Thursday 20 February 2014

Fate is real, and he likes to mock you


The following scenarios illustrate how Fate works in this world of his. You neither argue with him, nor avoid him. If you try, you will be mocked. Simply accept: Fate isn't your enemy; Fate is your god.

1.     Watch one episode of a television series. I dare you. One year from now, you'll turn on your TV, stumble upon that show, and realise that it's the same episode - the episode Fate chose for you.

2.    Steve comes over. He shows you a YouTube clip, thereby giving you permission to show him one.
Yes! you think to yourself. This will be great!
Two minutes in; your favourite part's coming up. Steve has to see this.
*Bzzzzd!* It's his phone. No! Don't read your petty texts! Look at the video!
Fate whispers in your ear. "He missed it."

3.     Time to drive to Jen's engagement party, but the music in your car sucks, so you turn that knob, you flick those radio stations. A song you like! Yay!
Wait... is this the first chorus or the third? This better be the start--
*Slap!* Have you no faith, fool? The song's nearly over! Bow to fate!

4.     Dear human,
Want to pass that truck on the highway? Be my guest. Meanwhile, I'll just shrink this passing lane over here… 
What? You needed that? I'm sorry; I didn't know. 
- Regards, Fate

5.     Not all hope is lost. Back at home, you still have that movie on your USB stick; and, fortunately, after plugging in USBs a thousand times, you've mastered the rotation to fit it in on the first try. The trick is to get it on the side that's-- DAMN IT, FATE!

Saturday 8 February 2014

Flint and Steel: Episode One

A story I wrote for Nicky Brown. Happy birthday, Nicky!

Episode One
Special Agent Nicky Brown's comms device doubled as a hand grenade, or perhaps a finger grenade, given that she wore it on her finger rather than on her hand. 
“Hurry up, punk!” she whined into the ring. Shiny plastic overtop hidden explosives and wiring was all it comprised, but the naked eye saw gold and diamond. “The year is 2148, Rowan. A simple door shouldn't take this long to hack!”
“Shut up, will you?” the voice on the other end replied. Nicky pictured Rowan typing away whilst straining to keep his obnoxiously lengthy beard out of his motherboard. His beard was so bushy that the last time he’d moved closer than two feet from his work bench, he’d started a fire. Nicky sighed at the thought. I keep telling him to trim that thing.

After waiting for over five minutes on the rooftop of a currently airborne Ozricks spacecraft, Nicky wished she’d brought her dolls to play with. But the only toys sitting in her handbag were her hairbrush and her hologram device. Boring.
These spacecrafts typically served as the Moonopian police, which patrolled the districts in an endless loop. As they flew, their ominous shadows curved over the city’s buildings and houses; but even if you were safe inside, the arbitrary and overtly loud beep boop noises they made reminded you that you were always being watched. Anyway, this craft, the craft upon whose roof Nicky stood, was many times larger than the others, and Nicky had received word that vital intel awaited her within its double-doors. She waited outside the doors, which, oddly enough, refused to open to the stomping of her foot.
“I’m bored,” she said.
“Then find something to do. Just… don’t jump.” Rowan’s words were hard to comprehend over the sounds of typing and static, and the muffling effect of his all-consuming beard.
Nicky frowned. “If you don’t hurry up, maybe I will!”
The seconds ticked on and boredom intensified. Nicky found herself drawn towards the ship’s margin, but in the same way that her boredom had made her forget her fear of heights, when she peered over the edge, her resultant scream swallowed up any thoughts she’d had of killing herself. Two hundred feet below, people looked like ants, and she didn't much like the thought of being an ant, let alone a splattered ant. Her arms wind-milled as she vied with gravity to keep her balance, and then she staggered back, heart pounding. She was straightening her clothes when she heard noises emitting from her ring.
“Nicky,” came Rowan’s beard-ridden voice. “Nicky!”
“What?”
“The doors are open.”

