politician or when she caught on the news that the Grumpy Cat had passed away. Not for this.

She nods, lets him take the crumpled fabric and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. A careful tactic many young girls learn early to hide their expressions for just long enough to steel them into cooperating.

“Of course I am —”

But of course he doesn’t let her finish. “You were crying.”

“No I wasn’t.”

“So what would you call that?”

“Seeing how long I can go without blinking.”

Okay she totally gets it if that does the exact opposite of putting him off the investigation because it’s a crappy excuse. One even she doesn’t believe. And it’s just crappy enough to convey the message I don’t want to talk about it.

He’s both silent and loud all at once. Says everything he needs to say in the slight furrow in his brow; the way the left side of his mouth is just a little pulled back.

You know you can tell me anything. You know I’m here for you. Adrian doesn’t say it because he doesn’t have to — because he knows she gets it. Risking your life sneaking into a vampire dungeon and taking on a pair of very weird recluse vamps does pretty well in establishing that you’d do anything for someone.

I know. Instead she smiles, pushes her chair back a little so she isn’t getting neck cramps looking at him. “How was the meeting?”

Its slow going to get him actually talking. He knows its a distraction tactic, doesn’t want to take away from the fact he walked in on her pretty much fully zonked out with tears in her eyes. Lucky for her the meeting went, quote, “better and more productive than thought possible,” and once they get out of the office tonight he can head down to the Shadow Den with only good news to give Jax. Lucky because it means she can keep up said tactic with question after question until he definitely can’t waste any more time, needs to make a few calls to this company and that contributor, and if she’s sure she’s okay and doesn’t need to take the rest of the night off then he’s going to go get that done.

Though he stops mid-stride into his office and that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. So close to getting away with it.

“Did you happen to mention to Lily about my idea for the memorial?”

The only reason she doesn’t exhale in audible relief is because it would put her right back at square one. “Yeah — and she agrees. She’s just waiting until after Halloween to bring it up to Mari in case Mari doesn’t agree.”

“Why would Halloween have anything to do with it?” Adrian asks, puzzled.

“Because it’s Halloween.”

“And?”

“‘And’ you’ve met Lily, right? Lily Spencer, my roommate? The girl who loves horror things more than life itself? Who definitely has something weird and probably kinky planned with hers and Mari’s couple costumes that I specifically begged her not to give me the details of?”

Yeah, her face at the time looked a little like Adrian’s does now. Neither of them prudish by any means but there are some things better left to the people involved and not their entire friend group.

“Of course. You’ll let me know though when she —”

“Relax,” she gives him an easy smile with a hidden meaning — he can relax about her too, “you’re overthinking it. Jax made you promise to make life better for the Clanless and you’re sticking to it because you believe in the cause. Even if they talk and decide they don’t want a plaque of names on the plaza fountain, that doesn’t devalue what you’re doing to help.”

Sometimes he just has to be reminded that what he’s doing is enough. More than, in Nadya’s opinion, but Adrian’s just… just a good person. And good people never think they’re doing enough.

And if what scraps Kamilah has given her over the months are any indication, Adrian isn’t entirely to blame for his self-sacrificing nature.

But their Maker is already taken care of. All she can do now is be there, be supportive, and help them heal the wounds Gaius gave them.

Now he’s the one looking a bit ashamed. “Thank you.” He means it more than mere language can provide. She knows that.

Leaves her alone with her work and her thoughts as he makes sure his office door is closed behind him like he always does when he’s going to be making calls. It’s probably the most normal profession-related thing they do together; give each other space when there’s real work that needs doing.

And her thoughts have been itching in wait for the chance to overwhelm her when they can. They try to needlessly, relentlessly. Teasing like a schoolyard bully — offering the things she can’t quite recall in a treasure chest at her feet before sending it slamming shut and to the depths of her mind before she can even catch a glimpse.

Thats the hardest part about these stupid visions of hers. They consume her mind and even sometimes her body — as evidenced by the zombie-Nadya that met Adrian following his return. They make her feel things she’s never felt and experience sensations, actions she’s never acted upon and for good reason.

No one should have to know what it feels like to slaughter hundreds, thousands of people — to keep the blood on their hands and not only that but savor it like a trophy — not when the very thought of hurting anyone at all sends their stomach into knots.

But thanks to them she has a body count and is still too meek to tell the midnight door guard that her name isn’t ‘Nadine.’

On a whole she forgot the details after the vision passed. At first.

But they want to be seen. They want to be remembered.

So Nadya does what she always does. Listens intently until she can hear Adrian dutifully on the phone in his office, makes sure the coast is clear before she digs into the hidden pocket in her purse — pulls out her dark secret and grabs for a pen.

She jots down all she can remember — which isn’t much this time, thank Christ — on the back of the entry she’d scribbled that morning before Kamilah could wake up and discover her shame. Pens in the date at the top corner and tucks the journal away without letting herself linger on just how full that terrible little book is getting.

At this rate she’ll need to start a new one before Christmas.

New York City, 1911

He doesn’t miss the look Kamilah gives him out of the corner of her eye. Nose crinkled and lashes heavy — repulsed with the thing between his lips and yet, almost as if against her will, made to recall other better things he had done with that same mouth.

His darling Queen abhors cigarettes, has told him as much in complaints of kisses that quickly turn into moans of desire, of satisfaction. Something about the smoke and memories of a history called ancient now — it was so long ago. Scrolls turned to ash and scattered to the winds; knowledge and lives lost together. But history cared about one of those things more than the other. Kamilah, too.

And so he stares back; tempts her to say something about it. If she really has such a problem with smoke then she’s in the wrong place.

Instead she turns her focus on the blackness still billowing up towards the night sky all these hours later.

“Is this…?”

“Yes.”

She snaps a sharp look his way. “And does Adrian know?”

Behind them a fire engine carriage goes ballistic with noise; the horses trapped in their harnesses despite their rearing, their whinnies high-pitched and filled with a familiar terror. Yet if one were to glance at the commotion they wouldn’t find the source of their startled fear. There are no snakes on the paved roads beneath their hooves. No whips lashing at them from the hands of overworked masters.

Gaius and Kamilah don’t have to look to know where their predator is.

He sucks on the filter of his cigarette heavy. “He does now.”

“Poor taste, my love.”

“A necessary evil.”

“Committed by an evil equally so?”

Gaius doesn’t have to breathe for her to know she’s spoken out of turn. She sees it in the shift of his stance. The way he decides he’s done with her attention for the moment and trains his eyes forward instead.

Families, friends, passersby are still mourning loudly at the fire and the lives it took.

His beloved Soldier now among them — jaw slack at the loss of human life. All these years and Gaius has yet to really beat that sentiment for the human condition out from under his skin. The wail his fellow vampires can hear even from their distance that grows with each second it takes to realize just which building caught on fire earlier that day, which floors were consumed in the blaze, and who was among them.

Adrian crumples to his knees in grief. Its a sight his Maker takes no pleasure in despite any — even his Queen — who might accuse otherwise. She knows better though — chooses not to start an argument already lost and rushes forward to console her brother in blood at his loss.

“It’s okay Adrian,” her lies carry on the wind with the rest of the remains of the factory blaze, “I’m so sorry for your loss, but we will endure. We always have.”

It pains Gaius to hear the crack in his Soldier’s voice when he musters the ability to speak; “She — Kamilah—I— she can’t be —”

But she was. She had been a distraction; an influence Gaius hadn’t approved of yet a reason for Adrian to commit heresy for still. The proof was right before his eyes — all that weakness bubbling just under the surface of Adrian’s skin now burst forth.

One day Adrian would understand he had done this for the best. For the greater good of their Kingdom.

Gaius tosses the remains of the cigarette aside — goes to grind it to a powder under his foot but another beats him to it. The boot is brown yet black with soot.

“You really ought to change, lest you be discovered and accused.”

“Accused of what?” lilts the vampire behind him, “a bad spark and scrap bin started the fire, or haven’t you been listening in on the police’s conclusions?”

Gaius looks passed the tall young man to where indeed a group of officials are gathered. They must think they’re speaking in hushed tones. Fools.

“A novel idea. Now they won’t be searching mindlessly for a suspect.”

“I wouldn’t care much if they did. We depart tonight for England.”

But he wouldn’t be making idle conversation if there was nothing important to say. Makes Gaius drag his eyes upwards to see himself reflected in spectacles diligently cleaned of evidence from their time sparking the very flames the Vampire King of New York needed to ensure Adrian’s loyalty stayed where it belonged. With him.

“Speak, if you have words.”

The vampire inhales deep. “I did as you asked. Now tell me what I need to hear.”

Because he can, because its fun, he feigns ignorance. “And what would that be, dear Cynbel?” And he quickly learns the Trinity’s temper is true to rumor.

“Tell me Valdas has your permission to leave this fucking cesspool!”

“Why would I wish for my oldest Child to leave my side — especially when my plans are nearly ready to be enacted?”

“Because I did as you asked for that sole purpose!”

It’s a struggle Gaius has never known; the desire to act but the bone-deep acceptance of a singular truth. That he can’t. He can’t attack Gaius; the progenitor of his beloved so-called deity. Not only in strength but in sheer force of will. There was a time, once… long ago when he knew he would never achieve the level of power, of love, that consumed him at the sight of the One who set him free…

But that was history that made ancient look newly born.

“I am a man of my word, even if Valdemaras is not,” he waves flippantly — bored now with those fools and their notions of eternal love, “he has my permission to leave.”

Cynbel visibly deflates. “Thank you, Godmaker.”

“Though I will expect more than a favor should you three wish to join my Kingdom when it comes time. I remember those who stay loyal.”

The younger vampire surprises him when he casts a look back to his charred masterpiece; to where Kamilah has taken knee beside Adrian in an attempt to shoulder some of his burden.

“I’ve seen the price that loyalty to you demands. A high price indeed.”

He’s smart — flees before his insolence earns him Gaius’ wrath. It doesn’t matter to him either way.

To have his Queen, his Soldier standing at his side and basking in the glory of his Kingdom? There is nothing he would not do.

Everything he does is for Her, still.

#bloodbound #bloodbound fanfiction #choices fanfiction #adrian raines #kamilah sayeed #gaius augustine #bloodbound mc #mc: nadya al jamil #oc: cynbel #oblv: bound by destiny #oblv: drabble #; my fics

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theguildedtypewriter · 6 years

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What Did You Say? A guide to writing good dialogue

(Remember all pieces of advice are meant to help guide, that is all. They are not dogma.)

Ever read something and heard the dialogue in your head, and you just stopped. There was something off about it and for a solid minute there you couldn’t tell if the character was supposed to sound like that or if the author just didn’t have dialogue down. Chances are some mistakes were made.

Dialogue can be tricky. There’s no doubt about it.

You need to make it sound like the characters are having a real conversation but if you write it exactly like people talk it can get confusing and sound even worse.

“So how do I write good dialogue?!”

You can usually sense when your dialogue needs work. So here’s a set of some dialogue trick that might help you. When you think something is off with your dialogue use this to help you figure out what and make some changes.

All about that Flow-

It’s said all the time about your first draft, the important thing is to get the words on the page, you’ll refine later. This technique applies to your dialogue, and you’ll even come up with lines you never would have if you spent your time trying to be perfect.

You can even try writing the dialogue first. Get down what your characters are arguing about, planning, revealing, etc. Do it fast, pay no attention to who said what. Just get the words out.

This dialogue can give you a good idea what the scene is about and it might be different than what you thought. Then just go back to it and fill in.

This can be good for when you’re in a slump.

Talk it Out-

You can also practice dialogue or get yourself going by speaking the lines of two of your characters as they interact. An argument or conversation between your two character except you say all the lines as they come to you.

