What an enriching scriptwriting session we had with Lav Kanoi on Saturday! Ah, there’s nothing like a guest session to bring a fresh spurt of energy to our creative writing programme.
“What is a story?” That’s the question Lav began with.
I like the question. What is a story, really? As we talked about it, we came to the realisation that a story can be anything. Can’t it? But that leads to the question, is there anything that a story cannot be?
The discussion that followed led to the idea of form, which brought us to the idea that various forms – a song, a play, a story, a film script – are different because they serve different purposes.
One thing led to another, and through all the excited exchanges, one conversation stands out.
“A play wants to be performed,” Lav said. “Sure, you can read it. But reading a play is incomplete. It wants more. It’s like a tape. It wants to be put in a tape recorder–wait, do you know what a tape recorder is?”
No one said ‘yes’, no one said ‘no’.
“Ah. A CD! Do you know what a CD is?”
“Yes! A computer disk!”
“And what does the disk do?” asked Lav.
“You insert it!” one child said.
“Where?” asked Lav.
“Into a CD player!”
“And what’s on the CD?” asked Lav.
“Um … a movie? Or a song? Something.”
So much for the simile. CDs aren’t sitting around wanting to be played. Tapes aren’t sitting around at all.
Despite it all, the point was conveyed. Lav ended with a fun activity (during which he also pretended to be the Cheshire cat) on Alice in Wonderland, inviting the children to convert an excerpt into a script. We’ve broadened the activity now, taking suggestions from a couple of participants. I’ve asked them to do anything they wish to with the excerpt, playing with a form of their choice. They can write a dialogue or a monologue, a song or a poem. If they want, they can create a video, do voices, record an audio script, anything! I’m waiting to see what they come up with!
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