One step away from the threshold, Nicky was taken aback at the sight of her reflection in the doorframe's metal surface. The wind, she realised, had made short work of her ginger hair, which now looked coarse enough to net a fish.
Brushing that tangle of orange from net into hair again took some time, but Nicky never rushed the things that mattered most in life. When finally a semblance of normality smiled back at her – which was to say that her hair came down from her head – she stepped inside. The entrance way was a long and narrow tunnel illuminated by white panels along its curved edges. She was still on her third step when two more sets of steps added their sounds to hers. Echoes, perhaps. But the sounds didn’t cease; they only grew louder. Nicky looked down to count how many feet she had. One, two… just two! Which means... which means... 
She wasn’t alone.

The spacecraft was so large that it had its own patrol unit: two guards, who exited through the double doors that Rowan had opened minutes ago. They stopped mere feet in front of the entrance and gazed at what appeared to be Nicky. These guards looked like twins with their black uniforms, blacker helmets and black-as-a-black hole machine guns. Nicky hadn’t brought a gun for herself; her handbag had refused to fit both hairbrush and pistol.
“Now, what’s a young lass like you doing on the rooftop of an Ozricks spacecraft?” Guard A asked.
“Yes,” Nicky replied.
“I think she’s shy,” Guard B advised.
“Probably. What’s your name, girl?”
“No,” Nicky said.
“Hmm? Don’t play games with me!”
“Yes.”
“Just shoot her and be done with it,” Guard B demanded. “She could be a spy.”
“Yes.” Nicky nodded, though the movement was jolty and strange.
“Last chance, girl.”
“No.” She stepped forward with the grace of a robot whose joints had glitched, while involuntary buzzing sounds emanated from her knees. Guard A reacted to her advance by aiming his sight at her forehead and firing. The bullet appeared to ignore her, however, continuing into the metal roof behind. Nicky stood unfazed as the guard fired again.
“Stop!” Guard B yelled. “It’s just a hologram. The real culprit is likely already inside.”
But the real Nicky wasn’t already inside. The real Nicky had grown so frustrated with the remote that controlled her hologram that she’d forgotten about her mission. You see, the buttons on this remote consisted of a joystick and a single red button. The joystick controlled Holo-Nicky's movements, and the button made her speak a random one of two words: ‘Yes’, or ‘No’. Now, positioned in a small nook between a railing and the wall of the entrance, behind the guards turning every which way, it seemed that the real Nicky was out of luck.
Yet they didn't detect her.
“Wait here,” A said. “I’ll check around the side.” Nicky sighed in relief. One guard will be easier to handle than two.
Ideally, B would have grown bored and joined A, which would have left the entrance free for Nicky to enter. But, unlike the order of the alphabet, this B character would not remain close to A, and the only thing she could do was wait. Patience, for Nicky, was hard; and when B took a step backwards, it only grew harder. She realised she was so close to him that he might hear her breathing or feel the pounding of her heart.
Of course, there was one ace Nicky still had up her sleeve – or rather, up her finger, given that she wore it on her finger and not up her sleeve. Her turn came when B let the gun rest on its sling in order to stretch his arms. Silently, she unsheathed her ring, plucked off the diamond, leaned forward and slotted the ring onto B’s pinky finger. The guard was none the wiser.
Guard A returned to say, "I found nothing. By the way, what’s that thing on your fin-
But it was much too late for him. Before his dialogue could reach its statutory end quote, Nicky sprang forward and shoved B into A. She took cover again just as the two guards exploded in a fiery display of blood and entrails. Two letters were at once dispersed like eraser on pencil. Amidst the resulting smoke and blood gaped a sizeable hole in the ship. Nicky wiped someone's intestines off her face as she realised that everyone on board would now be either evacuating, rushing up to confront her, or both. Fortunately, there was one device Nicky carried on her at all times – one that didn’t require the space of a handbag. Kneeling beside a piece of blood-drenched uniform, she focused the camera of her wristwatch at its front. Within seconds, a fully new set of uniform, helmet included, materialised right in front of her. Ordinarily, this effort would be fruitless. Surely there was no time to change out of her clothes! Or was there?
Before her career as a spy, Nicky was a world-class dancer; and, like all world-class dancers, she was forced to acquire a certain talent, namely the ability to change her clothes in the blink of an eye. In other words, Nicky was far from ordinary. So it was, seconds before two dozen guards appeared, she successfully changed into her new uniform, rolled herself in blood, and laid in the mess as a survivor. Moments later, sympathy and shock covered the face of every guard, two of whom left and returned with a stretcher. When they'd hoisted and carried her inside, she pressed a button on her left earring and whispered, “I’m in.”