Overt the Obvious-

A very common mistake is creating a simple back-and-forth. Each line directly answers the previous line, often repeating a word or phrase from that previous line, echoing it. Ex:

“Hello, Tina.” “Hi, Jane.” “I really like your blouse.” “Oh, my blouse! You mean this old thing?” “Old thing! You’ve never worn it before.”

No surprises and very little interest. Some direct response is alright, but your dialogue will be better if you overt the obvious:

“Hello, Tina.” “Jane. I didn’t see you come in.” “Nice shirt.” “Did you finish your half of the project?”

Okay, I don’t know why they’re pissed at each other but this exchange is way more interesting and suggestive of what’s going on behind the scenes than the first.

(How could I not use the Crow?)

Zip It-

Another powerful way to overt the obvious is silence. It can be the best choice for an exchange. Hemingway is good at this. By using a combination silence and action, he gets the point across through a short but compelling exchanges. Look at “Soldier’s Home”:

“God has some work for every one to do,” his mother said. “There can’t be no idle hands in His Kingdom.” “I’m not in His Kingdom,” Krebs said. “We are all of us in His Kingdom.” Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always. “I’ve worried about you so much, Harold,” his mother went on. “I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold.” Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on the plate.

You can express a lot by what a character doesn’t say.

Confrontation is your Friend-

We all want to avoid the info dump. Telling out readers everything that happened in the backstory in one chunk that slows down the story. You can avoid this by using dialogue. When you create a tension-filled scene, typically between two characters, you can get them arguing and then have the information come out in the natural progression of the conversation.

The not so great way:

Regina Black was a cop running from a terrible past. She had been fired for bungling an operation while she was drunk.

Try it out in a scene:

“I know who you are,” Nancy said. “You know nothing,” said Regina. “You’re that ex-cop.” “I need to be—” “From the 54th . You got your partner killed because you were drunk off your ass. Yeah, I know you.”

This can give you dialogue weight and increase your pace.

You Don’t Need ALL the Words-

People don’t often speak the say way we write things. We leave words out, we use contraction, we shorten. A standard exchange might go down like this:

“Your mom was killed? “Yes, she was in a car accident.” “What was her name?” “Her name was Martha.”

Try something more like this:

“Your mom was killed?” “Car accident.” “What was her name?” “Martha.”

This is leaner and sounds more like real speech without sounding too weird or chopped up for a reader to understand.

Don’t Explain Everything-

I know we always want to make sure that our readers understand exactly what we’re getting at. But consider the following:

“That’s amazing news,” he said gleefully.

Look right to you?

Well, it’s not technically wrong so yeah. But this is a pretty commonly trap. You’re telling your reader your character’s feelings twice. The adverb ‘gleefully’ really isn’t needed here. Now, that’s not to say that adverbs have no place. For example:

“That’s amazing news,” he said mournfully.

Oh wait what? He’s not happy about that? Why? See in this context the adverb actually gives the reader important information quickly. Many people that they don’t like adverbs but I find them useful when not stuffed into your writing too much.

Here’s another example:

“I can’t believe it!” Marnie said.

Here, there’s no dialogue explanation, so it’s tightened up and the focus is on what is being said rather than how. Plus, readers can now imagine my OC’s surprise, which helps them get closer to my OC.

You really shouldn’t have to explain your dialogue.

Keep your dialogue transparent-

When your dialogue is powerful, the last thing you want to do is move the reader’s attention somewhere else. Explanations and ‘ly’ adverbs can break the flow because they jump out to the reader, making them focus, if only for a second, on the fact that they’re reading instead of being engrossed in the story.

Now, people may not like this, but said is NOT dead. When we see the word said, we tend to gloss over it like it were a comma or period. And that’s exactly what we want. We want the reader to pay no attention to the word but accept it’s purpose.

Study Conversations-

Coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. Fantastic places to do some people listening. This kind of people studying can really help to create dialogue that sounds so natural. I am personally a huge fan of Buffy for this because it genuinely sounded like teenagers/young adults and the pop culture references where amazing. People talk in cliches, gestures, and movie/TV quotes. So many quotes.

Also remember, conversation isn’t just words. It’s body language, tone, eye contact, facial expressions, etc. Consider this:

“You lied to me,” said John.

“I did it to protect you,” said Tate.

James moved toward John and reached for his hand. “We didn’t want you to get hurt—”

John pushed his hand away and backed away from them. “I trusted you.”

You can use actions to break up dialogue. This is a creative way to move the conversation along and show what the characters are feeling using their responses and gestures together.

Just keep in mind that if you intersperse action between every line of dialogue it loses it’s usefulness.

Don’t keep pointless prose-

As writers, we frequently stuff too many details into dialogue. You need balance realism and dialogue purpose. Dialogue is suppose to help move the story along, offer depth, and convey information. When dialogue doesn’t fulfill any of these purposes, it has to go. Look at this:

“I saw Todd in the park the other day,” said Steve.

“Oh yeah?” inquired Susan. “How is he?”

“He has a new job. He has a flexible schedule, so he has way more free time,” said Steve.

“Well, good for him,” said Susan. “Do know how he’ll use his free time?”

“No. I meant to ask him, but forgot,” said Steve.

This conversation is slow, boring, chunky, and serves no purpose. This didn’t really relay any new information and it didn’t move the story anywhere. Now, if the point was to show a stilted conversation between ex-lovers, friends, or a conversation about nothing because the characters can’t face the hard stuff, this would be great for that. But honestly, that’s a purpose right there. If you can find no purpose for the prose, take it out.

Read it aloud-

The last tip is to read your work aloud. I do this. Complete with facial expressions, gestures, and voices. It can be a really fast way of finding a problem. Pace, punctuation, flow. When you read out loud, issues with these things become crystal freaking clear.

Where did you stumble or pause unnaturally? Fix that. Any accidental rhymes or repeated words? Edit them.

Does the dialogue match the character? If your character is uneducated , make sure they sound that way. A professor? Make sure the OC sounds smart.

When you read a bad sentence you’re sure to flinch or stumble along the way. When you do, you know where there’s work to be done.

Applying your dialogue tips-

The tips above aren’t quick fixes. You’ll need to work on them throughout the course of your writing. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Consider them one at a time. Do whatever works for you. This is all just meant to help.

And remember,

NEVER STOP WRITING!

#writeblr #writing advice #writing tips #dialogue #writing dialogue #tips and tricks #writers #writing #this is meant to help #this is NOT law #said is not dead #adverbs have their place

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calleo-bricriu · 5 years

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Haven’t done one of these in awhile so...

full name: Calleo Bricriu. @braxfordthebeater knows his middle name and their agreement is that Calleo will never use Braxford's first name and Braxford will never use Calleo's middle name.

pronunciation: There are technically around three correct ways to pronounce it, so he's not exactly picky. That’s not even a joke, there are several ways to say it.

nicknames: @kerrotko 's Severus is allowed to call him Leo. @absintheabsence has probably 15 or so various pet names for him. @pocketsfullofspiders often just calls him babe. Goblins are contractually allowed to call him Hunðeow, which means lapdog.

height. 5'8"

age. Verse dependent, but most often in his 30s (Golden Trio era) or mid to late 40s (Fantastic Beasts verse).

zodiac. Leo. If you want his full birth chart, my dumb ass put that together and it's here.

languages. Fluently spoken: English Spoken well enough that he could probably get by without completely embarrassing himself, though it'd still be obvious it's on shaky ground: German & Danish. Written/Reading: Latin, Middle English, Old English, German, as those are most commonly what he sees at work.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair colour. Kinda orange. If you wanted to be nice, red. If you wanted to be annoying, ginger.

eye colour. Brown. Depending on the colour and amount of eye makeup worn that can appear anything from almost yellow to black but, on their own, without heavy makeup, they're a pretty run of the mill brown.

skin tone. Pretty pale in that way gingers tend to be. It doesn't help that he works in a department below ground with no windows, it's often dark when he gets in and dark when he leaves. He doesn't avoid daylight on purpose, it just works out that way.

body type. If you asked him, he could stand to drop a few pounds. Nobody with eyes would use words like 'lithe' or 'slim' to describe him. He just looks kind of soft.

accent. Two options:

Option 1: At work and/or if he wants to make sure you can understand what he's saying, he puts on a WWN broadcaster accent. So, the sort of generic accent people not in the UK think of when they think of a "British accent". Kinda boring.

Option 2: A hellscape that mixes the accent from the area he grew up in, which is far Northern, rural Scotland and a mix of vowels sounding a bit off as his mother is from Northern Denmark and has a fairly thick accent with a tiny sprinkling of Northern Scottish.

To start.

Once he moved closer to London, more bits and pieces of surrounding (and varied) accents started creeping in, and when he moved back to a rural Scottish town again (though this time, near the English border and about 30 minutes West of Newcastle) it got muddled even further.

At this point, if he speaks at his normal speed and you haven't know him for years, it probably sounds like he's either not speaking English or is just babbling nonsense. If he speeds it up and mumbles, good fucking luck figuring out what he’s saying. While that occasionally happens if he's excited about something, he most often drops the "broadcaster" accent and speech patterns for it if he wants someone to go away and stop talking to him.

He thinks in that accent as well as he found it to be a reasonably decent built in Occlumancy defence.

dominant hand. Either or for most things, with a slight preference given to the right.

posture. He either looks intensely interested in/friendly toward something he's interested in with posture and body language that conveys that very clearly or completely detached to the point that others sometimes wonder if he's listening at all for day to day work interactions.

The feigned disinterest is often used in business transactions with certain types of people who are likely to get offended and try even harder to get his attention because how dare someone not be interested in their magnificence?

He does tend to slouch or sit however he finds most comfortable, which may or may not be correctly or on a piece of furniture designed for sitting.

scars. He's got a good collection, usually from experimental magic backfiring, sometimes from duels, occasionally from fights. A few are intentional and inflicted by other people.

tattoos. Nope.

most noticeable features. He thinks it's his mess of hair. Other people tend to say it's more the bright clothing.

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth. Braemar, Scotland.

hometown. Also Braemar.

birth weight / height. He's never thought to ask but assumes it was within normal ranges.

manner of birth. Oh, you know, the usual way.

first words. "What's that?" mashed into one word.

siblings. Exactly zero.

parents. Thrasius & Beathas (Kjeldgaard) Bricriu

parental involvement. He was and still is very close to both of his parents and they are involved in his adult life as well. They both work at the Ministry and have a tendency to visit him at least once per day if he’s there.

ADULT LIFE

occupation. Senior Archivist in the Department of Mysteries’ Research Wing.

close friends. Verse/RP dependent for canon characters. In my main verse, in the canon basket of close friends there’s: @absintheabsence @aconxtum @kerrotko ‘s Severus, @severus-snape-of-spinners-end, @theotherdumbledore (when they’re around!), @ambiidexter (Sorry Remus :) ).

In terms of canon characters he’s on friendly (or at least not hostile) terms with, in my main verse: @lamentedhope , @thegreatestminister , @slytherin-bled (Bellatrix), @tmvoldemort , @0lliivanders, @leeriverofwordsjordan

For OC characters he’s on friendly terms with: @lyraxlestrange

For friends' OCs, those close friends span any verse, so @misfit-herbologist @pracownik-ministerstwa @braxfordthebeater @pocketsfullofspiders @legilimens-corvus-frugilegus (who also plays Gan) and @directoryandle are always around in some form or another.

relationship status. In several open relationships at any given time. In most, the only overlapping feature is Calleo, all of his partners are aware of the others and have no issues with it because good communication and established rules about how everything works is a thing, and a thing that everyone is willing to abide by.

financial status. His public finances show him pretty standard middle class.

driver’s license. Nope.

criminal record. Roughly 9 alleged Statute of Secrecy violations (all dismissed), one Excessive Use of Force (also dismissed, it's difficult to charges to stick to someone who works in the Department of Mysteries), and one assault and battery of law enforcement during the First War that was ruled self defence.

