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14 November 2023

Posted by By Carla Hall

Proverbs

This week's session of Mayflower Creative Writers focused on those classic lines that we all say but often have no idea where they came from - proverbs.

 

From Abba to Wham! 

To set the mood, we chose two songs which we incorporated into our 5 minute freewrite. Next, Dom and Carla read a scene from A Few Good Men, highlighting 'another day another dolla' as a common proverb. We then explored cautionary tales: The Tortoise and The Hare, The Ugly Duckling, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and identified the proverb best fitted to those stories.


With the concept of proverbs explained and understood, we identified as many as we could, using the most inspiring proverb to create a story. The results:


·    A King who may live in a palace but is not a kind or regal man, is shot and killed by a cannonball. His remains lay splattered across his throne.
Proverb - A throne is only a chair covered with velvet. 


·   A teenage girl is daydreaming in science class, staring at the boy she has a crush on. He seems to have everything figured out, every action cool and effortless. Only, the boy does not feel this way and he is often self-conscious.
Proverb - don't judge a book by its cover. 


With the proverbs inspiring a story filled with characters and motives, it was time to send the characters on a larger journey – away from the proverb altogether. Linking back to A Few Good Men, we wrote this extension of our characters' journeys as film synopsis’. 


·    The teenagers were at it again, only this time the couple had started dating, broken up and the film trailer ends with Luke standing at Eloise’s door begging for her to take him back...

·    The King comes back as a ghost, prepared to haunt the castle and carry out his tyrannical ways, only to be intercepted by an optimistically annoying ward. Will the old king ever change?


The session left many questions unanswered, but we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, we'll wait to share our characters' stories next week, in Mayflower Creative Writers.


Eve's meme of the week: I can't find my German proverb notes.

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