confused about idea (1 Viewer)

[ahen]

ok well my english ext 2 teacher reckons my ideas are good...but too cliche.
how the hell is anyone supposed to compose something totally original "with flair" (according to the syllabus)

i've got someone doing a series of suicide letters ( but not teen angsty)
someone studying "love"
someone studying the idea of "truth"
another person looking at a migrant's journey to another country

aand i can't remember the others.

i was thinking of doing something that takes the idea of desire ( not sexual) and like explores it in a surrealism vs. realism kind of way.
my teacher thinks that can easily get too cliche and teen angsty. i agree with him , and i know he's doing it for my benefit cos the markers can be quite cruel.

so now i'm thinking of doing the whole desire thing, in a gothic kind of way , like maybe a gothic fairytale or something - like someone was sooo fuelled by desire and then yadiyada. i did a gothic fairytale in yr 10 and my teacher loved it and said i had great imagry and stuff.

but yeah are there any themes or concepts that are just really really cliche and are just FLOGGED to death? so that i know what to avoid? and do you think the idea that i just presented up there falls into that flogged to death cliche catagory?
thanks!

 

[shimmy&shine]

the exploration of the 'human condition'

i think the best way is, no matter how overdone an idea is, it's your agnle on it.
Suicide for example (though don't even think about touching this topic), one can utilise a clever angle on it and not make it cliche.

 

[shimmy&shine]

And, i have to agree with that also.

For example, with my major work (I'm using it as an example because I've obviously already used the concepts and techniques, and noone can steal it- or beware! Markers have good memories)

I wrote a series of poems on Sylvia Plath. Now this 'concept' alone, some would say is sufficient. But I thought it was lacking something fundamental. So the angle i implemented was that i examined Plath's life, persona, cycles, and ambiguities, through the religious theories of Robert Grave in his book 'The White Goddess'. This book actaully shaped a lot of Plath's poems, so I used his theories on the Moon Goddess, applying them to the life of Plath. So that's an example of angle.

Go beyond the obvious, make it exciting, unusual and clever. Make the marker go, "typical concepts. but wow, they made it so refreshing, innovative, and captivating". I tried to aim for this reaction, although (if I'm allowed to say so) I'm too modest to say I achieved this in my work. But what I'm trying to underline here is that is the perspective that makes it work and hopefully get into the A range.

By the way, be open minded with the research process. no one expects you to suddenly go: "tada, I've gotten an amazing angle". My advice, but I'm sure there are other ways, is when you research, don't just stay narrow. Go in different directions. You may uncover soemthing that other people are to afraid to touch on. Especially for creative writing, you need a refreshing perspective where the reaction you're trying to initiate in the marker is "i never knew that, or this person has defineitly done their research, otherwise they couldn't have written this". People go on about how much they done the whole independant investigation thing, but the truth is, it has to be EVIDENT in your work.

In regards to my major work, I was reading all these biographies and memoirs, but quite honestly, i wasn't heading in any direction, other that fattening my knowledge on Plath. It even started to get to the point of "I know this". So I took a different route in my research.

-I met one of Sylvia's Plath's biographers Paul Alexander, and talked to him about his research. He met up with her mother!
-I attended a play on Sylvia Plath, with my friends. not only an enjoyable night out, but you learn a lot, get interesting ideas and so forth. You directly experience other people's interpretation of your ideas.

Also, as you are reading and researching, one book always links up to another. I think I was reading some obscure memoir, when they mentioned an interesting book called "Chapters in Mythology". Because I had gone to every major public library and dug up all the Sylvia Plath materials, when I read the title of this book, i was like "what!? I've never heard of this book before!" I went a huge hunt for this book. After reading a tiny abstract from the book, I was like "no way, this is exactly what i need, as a means for justification of my ideas and my work". Thing was, only like 15 libraries in all of AUstralia had it. Only 3 in NSW (i think). But it was all private access, etc. It was impossible to come by. Thankfully there was a copy at Macquarie uni library. When i read it, my eyes literally popped out of my head. IT WAS PERFECT. it encompassed the angles i was using for my Major work. But the most imporant aspect was that, it was a rare book. Not an aspect of Plath that many people touch. especially with english extension two. So i had finally grasped an original idea and angle. yay! You to will also get to this point, just be patient. Unless you achieve it another way.

The moral of the story is that one book or area of research will lead onto another. you will not get to the all important point C if you do not reach point B from A first. Yeah, some people may disagree, but this was my experience.

My friend wrote an amazing short story on problems like AIDS in africa. There are the obvious facts and figures and that's it. But she immersed herself in the research of the culture, political figures, history. And you say to yourself whilst your reading it "she has done her research, wow! I never knew that".

read widely and extensively! can't stress that enough. It will come through your work.

 

[ahen]

woah very detailed replies! much appreciated =D hmmm have been thinking and was talking to my teacher again today - we were brainstorming and cos we'd done "taboo" in yr 11 we were thinking of ways to incorporate that into an appropriation. still early days yet but he was saying that the issue of taboo could be "taboo" in itself (lol) or look at the ways taboo is NOT explored or something.
argh too much thinking to do now i hate it! all these random thoughts not going anywhere and my proposal's due in week 9!!!

 

[glitterfairy]

* write down ALL ideas

* write ABOUT all ideas

* cull the crap ones, keep the good ones, etc etc. You'll find it easier to focus on a singular concept when you have a smaller/better quality pool of ideas to work from.