For Other Professionals
The Exquisite Prompt Write It, Film It Video Contest
Susan Cooper
The Inspiration
More about Susan Cooper
Listen to this NPR interview to learn more about Susan Cooper's feelings about the film version of The Dark Is Rising.
She shares more thoughts about the film and about her own screenwriting experiences this interview with Write Away.
Susan Cooper is a novelist who also writes screenplays. She's a journalist who also writes picture books. But she's perhaps best known for being a writer of fantasy. Writers of fantasy, says Cooper, deal in "myth, legend, folktale, the mystery of dream and the greater mystery of Time. With all that haunting our minds, it isn't surprising that we write stories about an ordinary world in which extraordinary things happen."
The Prompt
Getting characters to talk to each other is one way that writers tell stories. After she completed The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper began working on telling stories through plays and scripts. When characters are on the stage or screen, the audience expects something to happen between the characters and often much of the story unfolds through what the characters have to say. You have two characters. One of your characters has just discovered that he/she can travel through time and has just returned from a visit to the past. He/she must convince the other character that time travel is possible and share what he/she learned while time traveling. Have your time traveling character reference at least two historic facts about the time period visited.
Write It
Start with where and when your story takes place and what action is taking place. Introduce your cast of characters and include physical description and age, disposition, special talents, and relationship to other character. Since you are not writing a narrative, you do not need to use dialogue tags to keep the reader from getting the characters mixed up. Use character tags in your script instead to indicate which character is speaking by centering the characters name (in all capital letters) above his/her line of dialogue.
Submit your science fiction film script.
Film It
We're asking that you tell your time travel tale with the words of your characters rather than using lots of special effects. Special effects are fine (and fun!), but focus on the story.
Upload your science fiction film.
Resources
More about Susan Cooper
- Biography and bibliography
- The Writing of Fantasy (video)
- Susan Cooper: Role of Fantasy in Children's Lives (video)
- The Lost Land
- Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children by Susan Cooper
- The Exquisite Corpse Adventure Episode 4: Dig That Pig by Susan Cooper
- The Exquisite Corpse Adventure Episode 17: SPEAK, MEMORY by Susan Cooper