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation. Whatever, as long as you're at least 50% human and look generally human. romantic orientation. Also whatever.

preferred emotional role. submissive | dominant | switch | Depends on the partner and what the general mood is each particular time. There are definitely more than three options here.

preferred sexual role. submissive | dominant | switch | Depends on the partner and what the general mood is each particular time. There are definitely more than three options here.

turn ons. Treating him as an equal and educated member of his professional field (as opposed to some kid playing with dangerous magic), generally not being a complete arse, focusing more on his intellectual and magical strengths and accomplishments over, "You're pretty". Being interested in the type of work he does.

turn offs. Treating him like a child, like he's beneath you, arrogance that can't be backed up with skill, explaining to him why you think his occupation and hobbies are "immoral", reading his own research back to him and doing it in a way that shows you didn't actually understand what you wrote, giving him orders of any sort if that wasn't an agreed upon game, being casually horrible about things like, "Aurors keep society safe", "Anyone using the Dark Arts belongs in Azkaban," "Werewolves aren't people," things of that nature. Telling him he "could do better" after meeting one or more of his long term partners.

love language. Talking to you without being under work orders to talk to you, letters at all hours of the night for no reason other than to say something that happened to pop into his head, gifts that cannot be mistaken for anything other it meaning he knows you very, very well, physical touch (platonic or otherwise), voluntarily spending time with you without having to schedule it. In general, if he's voluntarily giving you his time, you matter to him on some level.

relationship tendencies. Pretty things that will indulge his habits and research projects. The bonus here is that if you're willing to and skilled enough to do the latter, he's going to find you very pretty indeed. Ugly is more a state of mind anyway.

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song. Doom or Destiny - Blondie & Joan Jett

hobbies to pass the time. Work, only he calls it a hobby at that point. Spell modification/creation, discussing magical theory, laying around while doing those first three things, watching other people work if what they're doing requires fine manual dexterity, playing bait in traps he works with to set up, needling various departments at the Ministry about how they're doing their jobs poorly, performing 'magic tricks' (card tricks with marked decks, distraction based illusions, sleight of hand, etc...) around Muggles just to see if the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will get their hackles raised and try to arrest him again, a lot of completely unmentionable things because it's not Sunday.

left or right brained. The type of work he's involved in relies on fairly even communication between the two.

fears. Slipping and losing himself to addiction again. In that vein, losing the ability to keep a stranglelhold on that addiction and turning into something--unstable and violent.

self confidence level. He keeps it in line with his abilities and is exceptionally careful not to let his reach exceed his grasp; when it comes to working with the Dark Arts and the other sorts of people who also work with the Dark Arts, letting your ego get the better of you is often a very good way to end up dead.

It’s not arrogance if you can back it up, after all.

vulnerabilities. Those are on a need to know basis; those who need to know already do. The most obvious one anyone else would see comes out when he talks about addiction as it's clear, either by how specific it is, or because he verbatim says so, that he's primarily talking about his experience with it.

tagged by: stolen from @mia-castellan because I haven't done one of these in awhile. tagging: whoever wants to. I bunch of you all got tagged further up so that also works.

#ooc #about #character info

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theticklishpear · 6 years

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I'd probably benefit from deliberate practice, as in that I can measure in some way (privately) how well I did. Like, how a piano player practices repeating chords or the same section of a music piece again and again. But I have no idea HOW to practice WRITING because there's almost only advice what to do, no concrete ideas or tips for actual exercises. It's very frustrating. Do you maybe have something in mind if I may ask?

The reason it’s so difficult to find something concrete for practicing writing is because there is no concrete way to measure whether you did well or not. There is no rubric out there or scale to measure “good” vs. “bad” writing. Success and failure to achieve something in writing is entirely subjective and based both on yourself and how you feel it went, as well as your audience’s perception of whether you did it well, which is entirely based on each individual’s personal preference. How do you put personal preference on a rubric?

To use your own metaphor, playing an instrument is a much more definable art with a definitive good and bad–you either hit the notes or you don’t–with a more subjective portion that comes in later–infusing feeling into the notes. Writing’s objective portion is simply the grammar and spelling of it. Literally everything else about it is subjective. The practice of a piano player is repetition, and the player can see the improvement as they hit more notes consistently. Writing’s practice is also repetition, but that repetition is found in the literal act of writing itself. By writing–writing anything–you are practicing the craft.

Looking for specific exercises on the internet is tough because of this very reason: the exercises are simply writing. Trying to write, again and again. Trying to capture a feeling or a story or a mood, again and again. That’s practice. There are some specific exercises in creative writing textbooks, but for the most part, it’s up to you to choose an aspect of writing that you want to improve, and then write with that aspect in mind, observe what makes that aspect function, and see if you can bring that particular aspect out on the page.

Maybe you choose tone. First you have to know what tone is, and how it’s different than mood. Once you know what makes tone apparent on the page, your job is to sit down and write. Write with the express purpose of showing tone on the page.

Maybe you choose setting. You have to know what aspect of setting you want to focus on. Is it that you want to do a better job of bringing the senses out in your descriptions of settings? Or do you want to practice weaving settings through interspersed details in a scene, rather than info-dump-style descriptions? Or something else? Then sit down, maybe with a prompt to get you started, and write with that focus in mind.

Maybe you choose character development. Decide what part of character development you want to improve. Are you trying to do better at conveying emotion? Are you focusing on how to write romance between characters? Are you interested in improving how you share a character’s backstory through context clues rather than info-dumps? Sit down and write a scene that allows you to showcase these types of developments in characters and see how you do with it.

These exercises are basically free-writing with little-to-no intention of turning them into full stories. They’re drabbles or vignettes where you try to bring out a particular part of writing. The easiest way to see if you succeeded with your objective of showcasing a specific subject of the writing craft is to share it with someone else and see how they react. Otherwise, it’s up to you to read through it again and see whether you like what you’ve done. If not, do it again. And again. And again. And then write stories, and write more, and more. The only way to improve is by literally going out and writing.

Mostly, you’re going to find what you’re looking for in creative writing textbooks and help guides like the two Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction books (x, x) and others, but here are some exercises I’ve done to help improve certain things in my own writing:

Dialogue:

> Go sit in a public place and listen to a conversation. Transcribe it as exactly as you can. Rewrite the conversation as a scene. > This exercise focuses on: Observing how “realistic dialogue” in narrative differs from actual, real-life conversations.

> Write one side of a conversation. Make sure that the audience understands what’s being said on the unheard side of the conversation without ever repeating what the other side says. > This exercise focuses on: How to relay information to an audience through context clues and implication.

> Write a wordless conversation. Consider how people communicate back and forth with each other without ever speaking a word. > This exercise focuses on: How body language can be used to convey meaning and emotion.

> Write an argument by the end of which it becomes clear the characters are not actually arguing about what’s on the surface. > This exercise focuses on: Writing subtext and the human tendency to speak in doubletalk.

> Write a conversation that does not use tags. Focus on making it clear to the audience who is speaking, how many people are a part of the conversation, and an impression of what their life is like. Try not to resort to literal introductions. > This exercise focuses on: How to bring out the voices and history of various characters through their spoken words.

Setting:

> A character encounters the most mouthwatering smell they’ve ever had the pleasure of smelling. Describe it. > This exercise focuses on: How to integrate the often forgotten sense of smell into descriptions and its impact on people.

> A character walks into not just a spooky house, but an absolutely terrifying one. Make the audience feel the fear. > This exercise focuses on: Conveying the mood of a setting and how to integrate emotion not only into a story but into the audience.

> Alternatively, the house isn’t spooky or terrifying, but it is horrific. What changes about the scene, and how do you convey that difference to the audience? > This exercise focuses on: Also conveying mood and emotion, but also being specific with the emotions and feeling of a place, and how to differentiate between similar ones.

> A character is overcome with nostalgia. Help the audience understand the nostalgia while also feeling the profound loss or difference between the memory and the reality. > This exercise focuses on: Integrating character history into description of a place, emotion, a sense of time.

> Write a scene in which a blind character arrives at a new location. Use their senses other than sight to describe what’s around them and where they might be. > This exercise focuses on: Using senses other than the typical fall-back of sight.

Character Development:

> Find an old picture in an online archive, but don’t read the description. Write a scene about who the people in the photograph are, what led them to this moment, and where they’re headed next. What’s their fate? > This exercise focuses on: Imagining character through visual input, inferring details about them, and conveying those through story.

> Alternatively, find a portrait or painting and write a scene in which the painter is the main character. What is the person who painted this art like? What were they thinking about when working on this piece? What kind of conflicts may they have been facing at the time of its painting? > This exercise focuses on: Imagining character by examining their actions/things they’ve made.

> Write a scene from the perspective of an unreliable narrator where what truly happened is quite different than what the narrator tells the audience occurred. > This exercise focuses on: The use of narration and how it can influence the story and what the audience understands about what’s going on.

> Write a thank you letter for an unwanted gift; the gift is a work of art. Focus on conveying the character of the person penning the letter. Who are they? How do they handle the situation? What will they do with this gift? What do they think of the person who sent it? > Step it up: Write another from a character who received the same gift but has an entirely different reaction to it. > This exercise focuses on: Conveying voice and character by looking at reactions, words, and attitudes.

> Write a scene in which a character reacts to an event in the opposite way one might expect and takes action in an unexpected manner. Focus on how you can convey the character’s reasons for their actions, pertinent backstory, and motivation without allowing the narrator to outright state anything. > This exercise focuses on: Character motivations and how they can drastically change what a character is willing to do, how they react to things, and yet can still be in character.

Craft:

> Find a non-comedic scene in Shakespeare and rewrite it to be comedic. > This exercise focuses on: Tone and how a writer’s diction can influence how a scene is perceived by the audience.

> Rewrite a poem as prose, focusing on steering the outcome toward something different. > This exercise focuses on: How syntax and diction can change what something is about, despite using the same or similar words.

> Practice writing first lines that immediately draw audiences in to the story. Focus on how you impart information about the coming story to the audience through situation, setting, characters, potential conflict, point of view, distance, tone, etc. > This exercise focuses on: Context clues and catching the eye of the audience.

> Write a scene told from a point of view you are uncomfortable with, or from a different psychic distance than you prefer. > This exercise focuses on: Stretching the writing muscles we let atrophy simply because we don’t prefer them, and testing what’s possible with different tools.

> Write a scene in which a character discovers an Important Item they had been told about, but now they don’t recognize it or don’t realize its significance. > This exercise focuses on: Foreshadowing and how context clues can inform the reader without necessarily cluing in the character.

Challenge Mode:

> Write a story at least 350 words long in which you may only use pronouns 3 times.

> Pick a concept or subject you know little about. Explain it in 100 words or less.

> Generate a list of random words by writing the first 10 (or so) words that come to mind. Write a scene or short story using all the listed words. > Step it up: Use the words in the story in the order they appear on the list.

> A character stands at a crossroad. North is the future, south is the past, east is fear, and west is ambition. Write a scene in which the character sees what awaits them on these paths and contemplates what each means to them.

> Write a dream sequence in which the dream transforms objects. Make the transformations seem entirely normal. > Step it up: Don’t let the audience know it’s a dream.