------------
Nicky, let me know if you want to find out what happens next.

Friday 7 February 2014

How to write an English essay

--UPDATE-- 
I've made a new site dedicated solely to teaching academic writing! Click here to check it out! Every week you'll find a new tutorial, and every tutorial will be easy to read and easy to learn. I'm also writing an ebook that I'll give away free to anyone who subscribes. I hope the site proves useful!
Sadly, I will probably no longer be updating this site. But the new site is better. In every way.

Recently, a friend asked me if I have a template I give to the students I tutor that breaks down essay writing into basic steps. The answer was yes and no. Every student is different; and while I do have a method that I teach them, I also adapt it to the given need of each particular student. What I didn't have was a template that students (and anyone else) could use to teach themselves. After four years, it was about time that I did.

The following template is structured to help high school students understand the steps and processes required to write a logically-structured English essay. If I had to be more specific, I'd say the following guidelines and examples are suited to a Year 12 or Year 13 student preparing for their English exam, though many of the principles apply to any literary or academic essay.

Some fundamental rules for any Literary Essay:
  1. A basic Essay consists of an Introduction, three Body Paragraphs, and a Conclusion.
  2. Since your Essay seeks to answer a question, every Body Paragraph must answer this question, but each body paragraph discusses a different topic to each other paragraph; it answers the essay question differently. Why? Because answering a question three times rather than once is like surveying a thousand people rather than a hundred. It's more credible.
  3. The Body Paragraph structure goes like this: Statement, Example, Explanation, Relevance. Why? Because any logical argument uses this structure, and your Essay is more or less a set of three logical arguments.
  4. It's about a million times better if you plan your Paragraph Topics and Examples ahead of writing your Essay.

Essay Structure
(If you already know the structure, but aren't sure how to answer your particular essay question, then click here)

Your Essay essentially consists of three different Sandwiches inside a fourth, all-consuming Burger Bun. Body Paragraph 1 is a Tuna Sandwich; Body Paragraph 2 is a Steak Sandwich; and Body Paragraph 3 is a Ham Sandwich. Holding these Sandwiches together are your Introduction (bottom half of burger bun) and Conclusion (top half of burger bun).


In other words, an Essay is a giant Sandwich Burger, and the best Essays make for the sandwich-iest of Sandwich Burgers.

Essay Topic
When choosing your Essay Topic, pick the topic that you know the most about. For instance, I chose this one.

Discuss how the influence of a character in a film you have studied helped to convey a main idea.

Now, before you do anything else, substitute specific terms for the general terms given in your Essay Topic. It makes it easier for you when you come to writing your Introduction.



Note that 'main idea', 'author's purpose', 'central idea', and other such phrases all mean the same thing as the word 'theme'.

Common question: "The essay topic didn't mention film techniques. Does this mean I can ignore them altogether?"
Answer: No! You might pass without a mention of film techniques, just as you might pass without using any quotes. To get a high mark, however, you will want to write as rich a discussion as possible, which means lots of quotes and lots of techniques!

The Introduction
Your Introduction is called an Introduction for a reason: it introduces the content for the rest of your Essay. In burger terms, it prepares the bottom of the burger bun for the three Sandwiches that you're about to assemble on top of it.

An Introduction must contain the following information: The title of your text; the name of the author/director; the main idea (theme) you've chosen; the three topics you're going to discuss that prove (or justify) your main idea; and why the reader should care.

