Tag: characterization

Flash Your Fiction Workshop Writeup

Day One

worddiceLast night’s Flash Your Fiction class at Howard Community College went great!
 
We talked creativity, freedom to create, and sparking the flame. We put a little science in our fiction and did the Cloud in a Bottle activity and it applied perfectly. (I am just starting to incorporate different aspects of the activity into every presentation I do. It applies to them all.)
 
Then, we wrote flash fiction from a prompt word (they had one minute to write a story). And then prompt pictures (ditto). And they did great. It was hard for them to start but once they did they hated having time called on them. But the urgency of having such limited time bumps you into fight or flight and if you decide to stay and fight, the words become your playthings and then the writing explodes!
 
Interestingly, all but one of the students were willing to read their work out loud. The last one had trepidation and downright fear about it. But then, I found a solution. I used a modification of the excellent Mobius Corpse activity (created by my friends John Cooper or Jacob Davenport or some combination of the two) and had the whole class write a single story collaboratively. Then, they read the entire circular story out loud. Once the student realized she was part of a team, she was able to read the rest of her stuff aloud perfectly well. You never know what will push past the boundaries and break through the fear but when you hit on it, it’s magic!
 
After that, we gambled and threw my Word Dice (object, location, profession) and Word Cards and the students got homework to do writing sprints with their word cards and also to eavesdrop shamelessly everywhere they go. Like my “Overheard” project, they will hear tantalizing snippets that will yield story ideas if not outright novels.
 
Next week, we continue with more exercises using the Word Dice, and we will discuss plotting, compelling dialog, pacing, and characterization and how to access those before you edit.
 
We will finish up with some editing exercises and resources before I send them off to their new writing lives. Exciting!
 
Really, I could have taught an entire eight-week class on this and had material left over, but I’m glad I’m going to leave them wanting more. 🙂

Voiceover/Narration Beginner guide

Here is some information on getting into voiceovers. First and foremost, you need an awesome demo. If you want to listen to what my demos sound like, go to my voiceover page. http://IzoldaVoice.com

Once you have to great demos, you need to submit your demos to various agencies in your area. There are tons of talent agencies. A lot of times they want you to do the work in-house. But sometimes they’re willing to let you do it from your own studio.

So, for a commercial demo, if you don’t already have one, you need to go and find taglines from magazines or from commercials that you really like and create the demo around them. Listen to my commercial demo for that. It’s gotten me a fair amount of work. So, I consider it good. Then, you’ll want to find snippets no longer than a minute and a half and read aloud books, and put a few tracks down of various genres. If you have any other languages or accents, you can highlight them as well.

The most recent thing that a lot of people are doing is going through Amazon’s service. It’s called ACX. You can find them at http://ACX.com and that’s where authors go when they need a voiceover artist and that’s where voiceover artists go who want to be able to submit themselves for doing voiceovers. You can take a look at my page on there if you search for me. Under my name.

Also, http://Upwork.com is another place to upload your demos and set yourself up as a voice for hire.

If you want additional help on how to create your demo, the equipment I use, or how to set up a home studio, drop me a line. I will likely put this information up in future posts, but it might be a bit before I get to it.