Resources:

100+ Creative Writing Exercises for Fiction Authors from reedsy50 Fantastic Creative Writing Exercises from bookfoxWhat If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela PainterCreative Writing Exercises For Dummies by Maggie Hamand

#pear responds #writing #writing tips #posts by pear #prompts #anonymous

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sunscreenstudies · 6 years

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HI! Can you help me with english paper one question please?

Hi there! Of course I can!! :)

Higher level English Paper One is 200/400 marks for the English Leaving Cert and is divided into two sections, ‘Comprehending’ and ‘Composing’. I’m just going to assume that you’re asking about both sections, so bear with me!

Section 1

‘Comprehending’ involves three different texts, each having a Question A with three parts, and a Question B with one part. You must answer one Q.A and one Q.B but they must be from different texts!!! I know you’re probably sick of hearing that right now, but seriously, I knew a girl in the year ahead of me who answered the Q.A and Q.B on the same text, and despite having fantastic answers the examiner could only give her marks for one! Losing 50 marks means you’ve automatically lost 12.5%. You’re already down an entire grade!

Question A

Q.A is divided into 3 parts, usually worth 15, 15, and 20 marks. The length of your answer depends entirely on these marks. For every 5 marks, you should write 1 paragraph, usually 5-7 lines of an A4 sheet, unless you have very small writing.

*Try* not to spend over 40 minutes on Q.A but do not panic if you go over this!!! Honestly I never stuck to the ‘recommend times’ during my English LC and I came out with a H1 at the end. Just have a healthy respect for time and if you’ve gone wayyy over time (i.e. half an hour over time or more) just stop, take a deep breath, leave a blank page for the rest of your answer, and move on. Losing 20 marks in Q.A part 3 is better than losing 50 marks by not having enough time to answer Q.B.

In order to get good marks in each piece, you must display a clear understanding of the text, refer to writing styles and techniques, use appropriate quotation from the text, and insert your own ideas and opinions. This goes for every. single. question no matter what they ask you in Q.A. And I know you can sometimes feel silly or stupid by writing things like “I firmly believe that…” “In my opinion…” “I think…” but seriously dude, just write it. It’ll pay off in the end.

Know the difference between ‘tone’ and ‘mood’. This is a common mistake that people make, and although it isn’t the ‘be all and end all’ by far, every mark counts, so you might as well get it right. ‘Tone’ = How the writer said it. ‘Mood’ = The atmosphere that’s conveyed as a result. Eg. “The writer uses a stern tone when admonishing the children in this text, and this creates a tense mood throughout the piece”.

You. Must. Link. Paragraphs. In. Every. Single. Answer! Examiners love that shit. Start each new paragraph with a linking/joining phrase, eg. “However…” “Furthermore…” “Therefore…” “As well as that…” “Therefore…”. It shows the corrector that you understand what you’re talking about and that you have a strong opinion on the matter, which is what gets you the marks! (Seriously, they actually say this on the examinations.ie website, examiners will always look for your own personal opinion)

Even though there is no magical answer or tip that will solve all your Q.A problems, I do have one final piece of advice that helped me be prepared for 90% of Q.A’s. For each and every text that’s thrown at you, you should be able to answer and refer to each of the following questions: What was the author’s intention in writing this piece? What techniques were used? What structure is used in each paragraph? Is the author appealing to your emotions or intellect? (and the biggest one) Why did the author use *that* word in particular? If you can refer to even half of these in your Q.A answers, then the examiner will be throwing marks at you!

Question B

Q.B involves just one question, usually revolving around a report, letter, review, diary entry, or speech. It is 50 marks, the same marks as all of Q.A’s parts put together. This question is just as important as your composition in section 2.

The guidelines say that you should only spend 35 minutes on this question, and if you can write a well-structured answer in that time, then good on you! I, however, probably spent just under an hour on this part, and once again, that is okay! It’s better to have a fantastic Q.B answer and a slightly short essay than mediocre answer for both.

Really the only advice I can give for this section, is to know the layouts for the 5 major questions as mentioned above. Reports should have a Title, Introduction, Work Carried Out, Findings, Suggestions, Recommendations, and Conclusion section. Reviews should have a catchy headline, the name of what you’re reviewing, a short description, an evaluation and recommendation, and then a signature as you sign off. Diaries should be personal and written with informal language, you should have a date and time, start with ‘Dear Diary…’ (Corny, I know) and your first name as you sign off. Speeches should begin with a startling statement, then address your audience (”Ladies and gentlement…” eg.), introduce yourself, and introduce your topic before continuing on into the speech, using persuasive language, before thanking your audience for listening and signing off.

Note how I kept letters for the end. This is the most asked Q.B, and the most difficult to get full marks for due to the complicated layout. First of all, your letter will either be formal, or informal:

Formal letters will be written to newspaper editors, school principals, members of government, etc. Anyone that you would call ‘sir’ ‘madam’ or ‘Mr’ ‘Mrs’ ‘Ms’ in real life to. A formal letter should begin with your own name in the top right-hand corner of the page. Your own address (make one up) goes directly below this. Then skip a line, and write the date directly below that. All dates must be written in the form “00 Month 20–″ (eg. 03 June 2019) Pay careful attention to the question when writing the date, however. If you’re writing to your teachers because of an event that happened last week in school, you can’t use June/July/August when you’re on summer holidays as a date now can you? When this is done, skip a line, move over to the left-hand side of the page, and write the person’s full title (the person you’re addressing the letter to) and write their address below this. The write the main body of your letter, paragraphing it, before skipping a line and writing “Yours Sincerely, ”. Sign your full name below this.

Informal letters will be written to family members, your pen-pal, your friend on holidays, etc. Anyone that you would joke around with and give friendly hugs to in real life. On the top right-hand corner of the page, write your own address, but not your name!!! It’s a letter to someone you know, they already have that information! Below your address, skip a line, and write the date in the same form as given above. Then skip another line, move to the left-hand side of the page, and start writing. When you’re done your letter, skip a line, write something cheap and cheerful like “See you later!” then skip another line, and sign off with your name (first name or full name, it doesn’t really matter)

Section 2

‘Composing’ is worth 100 marks, an entire 25% percent of your paper, so if you want to get a H1 in your English Leaving Cert, you need to get a H1 in this section! It’s divided into 7 questions, and you answer 1 of the 7! The questions are usually short stories, personal essays, articles, speechs, or descriptive essays.

You need to pinpoint which of these questions you get the best marks in, and then focus on those two or three composition styles. Please please pleaseee don’t just rely on one and say “Sure I’m great at the short stories, I’ll just do whatever comes up for that on day” because 1. It might not come up on the day, and 2. It might be an absolutely dreadful question and you’ll be left sitting there trying not to cry as you desperately try to remember the layout of a speech. Don’t do that to yourself. The Leaving Cert is stressful enough. Seriously. It’s worth 25%. Don’t risk it.

Your essay should be between 4 to 6 pages, or 1000 to 1250 words. This is non negotiable.

Always always always open with a quote, a rhetorical question, or a shocking statistic to grab the examiner’s attention. I went online the night before my Paper One exam, and wrote down 10 quotes from well-known people about the most popular topics in life, eg. Education, Love, Money, Travelling, Death, Youth & Aging, etc. and just learnt them off in half an hour. I ended up using three of them on the day, and you have no idea the relief you feel when you’re guaranteed that at least one thing in your composition will get you marks!

Plan. this. shit. before. you. write. Take an entire A4 page, even if you just use 2 or 3 lines. Write the essay title on the top, then blurt down all the words that come to mind when you thing of that topic. Then write in the margin ‘Opening, Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Para. 3, Para. 4, Para. 5., Closing’ and assign your top 5 strongest ideas to a section each. You might think it’s a wast of time, but half way through writing it, you will have forgotten some of your ideas. And hell forbid, if you run out of time and don’t get to make all your points, the examiner can see that you *were* going to make other points, and will give you a few extra marks for it.

You should open strongly, and close strongly. Reiterate what you say in your opening in your closing. Make your opinion/belief on the matter so strongly and write it so vehemently that you leave the examiner nodding along with your words.

Title. Title every single essay no matter what type it is or what the topic is about. Short story? Make it catchy. Article? Make it humorous. Speech? Use the title given to you on the page.

Learn the main three keys of each type of compositon language. Narrative eg. Short story has a defined beginning, middle, and end, a definite setting, dialogue, plot twists, and realistic, convincing characters. Argumentative language eg. Speech, Debate, involves using logical and rational points, rhetorical questions, facts, strong verbs, and quotes. Aesthetic/Descriptive eg. Descriptive Essay involves word patterns, rhythm, adjectives, vivid images, poetic techniques eg. similes, methaphors. Information language eg. Article makes unbiased and relevant points, uses clear and accessible language, and statistics/facts. Personal eg. Person essay uses anecdotes, humour, repetition, and uses emphatic language.

Above all else, REMAIN CALM!!! You are not what you get in this exam, you are not the person stress and sleepless nights turns you into, you are so much more than your Leaving Cert results!!! Do not sacrifice your health or happiness for this stupid test that you’ll forgot about 6 months later!

So best of luck in your exams, I hope this advice helped, and if you have any more questions please feel free to ask me!

#studyspo #studyblr #literature studyblr #leaving cert #exam tips #study tips #anon

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impromptu-manifesto · 4 years

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The Literature of the Pandemic Is Already Here

For those engaging in quick-response art, mess and chaos—not polished elegance—are the forms to best mimic a crisis that has no end in sight.

Intimations BY ZADIE SMITH PENGUIN BOOKS And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again: Writers From Around the World on the COVID-19 Pandemic

BY ILAN STAVANS (EDITOR) RESTLESS BOOKS

A bleak fact of writing is that honing sentences is often far easier than honing the thoughts they convey.

A corollary fact is that polished, elegant prose serves as a useful, if not always intentional, hiding place for half-baked ideas.

Walter Benjamin wrote that a key element of fascism is the aestheticization of politics— the concealment of bad thinking behind bright optics. Even in fascist-free situations, the concealment principle is common enough that I have come to approach beauty and neatness in art with some skepticism.

So far, the nascent literature of the coronavirus pandemic has reinforced my distrust. Three assemblies of coronavirus-response writing—

Zadie Smith’s essay collection Intimations;

NY Times’ short-fiction compilation, The Decameron Project; and

the mixed-genre anthology And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, edited by Ilan Stavans—

tell me why:

No one has had time to truly refine their ideas about personal life in a state of widespread isolation and existential dread, and literature, even when political, is a fundamentally personal realm.

It relies on the ability to channel inner experience outward, and because no inner experience of the coronavirus pandemic could plausibly be described as complete, prose that renders it static and comprehensible rings false. In the shaky realm of literature reacting quickly to a crisis in motion, mess and chaos are the forms that speak best to painful realities.

Zadie Smith opens Intimations, which contains six short, beautifully structured essays written largely in her characteristically gleaming prose, by acknowledging,

“There will be many books written about the year 2020: historical, analytical, political, as well as comprehensive accounts. This is not any of those—the year isn’t halfway done. What I’ve tried to do is organize some of the feelings and thoughts that events, so far, have provoked in me.”

So, instead of social insight, which Smith admits is not yet available, she chooses self-organization. The turn inward is entirely logical, but the structuring impulse does not bode well.

To be fair, Smith’s opting for order is unsurprising.

In fiction, she’s a master of structure and form. Traditionally, she has allowed greater looseness in her essays and criticism—I am thinking, for instance, of Feel Free’s shaggy, implausibly delightful “Meet Justin Bieber!,” which uses a pop-star meet and greet as an occasion to revisit Martin Buber’s I and Thou—but not in Intimations. Its essays are short, tight, and glossy: pleasurable to read, but coy and cagey with their fundamental subject, which is death.

