Week 3

Assignment:
1. Identify the emotional shapes of your 3 favorite stories that you picked in week. Draw them out and annotate the key moments that create those shapes.
2. Create a 3-act story spine of your favorite "What if.. " scenario. Fill it in with the beats for each of the acts, but no need to go into small details. A paragraph or a few bullet points per act would do.
3. Read nielsen_FromUserToCharacter.pdf Download nielsen_FromUserToCharacter.pdf, select 3 quotes and write one paragraph response to each one.

Emotional Shapes

What-if: Three-Act structures with beats

What if we had a more immersive invitation that allows invitees to attend the event remotely? The coordinators of the event can set a time duration, and those attending the event remotely can join as a holographic figure to view events, such as a graduation or a wedding.

‍Act I: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Plot Point One
-Sophia van Persie and Jenny Peterson have been best friends for their entire lives, despite their opposite personalities.
-Sophia and Jenny are in high school and apply for college.Sophia gets into UCLA.
-Jenny decides to play professional volleyball in Denmark.
-Sophia says goodbye to Jenny as she moves to Denmark.
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Act II - Confrontation: Rising Action, Midpoint, Plot Point Two
-Ten years has passed since high school.
-Sophia struggles financially while starting her own pottery studio in Los Angeles.
-Sophia receives a wedding invitation from Jenny that will take place in Denmark.
-Sophia has an option to attend remotely through holographic technology.
-N’Synced technology sends her the materials needed to join the wedding remotely.
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Act III - Resolution: Pre Climax, Climax, Denouement
-The ceremony begins.Sophia watches Jenny exchange vowels with her fiancee, Gabriel.
-Sophia makes a toast to the newly married couple.
-Jenny and Sophia reconnect during the reception.
-The remote event timer ends and Sophia returns back to her surroundings in Los Angeles.

From user to character – an investigation into user-descriptions ins cenarios by Lene Nielsen

• “To me it seems important to know and be conscious of the user as a character in the written scenarios.” (p.2)
  
  This is such an important lesson for storytellers.  Many times, it can be easy to just describe characteristics and personality of a character you’ve created. But to actually give a character some “life” to it, the storyteller must be empathetic to that character and immerse themselves in those situations they put their character in, so that the audience can really understand the character.
• “Even though we are all individuals, we are not completely unique. We have a common language created by the time and the cultures we are part of. This makes no two persons identical because we all participate in different social groups. And it is the multitude of experiences that creates the character. (p.5)”
  
  I appreciate how the author describes the difference between an individual and a character.  The author describes individuals as people who come from the same group of culture. Thus why they reason that individuals are not entirely unique from one another due to this commonly shared language.  However, it the different social groups that the individual involves themselves in that makes them unique.  Through these social groups, the individuals all go through a unique set of experiences, which ultimately leads to the development of character.
• “As the stereotypes will function as a mental picture they will never enable an understanding of the user.” (p.6)
  
  This is such a great quote and also a good lesson for storytelling. Stereotypes prevent the user to really display its character due to the assumptions created from these stereotypes.  How can a user really show its true entity if there are all these stereotypes blocking its form? This ties back to creating a user or character with empathy to ensure the character is understood.