So, for your Introduction, here is the information you might use:
Title: Equip Your Comma or Die
Director: Conifer Miteroot
Theme: Good grammar prevents chaos
Paragraph topics: 1) Anna's introduction; 2) teenagers' change in perspective; 3) Anna's death.
Message for society: Preservation of language

Assuming that this film actually existed, here's an introduction that you might write based on the above information:



Tips for your Introduction: 
  1. If you don't know how to start your Intro, begin with the phrase 'In so and so's text...' and, from there, turn your Essay topic into a declarative sentence, as above.
  2. Never use the phrase 'In this essay...'. It's as tacky as a novel beginning with the words 'Once upon a time...'.
  3. Don't consider the length of your Intro; it has nothing to do with anything. Instead, focus on the information that your Intro is supposed to provide. As soon as you've covered everything, move on to your Body.
  4. Each Sandwich must be its own flavour; every paragraph topic must be different.
  5. The message to society part of your Intro simply means stating what the overall message is to us as viewers.
Congratulations! You've now completed the bottom half of your burger bun.


The Body 
The body consists of your three Sandwiches. Each Sandwich must be compiled with the right ingredients for its desired flavour (topic), and these ingredients must also be compiled in the correct order. In case you've forgotten the order, it goes as follows:

Statement - A declarative sentence, or a bold claim that has yet to be proven. (For instance, the first sentence of my Introduction is a Statement.)
Example - Briefly describe the part of a scene from the text that you believe provides proof for your Statement.
Explanation - Explain your Example to show how it connects with your Statement.
Relevance - Show how your proven Statement is evidence of the main idea (theme).

For some people, it's easier to pretend you're answering four questions:

Statement - What is one scene from the text in which the theme was shown?
Example - Where's the proof?
Explanation - What's your point?
Relevance - What has your point got to do with the theme?

Don't move on until you've answered all four questions!

Tips for building your Sandwich (Body Paragraph):

  1. Always start with a Statement and always end with your Relevance.
  2. In between your Statement and your Relevance, you may have as many Examples and Explanations as you like, so long as you never leave an Example unexplained.
Here's a Body Paragraph you might write for the first Paragraph Topic:




Quotes and Techniques
The use of quotes is expected from you for any English essay, and the use of film techniques is expected from you for any English film essay. Why? Because the theme is always shown through the use of techniques. Anna Postrophe's character introduced order within chaos not because I said so, but because the arguing stopped upon her arrival. This shift in mood was supported through her orderly clothes (costume), the light from the street sign (lighting) and her cane (props). If you point out these details and then explain how they support the theme, you'll get lots of points!

Treat your Examples and Explanations as meat for your Sandwich, and treat quotes and techniques like sauces. Sauces add flavour to the meat you've already added; they show finesse in the art of Sandwichery. But never try to use quotes or techniques to make your points for you. You must have meat in order to add sauce!

Assemble two more Sandwiches, and then you'll be up to...

The Conclusion
My personal formula below makes Conclusions as basic as your Introduction.

Rephrase Intro - Restate the first part of your Intro in different words.
Summarise Body - Write a brief summary of your three Body Paragraph points.
Reflect - State what we as viewers can learn from the film.

Here's an example.



And that's the top of the burger bun!

Conclusion tips:
  1. If you're finding it hard to rephrase your Introduction, simply start the sentence with a different word. In the Intro I began with the word "in", while in the conclusion I began with the author's name.
  2. The summary in the Conclusion is a rephrased version of the summary in the Intro.
  3. The Reflect section is entirely made up. End how you like, so long as it follows from what you've already discussed. This section is also a rephrased and fluffier version of the 'relation to society' sentence that you wrote in your Introduction.
More tips:
  1. For the Intro and Conclusion, never write anything you'll have to explain. Remember, the Examples and Explanations form the meat for your Sandwiches, and your Sandwiches form your Body.
  2. The content for your Introduction and your Conclusion is based on what you write in your Body. For this reason, many students find it easier to write their Body first before writing their Introduction and Conclusion.
  3. Never repeat yourself.
  4. The Essay structure above applies to any literary essay, not just film. The only differences are the techniques.
  5. For higher marks, strain your vocabulary, apply accurate grammar and punctuation, and vary the structure of your sentences.

Copyright Matthew Ferri 2014

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