Take “Peonies,” in which a startling, lush garden sets Smith thinking about human vulnerability to biology. In theory, “Peonies” acknowledges the creative and destructive primacy of nature over determination—which includes its primacy over art. To Smith, art and determination are nearly synonymous: “Writing,” she explains, “is control. The part of the university in which I teach should properly be called the Controlling Experience Department. Experience … rolls over everybody. We try to adapt, to learn, to accommodate … But writers go further: they take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance” to experience.

Of course, this is not true for all writers. Some seek to portray bewilderment rather than shape it into reason. Smith attempts to do the former in “Peonies,” but when it comes time for her to wrangle with the crushing confusion and helplessness that disease generates, she bails on her project. The coronavirus appears explicitly in “Peonies” only once, not named but described as our “strange and overwhelming season of death”—and the moment Smith mentions it, she arrives at her argument’s end. “Peonies” is a conventionally structured literary essay, which means, as we learn in high school, that its conclusion recapitulates its beginning. Rather than continue thinking about overwhelming death, Smith returns to the place where “Peonies” began: a flower garden, and the stifled yearning for disorder that it provokes.

“Peonies” is not the only essay in which structure helps Smith turn from death. “The American Exception,” a linear, op-ed-style argument, addresses death as a mass phenomenon, but never as a personal one. “Something to Do,” a reflection on why writers write even in crisis, reads like the first portion of a writing-workshop lecture. In “Screengrabs (after Berger, before the virus),” Smith returns to the section-heavy style of her 2012 novel, NW, in which neat, titled chunks of narrative replicate the unwillingness of her hyper-controlled protagonist, Natalie, to engage with emotion. But here, Smith is the one unwilling to engage.

In its premise, “Screengrabs” does reach for emotion: Six of the essay’s seven sections are nonfictional character sketches in which Smith implicitly says goodbye to her New York life’s minor players before leaving to shelter in London. The essay is faintly elegiac—as I read, I could not escape thinking that its subjects, even the man who insists, “I survived WAY worse shit than this,” might not survive the virus. But its fragmentary structure lets Smith stop short of expressing grief. The form demands that she move quickly, even as its content might more fully emerge if she slowed down. The lone exception is the seventh section, titled “Postscript: Contempt as a Virus,” in which Smith describes and mourns the killing of George Floyd. Here, her dealing with death is not fleeting or abstract. Her prose is ragged and free of ornament; her consideration of racism as deadly contempt is the only idea that Intimations sees through from beginning to end. The reason seems clear: Floyd was killed in late May, and I received my advance copy of Intimations in mid-June. The section was evidently written quickly, but it emerges from centuries of American history. Smith has no need to hide behind structure here.

The Decameron Project has a bigger problem than a proclivity for organization. Many of its 29 stories are emotionally neat and one-note. Etgar Keret’s contribution, “Outside,” is unique in that its neatness is negative: Keret’s narrator squashes the common and sustaining dream of post-pandemic empathy and solidarity, asserting cynically, “The body remembers everything, and the heart that softened while you were alone will harden back up in no time.” Other contributors take the opposite approach, pursuing positivity and beauty at the expense of honesty. Take Alejandro Zambra’s “Screen Time,” in which the small graces of family life—watching a toddler sleep, conducting a fingernail-growing race—outweigh the stresses of quarantine, which Zambra describes with less imagination and in less detail. The mother in “Screen Time” manifests anxiety primarily by no longer “reading the beautiful and hopeless novels she reads,” which may reflect a common desire for optimism. But Zambra’s apartment-size world is too sweet, its calm too accessible and unexamined. The result is charming, but, for me, unconvincing.

Still, the Decameron Project does contain successes. Rachel Kushner, Téa Obreht, Leila Slimani, and Rivers Solomon all smartly smuggle very good stories about older, different topics—storytelling, exile, storytelling again, incarceration—into coronavirus frames. Only Tommy Orange dares an actual portrait of quarantine in “The Team,” which wobbles like a kid on her first two-wheel bike. Its language is often confusing, sometimes ugly. Words tumble from its narrator, who monologues about time, turkey vultures, marathons, pig slop, racism, Oakland housing prices, and more, with no plot or connective tissue between each topic but the speaker himself. The result demands attention simply by virtue of the narrator’s need to be heard. It has no moral or fixed meaning; to borrow Zambra’s formulation, it offers neither beauty nor hope. Yet as I read its description of time ticking past in quarantine, as “hidden and loud as the sun behind a cloud,” I felt a jolt of recognition. It is like that, I thought. Orange’s messy descriptions and run-on sentences, alone in the Decameron Project, offer small new truths.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, a genre- and border-crossing anthology of mostly translated reactions to the coronavirus, is full of mess. In fact, the editor Ilan Stavans seems to invite it. He juxtaposes styles—poetry next to literary criticism, experimental fiction next to personal essay—in a way that is consistently disorienting and sometimes jarring, but pleasantly so. He permits political contradiction: In one contribution, Mario Vargas Llosa lauds Spain’s quarantine protocols, while in another, the translator Teresa Solana expresses terror at the Spanish government’s treating the pandemic like “a war, establishing a military scenario and using bellicose language with patriotic resonances.” If Stavans’s goal were coherence, he might have cut one piece, but he lets both remain, offering non-Spanish readers multiple views of a country unclear about its path forward—and implicitly accepting his own lack of knowledge.

Uncertainty is a driving theme in And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. So is brokenness: broken bodies, hearts, medical systems, immigration systems, and more. Lynne Tillman takes a Tommy Orange–like approach to the breakdown of time, writing hectic, unadorned prose that turns into a breathless pileup: “I am exhausted, lie down, sit up, touch my toes, swing my arms, make a phone call, ignore a call, hear a voice, see a message, answer it, don’t, there is plenty of time, too much time.” Tillman’s sentences are cramped, confined, and unbeautiful. They don’t try to impress the reader. Reading her contribution generates the same restless boredom a writer—or any inessential worker—might feel while pacing the same apartment for the 100th day, knowing that there’s nowhere to go. So does the French Tunisian writer Hubert Haddad’s, which takes the pileup strategy much further. His story is a collage of fictional “false starts, drafts, approximations, [and] broken-off openings” that describe and evoke the “hazy driftlessness” of quarantined life. Its choppy, static structure captures the dysfunction of pandemic time.

In a May essay on coronavirus journals, the New York Times book critic Parul Sehgal described the diaristic impulse as “beautifully ordinary.”

Records of quarantine may be banal, she writes, but their very existence is reassuring enough to be lovely. In other forms of writing, however, beauty is not enough to comfort. In fact, it runs the risk of

trivializing,

distorting, or

evading the crisis it portrays.

Thus far, the coronavirus literature that works best admits certain truths about life mid-disaster:

The news is terrible and relentless.

Nobody knows what will happen.

The search for a vaccine is ongoing,

as is the search for sources of hope and meaning.

Will the coronavirus pandemic lead to stronger social safety nets?

Better health-care systems?

Will it produce cohesion or despair?

We have no way to know yet. What true story besides an uncertain, unbeautiful one is there to write?

#books

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kmmasnuproject · 4 years

Video

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TED (2012) Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story. Available at: https://youtu.be/KxDwieKpawg (Accessed: 28th February 2020)

SNU - Research:

I have been looking at narrative elements to story, and wanted to learn more about how I can tell an effective story in a short amount of time. Some of the key points mentioned by director Andrew Stanton is: to let the audience work the story out by giving them elements that they can piece together to find the answer (‘Don’t give them 4, give them 2+2’); making the audience have empathy for the characters, giving them an emotional bond with the audience that will make them react to the events that happen to them with genuine emotion (I would argue that this would be easier to achieve in a feature film as there is more time in the story for deeper development of the characters); and giving the characters an unconscious goal that they strive to complete through the story.

Additionally, Stanton suggests narrative elements that will strengthen a story, such as giving the story dramatic elements that create uncertainty, as well as evoking a sense of wonder in the story. I would agree that all the key factors suggested in this video are beneficial to storytelling, and I should refer to these factors when creating the screenplay for my short film, particularly the ‘2+2’ method, and making the audience empathise with the characters, as I think that these will be crucial in making the narrative element of my short animated film successful. Some of these factors may be difficult to express to their potential in a short story, however I may be able to include these through visuals, which I should experiment with in my Master’s Project. As I aim to create a 3-minute animation, it is likely that I will need to simplify these key factors so that I can include them in the narrative effectively, but this may also help me to keep my narrative concise, as I am aiming for my animation to have a 3-minute runtime.

SNU – Research:

I have researched silent films to analyse the body language used to convey what the character’s personality is, and how they feel, and how they communicate to the audience without using spoken dialogue. I analysed two scenes by Charlie Chaplin to learn how I can use body language effectively in my animations. As I will not be using dialogue in my sequences, I thought that it would be appropriate to research silent films.

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Charlie Chaplin Official (2016) Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times – Roller Skating Scene. Available at: https://youtu.be/kPcEFHA3X0c (Accessed: 28th February 2020)

Chaplin, C. (1936) Charlie Chaplin Modern Times || Hilarious Comedy by Chaplin. Available at: https://youtu.be/giJ0YMaAc8s (Accessed: 28th February 2020)

In the first scene from Modern Times (1936), Chaplin is roller skating. There is not much focus on Chaplin’s face in this sequence, which was why I chose to analyse it, as the staging for this scene is like the staging I envision for my animated sequence for this project. Chaplin uses his body to exaggerate his movement whilst roller skating, kicking his legs out one at a time to express his strong sense of balance to glide around the toy shop. He also uses his arms when he is panicked, such as when he is about to fall, however he rights himself to continue skating.

In contrast, his partner is very shaky on the roller skates, losing her balance several times, which she puts her arms out widely to regain her balance. She uses body language well to convey emotion, such as when she is shocked – she puts her hand over her face, leans forward slightly, and puts her other hand inward by her side, against her leg, suggesting that she is concerned for Chaplin’s safety. The positioning of her hands also reveals some of her personality; we can assume that she is more introverted than Chaplin, as she places her hands nearer to her, rather than further away from her. When reaching out to help Chaplin, she leans forward and stretches her arms out wide in front of her, showing her desperation to catch him, which suggests that the two characters have a relationship with each other (rather than being strangers who have never met before), and that she cares about Chaplin’s safety. This shows that by having two characters in a scene, the character’s personalities and relationship with other characters can be revealed through their body language.

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Charlie Chaplin Official (2017) Charlie Chaplin - The Lion Cage - Full Scene (The Circus, 1928). Available at: https://youtu.be/_0a998z_G4g (Accessed: 28 February 2020).

The second Chaplin scene I analysed is from The Circus (1928). In this scene, there are more close-up shots of Chaplin, allowing the audience to see his facial expressions clearer than in the previous scene I analysed. In this scene, Chaplin expresses fear of not being able to escape the lion’s cage at a circus. His reactions are timed well, exhibiting anticipation through held poses before and after an action occurs, such as almost dropping the lion’s water tray. Chaplin uses his arms frequently in this scene to exaggerate his desperation to escape. He keeps his hands in front of him most of the time, only moving them behind him in extreme expression, such as upon first seeing the lion, and when checking himself for injures toward the end of the scene. Chaplin expresses his frequent panic to the situation by placing his hand on his head, which could indicate reassurance to himself to calm him down in the situation – it could also be disbelief (i.e, ‘I can’t believe this is happening’).

