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"When I write a screenplay, I've diagrammed the architecture of the story. There's really got to be a structure; art demands it. I care more about structure, less about plots. Anything plot-driven feels a little more man-made, more manufactured. I'm always going toward something that's a little more true to life."

– Richard Linklater

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(possible) ARTEFACT EXCERPT

Typically when I start writing a new piece, I start with dialogue and build my characters from what they say. Conversation is a powerful tool and I would like to focus on it if I can. Nevertheless, below is the plan I have come up with so far, though one thing I forgot to include is how I aim to split my artefact in two. The first part taking place in the past, the second part EIGHT YEARS AFTER occurring in the present tense. 

Possible excerpts: 

1] Her pale blue dress swayed with the wind. Without missing a beat, she counteracted, “but what we see is habitual. We’re cultured on what and what not to see." She flittered her gaze down to her crisp white sneakers, hiding a shy smile. "Have you ever noticed that new lovers talk in their own secret code? Two people can have the strongest of feelings for one another, but do they express those feelings? More often than not, no. They dance around the topic, showing symptoms and sending signs. Confrontation scares us, no matter how much we demand it. We delude ourselves and entitle ourselves to a vision of who we’re not because that’s how we’re taught to see.” 

2] EIGHT YEARS AFTER

Though her features still rang true, wrinkles had started to seep through to the exterior of her skin. She was no longer the woman I met when we were 22. The passionate, young romantic view of the world was gone, extinguished, and replaced by practicality. Though it wasn’t such a bad thing, her hardened exterior made her all the more human. 

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LAGO INFERIORE, FUSINE, TARVISIO

“Un uomo è ricco in proporzione al numero di cose di cui può fare a meno.”  - Henry David Thoreau

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CONVERSATIONS WITH MY WIFE

“They’ll say that I found love and it’s alright / I’m so ready to run from the  spotlight.”

Jon Bellion is an artist and songwriter that, just be listening, can make my heart race and fill my mind with inspiration. 

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BEFORE SUNRISE (1995)

Before Sunrise, directed by Richard Linklater, stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. A French woman, Celine, and an American man, Jesse, meet on a train to Vienna and the two spend the entirety of the film walking around the city and talking, getting to know one another. Though the film includes elements of a narrative arc, which typically includes the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution, the climax is presented at the very beginning of the film: Jesse has to fly back to the USA the following day. The falling action doesn’t come, as there is no resolution to the story. He just leaves. 

There is no conventional plot; the two conversate with one another, living in between the rising action (exploring Vienna) and the climax (the depart). Despite the minimalist contrast to other films packed with content, Before Sunrise did well. Extremely well. It was highly praised and won the Silver Bear for Best Director and is now part of the famous Criterion Collection. To me, this emphasises the point that you don’t need to pack a story full of content for it to be good and worthwhile. 

I looked to this film as inspiration for my artefact. While I used to attend a book club, the main advice we got from guest authors was always, ‘write something you would want to read.’ I cannot get enough of books and films like these. Straightforward yet full of depth. I wanted to try and bring some of my own experiences into my own artefact with a minimalist plot like Before Sunrise. 

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- entries from my journal

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The universe is wider than our views of it.

Henry David Thoreau (via quietlotus)

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That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via helpingg)

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NARRATOLOGY

After researching narratology for the exegesis, I found the concept somewhat difficult to grasp yet intriguing nonetheless. I don’t believe it supported me in the planning of my own artefact, but I believe it will help me in the future to look deeper in what I read and also in my own work. The importance of understanding just how elements are presented and written into a text gave me the ah-ha! moment while reading about it and I found myself looking for the elements in the novels I read after learning about the topic. 

I found Aristotle’s findings were particularly interesting with his findings of the hamartia, anagnorisis and peripeteia and, if anything, this is something I want to aim to include in my own artefact. 

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THE GREAT GATSBY

A few weeks ago I sat down to finally read The Great Gatsby and I was in complete awe. In the last year, I’ve drifted from reading science fiction and instead have become engrossed with literature. In this time, I’ve been reading everything from Wilde to Woolf to Fitzgerald to Thoreau, but The Great Gatsby has been my favourite thus far. It completely exceeded my expectations, therefore, I’d like to talk about it.

Firstly, the so-called ‘American Dream’ is challenged and still remains relevant to this day. How, despite all the wealth he has obtained, it’s never enough unless Gatsby has Daisy.

Furthermore, there are many ways Jay Gatsby can be perceived and, depending on the time the novel is read, he can be many people to a singular reader. Someone could read the book at 20 and see Gatsby as a hopeless romantic and stuck on love yet could read it again 10 years later and see him as corrupted and too idealistic. Gatsby is so many people and his character is so deep and rich and (I believe) his persona changes depending on who is reading. Moreso, we, as readers, do not immediately love the character of Daisy Buchanan.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing is outstanding. It’s so simple, yet his sentence structure is so eloquent.

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“But Christian loves me and that is worth everything.”

Moulin Rouge! (2001) dir. Baz Luhrmann

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CHARACTER THROUGH OBSERVATION

Like Jay Gatsby, from the outside, he looks very well-educated, perhaps completing his studies abroad. He looks like the type to sit in his study, something I imagine to be built from rich dark oak while books line the walls, but perhaps his room was once littered with band posters some decades ago. His grey hair, which is now uniformly slicked back, was probably once full of colour and dishevelled in the rock scene of the 80s. I try to imagine what shade it was (maybe a chestnut brown) and wonder if his kids share it with him. 

His sand-coloured button-down pokes out from beneath his sky blue sweater, harmonising with the colour of his eyes. Those eyes that widen with content yet narrow in curiosity contrast against his pale pink skin. His clothes look pressed and linen-fresh and he dresses the way in which I imagine an Oxford student would. With his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, they look the type I’d buy in Milan, not in the tiny city of Adelaide. I wonder where he’s from. His accent is thick with an articulated twang, contrasting against the slurred and lazy Australian speech. His accent only enhances his well-educated manner but, despite this, I wonder more what his Astrology sign is.

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WRITING PROMPT

I’ve been reading a bit about Greek Gods and have been watching a lot of films recently; what would it be like to combine Greek Gods in a normal everyday setting? Greek Gods in high school?! 

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NOW I EAT PIZZA EVERYDAY.

He stretched out his pale arm before him as he shuffled his coffee-coloured hair with his free hand (the other steadily balanced the oversized pizza box). He closed his muted olive green eyes and a deep yawn escaped from his chapped lips. He glanced at the clock. 8:34pm. 26 minutes until he could go home and strip off his red firetruck red polo shirt and uncomfortably tight black pants and exchange them for his fuzzy pyjamas. He longed for the thought. By now he learnt that most people had already eaten, shared their pizza with their family or their wives, but not him. The smell wafted through the air and he drooled as the smell of cheese tempted him. Right on cue, his stomach growled; his tongue felt tasteless. Bored, he shuffled his feet, housed by his staple black vans. The back of his neck was slick with sweat from the heat of the oven and his body ached of hours of mindless standing. He glared at the clock. 8:35pm. 25 minutes, he thought and sighed. 25 minutes... 

TASK: Pizza boy.  MINI REFLECTION: I liked honing in on description and thought I got a lot out of it! Though I first wrote a story, I went and rewrote it into a description piece. I hope to add quite a bit of exposition work in my artefact and this helped me channel that! 

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“Who should defend the moon if not poets?”

— Antoni Slominski, tr. by Czeslaw Milosz, from “In Defense of the Moon,”

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