Upon his close encounter with the lion, Chaplin becomes more confident, placing his hand on his hip, holding onto the bars of the cage, and distributing his weight unevenly to one foot, which expresses his confidence to the audience through his body language. Only when he becomes overconfident and approaches the lion, positioning his hands on his hips and his legs slightly apart, does he then revert to his fearful, panicked state seen at the beginning, due to the lion growling at him. Chaplin flees the cage, which is locked by a lady who comes to his aid. Chaplin hides up a telephone pole, and the woman encourages him to come down, her body language suggesting confidence, but also reassurance. Chaplin wraps his legs around the pole, clinging onto it tightly to suggest his fear and humiliation. He smiles anxiously, tilting his head to the side in a sheepish way, which suggests that tilting the head can communicate embarrassment through body language.

Chaplin also uses the staging space around him, interacting with the door to the next cage behind him, and sticking his leg through the bars of the cage. The scene shows Chaplin’s different personality traits, from confident, to cowardly. His expressions exaggerate his emotion, and make it clear to the audience how he feels, allowing the audience to empathise with him. I would argue that, even without the facial expressions, the position of his body, his arms and legs, and especially his head, communicate his emotions and intentions clearly and in an appealing way, which suggests that body language is necessary to communicate emotion in silent film. This may differ for films with spoken dialogue, such as modern films, and I will need to analyse a scene from films such as this to be able to compare my findings to find the answer to this. The similarities between how body language is used in different media would also be important to discuss in my report, and I can use this information to experiment with body language in my animated sequences, and discuss the effectiveness of my findings in my writing and reflective journal.

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Laurel & Hardy (2018) Sherlock Jr - 1924 - HD Movie (Buster Keaton). Available at: https://youtu.be/fZuqWxITq38?t=773 (Accessed: 28 February 2020).

I also researched how body language is used in other silent films. In Sherlock Jr (1924), Keaton’s character is framed for stealing a watch. Keaton’s love interest expresses her sadness by leaning on the bannister with her head low, crying into her arms. We get a close-up of her, with tears in her eyes, and she tilts her head low, which suggests that the angle of the head can indicate sadness, showing again that the head is an important part of body language. At 19:52, Keaton is in a dream sequence, where he intends to catch the culprit. The scene keeps changing with the film, meaning Keaton must adapt to each new scene. The way Keaton interacts with each scene creates cause and effect, he reacts to a change in the scene, as well as the environment change of the scene itself. For instance, he attempts to walk along a road, but it turns into a mountain cliff, and Keaton quickly backs away from it. The way Keaton reacts to each scene is similar to how I want to create my animated sequences – I want to have the character feeling one emotion, then have something occur that would change how the character feels emotionally. This simple narrative will allow me to focus on creating the character’s performance, but also allow them to have a purpose for showing the emotion I have chosen for the scene.

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FilmArchivesNYC (2012) Vintage Women Tied to Railroad Tracks (stock footage / archival footage). Available at: https://youtu.be/ngfHgsV0HRs?t=166 (Accessed: 28th February 2020)

I also researched examples of vintage films where a woman tied to train tracks is saved by a hero to see how silent films portray villain characters, and how the villain is recognisable through their movement and body language, rather than their character design, as most villains are identifiable due to their similar outfit designs, often wearing a moustache or a suit, especially in the silent film era). In the clip, the villain and his henchmen have captured a lady and attempt to wrap her in chains. The villain has strong key poses, looking at the camera often to indicate to the audience that he is aware of his actions. The character twists his moustache (a common trait found in silent films and animation), which can symbolise his cunning and confidence in his plan, whilst placing the other hand on his hip, indicating his position of power over the other characters in the scene. He also keeps his hands close to his body, which could suggest insecurity, but to visually indicate his untrustworthiness. He picks up a mallet, pointing and waving it at the other characters, again to indicate his dominance over them. The mallet also adds a threatening atmosphere to the character, and as the lady is defenceless, it could be agreed that the audience empathises with her, creating a negative emotional response from the audience toward the villain. He drops the mallet onto his foot, leaning slightly forwards holding the injured foot whilst remaining balanced on the other. This could suggest that he is clumsy, and has faults. It also makes him appear less threatening, temporarily relieving the tension in the scene.

The villain also has traits that make his characterisation appealing, such as checking his watch and gesturing a small ‘goodbye’ wave toward the audience, before addressing his henchmen to bring the lady toward the tracks. The lady hits him in the foot with one of the pegs she is trapped by, causing him to grab his foot and fall backwards, his legs flying upwards. He then proceeds to stand up, crouched forward with his hand on his back, indicating that he hurt his back, which suggests to the audience that he is an older, possibly middle-aged, man (this is also suggested by how he walks slightly hunched over). Once the lady is tied to the tracks, he stands near her, again twisting his moustache with a hand on his hip, leaning his weight unevenly onto his right side, showing a clear, threatening pose of dominance. He turns around and walks in an upbeat way with his arms swinging beside him, never moving them further then his chest and hips, which could suggest he is saving energy, trying to repress his excitement, or a trait unique to this character.

As he prepares the handcar to push the train, he looks at the audience and poses again, clearly showing what the character is thinking to the audience. This suggests that by having the character look towards the camera, either in a recognition of breaking the fourth wall (knowing the audience is there), or simply to see their expression or body language better, can make it clearer to the audience what the character is thinking, or to indicate what they are about to do. The clip cuts between the handcar and the train, and we can see that the villain is on the train watching as the heroes break the chains the lady is tied in, and help save her from the tracks. The villain watches and we can see his shocked and surprised expression at noticing the heroes saving the lady. This clip suggests that villain characters use their body language to communicate exaggerated emotion and action. This character did not use many facial expressions, but in the cases of extreme emotion, such as shock, he used his body to enhance the expression. Again, this suggests that the body can be used to make emotions more effective in films without dialogue. The scene towards the end where the villain is on the train contradicts with the previous scene where we see the villain and his henchmen using the handcar. It is unclear whether the villain exits the handcar to then get on the train, as we see the villain check his watch (supposedly for the train) earlier in the film, but narratively, this scene seems incomplete. This could be due to some of the film being lost or destroyed/damaged over time, and some scenes being missing because of this. Nevertheless, the villain character expresses his intentions clearly to the audience through the use of his body language and gesture, which shows that characters are an effective way to advance the narrative of a story. Moreover, this has shown that silent films are effective in communicating a narrative through non-verbal performance, which I am experimenting with in my own work for this project.

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Johnny Flattire (2016) HARRY LANGDON First short sound film 1929! Also with Thelma Todd. Available at: https://youtu.be/EXnFvrrZ1CM (Accessed 28th February 2020)

Lastly, I have found a short film that features Harry Langdon, an actor who starred in both silent films and spoken films (talking pictures), that is recorded as one of his first short films with sound from 1929. In the short film, Langdon’s character acts very nervous, which is shown through his actions, repeated dialogue, and change of body position, especially in his hands. The repetitive dialogue could be a reference to Meisner’s technique, where the dialogue is repeated but emphasised differently in tone that is affected by the narrative and backstory of the characters in the sequence. The camera stays on the inside of the room except for the last scene, so we see Langdon’s character most of the time. Langdon’s character stands still, however he uses his body to lean from side to side to exaggerate a pose, such as tipping his hat. He also uses anticipation well, pausing where necessary to emphasise the dialogue, or to show his nervousness to continue talking. He also uses the space in the set well, keeping within the doorframe, but still using the 360-degree space around him, such as tapping on the doorframe, sitting on the chair outside the door, and even tapping his foot inside the house without entering it fully. Langdon uses extreme expressions, such as shock and surprise, however maintains a similar expression throughout the sequence. This suggests that Langdon’s body language is the main factor for the audience to read how he feels, followed secondly by the dialogue.

By analysing silent films, I have learned that body language can be used effectively to express a character’s emotions and personality. Whilst some emotions are easier to read than others through body language, the distinct quirks and traits the character implements in their actions changes how the audience perceives it, and makes the character more unique and appealing. When creating my animated sequences, I need to consider how I can make a character’s actions unique, but also convey emotion that the audience will recognise through the character’s body language. As I will not use facial expressions, I predict that I will likely have to exaggerate some of the actions and body language so that it is clear to the audience. By making simplistic emotions, like happiness, and sadness, clear to the audience, I will also be able to experiment with emotions that are created with more subtle actions and body language, for example nervousness, and see how the audience perceives these. I want to experiment with clear and subtle emotions, as this will help me to improve my animation skills for future animations. I have also noticed that some of the 12 principles of animation are present in silent films, especially anticipation, and staging, which is likely where the principles have been referenced from for animation. This suggests that a scene recorded in live-action, such as for reference, should reflect the outcome of the animation, as the same principles apply for film as well as animation.

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bloghealthinterventions · 4 years

Text

#7 The Patient Connection

○ What we will discuss this time:

■ The Patient- Provider relationship.

■ How to establish that connection.

■ And how that connection benefits both you and patient.

I know that we are living in a modern techie world with EMRs, electronic devices, apps to monitor blood pressure readings, apps that can obtain an EKG for you, apps to track food, apps to track glucose levels, average expected A1C, ovulation and even menstrual cycles. You can download a report of all of those things in a beautiful graphic form. If you are lucky enough to have a techie person that can set it up, you can download and interface these things into the patient’s EMR system right from their phone or other tracking device. You potentially could have all the data you need in a click before the patient comes in. With all of this you should be able to manage your patient, perfectly right. And they should be able to manage their comorbidities, well right? Because with all of the tools available everyone involved should have everything that they need to live in perfect health.

So, I ask the question, why are our outcomes no better?

I propose it’s the human experience.

What about the human experience? The provider patient connection? What about the value of those subtleties that you pick up on in human interaction, communication and observation that are not included in all of these tracking devices?

What about the motivational piece? What is going to keep them going when they STOP tracking the data? A who is more motivating than a device.

There is much research on the missing element of human connection in our modern-day world. This has been further evidenced during the COVID pandemic.

An electronic device can never replace a personal interaction. I think they are causing more stress. They are causing more health decline. On the stressful aspect, people are constantly monitoring numbers that they may not understand. I believe this data overload is more likely to increase anxiety than to improve health outcomes. Because when you put all that data mixed with some symptoms into Dr. Google what happens?

In my experience they always come out with diagnosis of either cancer or something that is going to kill them. And then they come in in a panic.

I have been concerned about the concept of healthcare being moved towards the virtual world for some time. We are not robots. We are not computers. We are humans and we have our own hard-wiring that requires interpersonal interaction. Do not get me wrong, there are several things that once you have become established with a patient you can take care of virtually. However, there are many things that require face-to-face interaction and to see the entire patient.

Think about perception in interactions without humanism. For example, when getting a text message from someone and not understanding the intention of the words without a voice from the other side. You can take a message that was meant to be lighthearted and joking as an absolute jab or an insult and be angry. That is because it’s missing the facial expression and voice inflections and all the other things that go around the meaning of just words.

At the beginning of the stay at home orders during the pandemic, I personally was forced to implement the virtual visits, so that my patients were not left hanging. I still wanted to be able to speak to them and see them, even if it were through the computer screen or a telephone encounter. There are so many things you can get from nonverbal communication that help manage the patient, however, given the situation I had no choice but to follow the virtual path.

I was anxious to see how they would receive this virtual world. Would they be happy they didn’t have to leave home? If it were not for the safety factor during the pandemic… Would they start to think that it was easier to not have to take a day off work? To be able to do that visit and go on about their day?

I am happy to say that I am no longer fearful of losing the one on one patient encounters to my computer screen! With most every visit that ended, the patient would say “I really hope I get to see you in person next time.” Not very many were happy with the cold computer screen interactions. As for the the lack of the physical aspect of visit, I was concerned about not being able to track vitals on patients I had initiated medications on prior to the abrupt shut down. Assessing fluid volume status on patients that I had placed on diuretics. Were the home weights accurate? Were they telling me the truth? Or were they maybe adjusting the numbers a little bit, so they didn’t get fussed at?

How about those who were experiencing emotional challenges due to the pandemic? Did they feel that they were able to convey their feelings to me appropriately through the computer? But, Was any contact better than no contact? That question I can answer positively yes. At least there was some contact, but not the same.

I have been very fortunate to have established many wonderful therapeutic relationships with my patients. I am confident that from the very first meeting they can feel my energy of compassion and genuine interest in their needs. My patients are very important to me. Whether it is the first time I have met them or the 20th time we have had an encounter, each person matters. I believe that conveyance genuineness improves the quality of care.

When a patient comes to you they are often nervous, in pain, distress, worried about something, happy about something, wanting your advice and your guidance for something or looking to you to help them with something pertaining to their own physical or emotional self.They could have read some thing on the Internet that is stuck in their mind or heard something from another person that has caused them a lot of anxiety and worry about how it may affect them or someone they love. They don’t always tell you this in the beginning. A lot of times you have to ask, you have to get deep into the conversation you are having to read their body language and watch the expressions on their face to make sure that you explain something completely or that you have addressed all their concerns. Sometimes you are the only person they have to confide in or to ask something without feeling as if they’re being judged.

This doesn’t happen without a connection. This doesn’t happen if you were staring at your laptop or whatever device you take into the room. If you are not fully engaged with that person during the visit you were going to miss a lot. They are going to leave that visit in the exact same way that they came in. What is the good in that? Do you want to send them back to Dr. Google or to get their advice from the neighbor or coworker Who tells them do something crazy, like I don’t know put an onion in your sock when I go to bed. That would help a diabetic ulcer wouldn’t it?

I’m going to share with you how I believe you can establish a connection with your patients that will benefit both of you.

Establishing that connection is very worth your time and effort. Remember that nurses are one of the most trusted professions. There’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why patients tell us things that they don’t tell others. They feel safe and they feel like you care. Remember our role is to advocate for patients. You can’t advocate for someone you don’t know anything about. Because each person is an individual and each person deserves your time and your expertise to make them feel well and improve their health.

I believe first and foremost; you must treat them as an individual and give them your full attention. The first time that you meet with a patient, it is almost like an interview process. YOU get to set the tone of the interview. You both most likely are on your best behavior and put your best assets forward.

I believe that one of the best assets in practice is listening and being intuitive to what the patient is saying, or trying to say, so that you may guide the visit in a manner that gathers information efficiently that is real relevant to the situation at hand.

This comes with time. This comes with each patient you encounter. This is why being an advanced practice nurse matters. All of the years you spend bedside gives you the intuition you need. If you are still new to this, don’t worry. You will develop this overtime. It is called experience. If you’ve been doing this for a while, you understand that there are many things you can pick up on non verbally when you were actually present in the encounter. Every encounter, with every patient is a learning experience.

Here is the way to start that connection:

In that first visit, make sure to enter the room with a smile, set that tone. You should never appear to be in a hurry no matter how behind you are. Always make eye contact and shake the persons hand if appropriate. Then sit. When you sit, even if it’s only for 30 seconds, it is perceived as if you have all the Time in the world. The patient perceives this as if you care about them and what they have to say, That You are present and that you are listening. I like to think we are sitting for a cup of coffee. Professional boundaries in place of course, but when your patient is comfortable the conversation flows. No need for hierarchy here.

Do not focus on an electronic device, with your face in that device instead of looking at the patient. There will be time to get out that device our later. You can’t possibly chart it all in the room anyway, so give them your attention instead. If you have reviewed the information, they have submitted on their forms prior to going into the room you can give that attention. Typically, I start with, “I understand that you’re here today for…” you want to be able to summarize some of that knowledge to them, so they know again that you really are there and present and you reviewed their information. Some of those forms have a lot of questions on them and they took the time to fill out those forms and if you look at them you were going to get a lot of insight. Even if you look at their handwriting. I still have my patients fill out a form manually because handwriting matters. Did they misspell something? Is it sloppy that might indicate there is a tremor? again, the little things you learn to evaluate with attention to detail.

I do not type while I’m speaking to the patient. I will take in a good old fashion pen and paper and write on the back of their intake form if it’s their first time or the charge sheet that comes back with them. Whatever I have.

Then there’s this crazy thing that happens, I listen to them. I may guide and direct the conversation when appropriate, but I listen and let them finish their sentences. Many times, you will hear that they have been from provider to provider telling the same story and still have not gotten any answers. And I truly believe that that is because many providers don’t take the time to listen. It’s more about numbers getting to the endpoint. What’s your cholesterol, what’s your blood pressure how much do you weigh, this is what your goal should be, these are the test we’re going to order.

Patients are not going to confide in you or interact with unless they know that you care. The more you gather on that first visit and the more that you connect with the person on that very first visit, the better your experience is going to be in every subsequent visit. And you just might get that one piece of information that will bring everything together.

THAT helps your patient.

What also helps them is that knowing you care, improves their willingness to make an effort towards the plan of care developed. They will “TRUST” you will do no harm and have their best interests at heart. You see, they don’t understand what you understand. All of the numbers, all of the guidelines, all of the medications mean very little to that person. That person is thinking about how they feel. How they want to feel. The person is thinking about the family they want to be around for or the life that they want to enjoy, without illness or limitation. When you connect with them in such a way that they trust that you are doing what is right for them, they will work towards the goals that you have set together.

The other thing is to always make it a point to explain what you were doing and the intentions behind it, as well as expected outcomes. To just say stop eating sugar. Or stop drinking soda sounds like a demand. But when you say, “if you continue to drink that many sodas per day, you’re going to keep putting out a lot of insulin that is causing you to gain weight and makes you feel terrible. So, if you were able to decrease those sodas by maybe one a day until you get off of them completely, you’re going to be able to lose weight and stop an insulin roller coaster that is making you that gain weight and feel so bad.” They hear you. When they look at it from that perspective, they are more likely to succeed.

You see, talking about your health and personal concerns, such as stress, anxiety, weight management, depression, symptomatology are all better when you’re discussing them with someone that you have a relationship with that you trust with your health. Not just your health, but with your life.

No how does it help you as the provider? Well, a pleasant experience for one thing. When you build a relationship, you enjoy going into each and every patient encounter. You look forward to beginning the visit with “how are you, how is the family, how’s that new job”, and then get down into business. Because once you set that relationship and set in motion the action plan that you get to review, the visits are way more enjoyable for both you and the patient. And then you can glide into the next goal. Get to know them first, get their take first, then you can either support their efforts with your clinical findings or help to revamp the plan a little bit to achieve that goal. But it’s much less labor-intensive once you have a relationship. There won’t be any hiding of information or worry that if they tell you something, you’re just going to look down on them or judge them or dictate another action that is inconceivable to them. This should be a reciprocal patient provider relationship. Not a dictatorship. We are working with in their life. We cannot put our life into their life. We help them to guide their life to improve their quality of life and their health.

Another great thing is, that if by chance you should be running behind, they are less likely to get upset with you. Not that it’s an excuse to always run behind, but they know that when the time comes that they need more of your time, you’ll be listening to them. I have on many occasions said, “I am really sorry that I ran a bit behind I do appreciate your patience. I know that your time is important, but someone needed a few extra minutes of my help” if needed I will add, “and you do know I would do the same for you if the situation came up that you needed more time with me.” And almost every time that I need to do that, the patient will sit back, relax, and verify that to be true. that is because I have given them my time before. I have set the stage and I have set the tone that they are important and that their time matters as well.

To further support that connection and patient provider relationship, at the end of each visit summarize what you have went over, what the action plan is and what the goal is for the next visit. Then they absolutely know that they were heard and if there’s anything that was missed, they have the opportunity to add that in now. Specifically ask, is there anything that I missed? Is there anything else that I can help you with?

I hope this was helpful. If you have been in a situation where you were a little bit rushed, where you don’t always have control over your schedule or you have other things that are coming into play during your day you may not always take the time to stop center yourself and go into the room to intentionally create that connection. But I can assure you, that if this is something that you are able to implement you were going to see the reward for both yourself and for your patience. I don’t want you to get burned out. And we are in a profession that has a high burnout rate right now. It’s because we are expected to go go go, see 30 to 40 patients in a day and not really spend any time with any of them. All you do is jump from room to room with the sole intent of getting finished before the end of the day. Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to your patient. I urge you to work on this therapeutic communication and connection so that you can continue to practice what you love. I want you to be able to continue to do what you love. I hope that you love anyway.

So, the take-home from this podcast is to remember the human experience. Don’t get caught up in all of the technical world of healthcare. Even if it’s five minutes in a room you can make it a connected experience. You probably need that just as much as your patient does. This profession for most of us is who we are, not what we do. So, with that, give just a little bit of you and your time and every visit. It will change your practice dramatically. You might even find yourself smiling a few more times during the day instead of being always hurried and stressed.

I want to thank you again for taking your time to listen to this podcast. Let me know if you are enjoying the podcast! Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode! Share your thoughts. And if you’re feeling connected, give me a review! That will help others find this podcast to help with their practice also!

You can find more of me and what I’m up to on healthinterventions.net, Facebook and Instagram!

Have a great week! May it be filled with many Health Interventions!

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s0021858a2film · 7 years

Text

Post S. Essay Abstract

Hypothesis:

Jarmusch can claim to have full authorship of his films

Style:

Is Jarmusch’s films stylistically individual or belonging to a movement?

Themes:

What are the themes that Jarmusch consistently explores in his films?

Collaborations:

How much claim do Jarmusch’s collaborators have to authorship of his films?

Style:

Intro: As part of my auteur study of Jim Jarmusch I have analysed the films Stranger than Paradise (1984), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and Only Lovers Left Alive (2014). I have analysed the stylistic elements of these movies in order to establish Jarmusch’s signature style.

Point: According to film theorist Andrew Sarris, stylistic characteristics are important to establish a filmmaker as an auteur. A directors film must be distinguishable and “must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Grant and Sarris, 2008).

Source: Jarmusch’s films definitely have an individual style. They are minimalist, experimental, and reserved, yet also deeply emotional. Jarmusch’s style is his own. As critic Jonathan Romney states, “Jarmusch can’t be easily pinned down to any cinematic wave or category” (Romney, 2014) . In every film Jarmusch stamps his personality onto it, through such things as referencing his influences and conveying his ideas through his characters’ subtly philosophical dialogue.

Evidence 1: Jarmusch’s signature style first came into fruition in his first feature, Stranger Than Paradise (1984). An example of a signature micro technique Jarmusch uses in the film is black and white cinematography. The black and white colours create a sense of similarity between locations, in order to create a feeling that the characters are lost in a country where all locations seem to have a uniform dullness. This can also be seen in the dialogue, such as when Willie remarks “It’s the same Chesterfields, all over America”, and when Eddie states “You know, it’s funny. you come to someplace new, and everything looks just the same”. Jarmusch would go on to use this monochrome filter in his films Down By Law (1986) and Dead Man (1995), other pictures that display outsiders losing themselves in a black and white conformist America.

Evidence 2: Jarmusch’s consistency of style can be seen in his collection of vignettes, Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). Jarmusch’s collection all have a standardised technique which creates a consistent style, which stylistically links the vignettes. The vignettes all use the same shots: an establishing shot, a two shot, two one shots, and an overhead shot. The use of this standardised procedure makes the vignettes intently recognisable as part of the collection.

Evidence 3: In Only Lovers Left Alive (2014) Jarmusch explores the vampire genre, however he actively avoids the genre’s stylistic conventions. This can be scene in the films final scene, and evidently it’s final shot. Adam and Eve go to attack there victims, and the shot is edited to slow motion as they approach. As they approach, the film’s score, which Jarmusch himself wrote with his band SQURL, is calming, instead of suspenseful. The sound is completely opposite to the generic sounds of horror. Finally, as Adam and Eve bare their fangs in order to attack their victims, the shot cuts and the credits roll. The action of the vampire genre comes from the scenes in which they attack their victims, however as this is a Jarmusch movie the focus is not on the action, but the calming nature of the vampires stalking their prey.

Explain: Jarmusch’s direction on these three films establish a distinct style that is recognisable and individualistic. This adds to the argument for Jarmusch’s auteurism, as his films have a style that is expressive of his personality, and that the audience can recognise as his.

Evaluate: However, there are some critics who would argue that Jarmusch belongs to a group of postmodern American filmmakers...

Themes:

Intro: Jarmuch’s films are all linked by running themes. These include foreign perspectives of American culture, outsiders, obscure music, and existential crises.

Point: Themes create meaning in film, they express the directors thoughts. They contribute to what Andrew Sarris describes as “interior meaning” (Grant and Sarris, 2008), the director putting personal meaning into the film,

Source: A prominent theme that runs through Jarmusch’s movies is outsiders. All of Jarmusch’s protagonist are somehow outsiders of their society, critic Simon Hattenstone describes Jarmusch’s characters as tending to be “losers, drifters and strays” (Hattenstone, 2004).

Evidence 1: In Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Eva and Willie are outsiders to American society, their Hungarian roots making them inherently foreign to the society./ However instead of portraying this difference of the characters as negative, Jarmusch uses their outsider nature to celebrate individualism. This can be seen when Eva comments on the dress Willie has bought her to help her to conform to American society. In her dialogue Eva remarks “I think it’s kinda ugly, don’t you?” ,and “I don’t really wear this style”. Eva rejects the American culture as by conforming to it she will lose her ‘style’ and individualism. Compared to Eva, Willie has rejected his Hungarian roots, changing his name to fit in. Yet he is still an outsider and is much more lost than Eva. Willie gives the symbolic prop of the dress to Eva in order for her to join him and conformity, as he is alone. A few scenes before he gives her the dress, Willie is prominently playing solitaire in the foreground of the shot, a lonely game for a lonely character.

Evidence 2: In Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) Jarmusch casts a range of counter cultural as outsider nicotine and caffeine addicts. Their behaviour is constantly questioned, such as in the piece of dialogue Jarmusch repeats in multiple of his vignettes, “Coffee and Cigarettes, that isn’t a very healthy lunch”. Their behaviour is seen as abnormal to the ‘normal’ character, who usually take the form of waiters such as in the vignettes ‘Renee’ and ‘Twins’.

Evidence 3: Outsiders to human society, Swinton looking at them like prey

In Only Lovers Left Alive (2014) the characters are outcasts to the society of the humans, who they refer to as ‘Zombies’. This can be seen in the last scene, where the two ageless lovers look at the young couple with disdain. Swinton’s performance shows how the character of Eve views the couple as something she does not understanding. The lovers then decide to use them as a means of survival, literally taking their life from them and using it so they can carry on living as immortal outsiders.

Explain: Jarmusch’s characters are outsiders who are not dictated by the rules of their society. This theme is present in all of Jarmusch’s movies, regardless of the genre or concept, Jarmusch is able to make an outsider of any character, be it a bohemian, cigarette smoker, or vampire.

Evaluate: Another theme that links Jarmusch’s movies is Cigarettes...

Collaborations:

Intro: Jarmusch works with a multitude of culturally significant collaborators, such as actors whose individual personalities influence his films

Point: Jarmusch’s films are heavily dependent on the characters and subsequently the actors who play them. Although Jarmusch creates the characters and writes the dialogues, actors often improvise their lines.

Source: Jarmusch himself describes the influence of his actors, stating “Usually I write for specific actors and have an idea of a character. I want to collaborate with them on. The story is suggested by those characters.” (Keogh, 1992)

Evidence 1: Stranger Than Paradise’s meaning is mainly shaped by Willie and his interactions with American culture, Eva and Eddie. Willie is played by John Lurie, a Jazz musician who also wrote the score for the film. A lot pf the films droning feel relies on the score, often faded into in the cuts to black in between scenes and is abruptly stopped before the next cut. Lurie also appears in Jarmusch’s films that preceded Stranger Than Paradise(1984), Permanent Vacation (1980), and the film that proceeded it, Down By Law (1986).

Evidence 2: In Coffee and Cigarettes the actors often play fictionalised versions of themselves, the characters are based on a exaggerated versions of the actors’ personality. This adds to the collection’s meaning as a lot of the humour relies on the context of the actors, such as the ridiculousness of actor Bill Murray drinking too much coffee and going off the grid in ‘Delirium’. Improvisation was used frequently in the vignettes with these actors as they were practically playing themselves, and the use of the overhead shot allows Jarmusch to then edit the dialogue to fit with the improvisation.

Evidence 3: The film is heavily reliant on the two lead. Hiddleston and Swinton’s performances influence the film immensely. A lot of meaning is created in the film by the contrast between the characters of Adam and Eve. The effect of the actors’ performances is apparent in their body language, in the final scene the actors lean on each other as they are dying together, reflecting how they both rely on each other.

Explain: Jarmusch’s movies often rely on the context, performance and personality of the actors. This means that the actors have some claim to authorship as they have noticeable influence over the film.

Evaluate: Jarmusch is also influenced by the cinematographers he works with...

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nyklifsondiviiportfolio-blog · 7 years

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What is a Prose Poem?

The author I enjoyed the most was Anne Carson. Her book was the size of an average gravestone. The physical book was incredible, how it accordions out. The burn marks and juice stains. It is a piece of art. Reminds me of Basquiat. His notebook page poems and the ones that follow each other in circles. Even poems die. The form can be queered over and under. The intensity floats. You could put music to a prose poem and it would sound divine.

There is an emphasis on syntax? Syntax Syntax Syntax. If I write this paper as a poem will it count? Probably not. The pacing is what places stress on syntax. Got to have some crisp pacing. I am still vague on the line between denser concrete poetry and prose. Does having a picture not count as a format that allows for the thought to continue with space inbetween? The image doesn’t necessarily imply line breaks.

shape, configuration, formation, structure, construction, arrangement, appearance, exterior, outline, format, layout, design, body, shape, figure, stature, build, frame, physique, anatomy, semblance, manifestation, type, style, useage, convention.

Ubiquitously everything we read had a sense of immediacy. There is intensity that flows through a prose piece. If the idea of content controls the shape, how are some concrete poets not also prose poets? The typographical continuity is not the only determinant.

I am closer to knowing what a prose poem is than I was at the start of this class, but I think I need to just write more to figure out what a prose poem is to me and how I can work within my own limitations. The more I tried to talk about what a prose poem is considered to exist as--the more questions fell into my lap. The answers have all run for the hills and here I am with a final essay to write.

Is it a paragraph? Is it concrete? How will I ever complete this? Is a piece ever done? Should I write to a beat? When I read it out loud, in what way does my tongue hit my teeth? Are you listening? Could I be heard? Does any of this matter? Is it in paragraph form? How do I place these thoughts in my head head? Did the world lie to me? What is a paragraph? How many emotions are permitted in this format? Can spell-check correct my flaws? Is grammar useless? Am I useless? How many Audre Lorde Books stacked on top each other does it take to replace Atlas? I just have to make sure? That this piece does not have? Line Breaks.

I started reading more into line breaks, what are they? What do they want from me? When is one appropriate?

I have listened to more poetry than I have read. I do own the complete copy of Emily Dickinson’s work, but I mainly experience spoken-word poets. That’s why I almost did my project on Andrea Gibson. She speaks her poems in paragraphs, but writes them with line breaks to give her words the space they deserve. Until I bought her book I had only ever heard her poems, reading them is--embarrassingly--quite a new phenomenon. Most poetry in legible form. Now poetry can be written on a cardboard box, painted over, then stood on top of and recited. As long as someone has a piece of technology that records this is poetry. I really am unable to understand where the line is, besides in the line break.

I mainly think of prose poems being a part of an art piece or art being a part of those poems. Prose poems could just be a mural that is all text. I thought that was what abstracting the form was. The rhythm must be kept.

Prose poems happen in paragraphs and the paragraphs happen in writers. My skin is full of paragraphs. I sweat sestinas. The repetition keeps me up at night. The clock laughs at me. Each line brings me closer to the question. What is a prose poem? I respond with a gurgle. Seems my lungs are full of water. I have drowned in self-induced academic misanthropy. Hydrate. Research. I need to do lots of research. I ask Audre Lorde. She speaks so eloquently. But where exactly is the prose? A nod of the head. A mouse clicks. This pad never ran track, for it is unable to keep up with the scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling down.

I reach the end of a line. Break away to a new tab. I’ve gained nothing. But have I lost nothing? It is too late. I am always late. Are prose poems meant to be understood? Perhaps they listen to angsty rap in their rooms and think their friends hate them. Misunderstood loners. That is what a prose poem is. Eureka. A dead end. Reverse and backtrack. So they have a continuous flow. They would sneak up in class for weeks to come in workshops.

There is continuous intensity in a prose piece that flows. In understanding this fluidity, I feel more able to distinguish a poem not written in verse, from fiction writing. Reading pieces by Anne Carson and Cold Calls by Tyrone Williams helped me better understand how to create a rhythmic pacing when: workshopping, reading, and writing poems. This semester my synapses connected more to try to grasp the lyricality of prose. It seems most prose poems are in paragraph form. They cannot have too many line breaks.

Robert Bly seems very opinionated on what he thinks “one of the major differences” between a haiku and The Prose Poem “is that the prose poet is simply too lazy or stupid to break the poem into lines”(153). Both flow. I want to argue that the essence is in the rules of each poem’s form. There is a harder rhythm in these longer writings. This leads me to believe that Lydia Yuknavitch--In The Chronology of Water writes prose. There is a majesty in elegiac thoughts that appear in a construction similar to a story, but retains the title of poem.

Of course, plot can and does exist within many prose poems. Utterances of the intention within a piece can be conveyed through line breaks. Just, not too many; Her novels move from moment to moment where a chapter could be labeled prose. She keeps a steady rhythm. I tried to emulate her dedication to modern-published-ballads in my own writing. But I am still unsure whether or not I am complying with pre-existing or internally created verse-forms.

The initial idea or fleeting moment is what inspires the basis my work’s shape. I started off thinking of prose being a part of an art piece, or images being a part of those poems. Editing--tense decision making--is what I continue to improve on in my writing. The evolution of my pieces this over this course has involved getting rid of extraneous language and deciding when is the appropriate use of spaces between lines. These decisions can make or break my work’s flow. I learned how to write and unpack prose.

The writers are in their paragraphs--the words are in paragraphs--I will build paragraphs and fill them with prose. But I am scared that my meaning will get lost within my made-up form. I will strive for continuity. In Grave Digging I was able to find a momentum from reading blue Maggie Nelson poems. I did not break without following parenthetical lines. Similar to building muscle mass, I must keep on keepin on myself to practice producing creative writing.

At least I know where to draw the line--absolutely nowhere in my writing. I cut out parts of my writing people were confused by or that are not technically prose. I took longer picking out words so there is no need for a poignant line break. I looked closer into what images I want to form. Because, I am capable of writing a good poem. I have an interesting perspective and flow.

Thank you for such a wonderful class and opening my eyes to the wonderful world of poetry trapped within blocks of text.

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