This year the Creative Writing Passion-Group on board were asked to make a series of brief reinterpretations of the Advent story for every day at lunch-time on board.
Here’s my two contributions:
Daniel (Part 1)
Phone Rings You have reached the extension of Meshack, Permanent Secretary for the office of Internal Affairs, Babylon. I’m afraid I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave a message and contact information, one of my scheduling staff will return your call. BEEP
Daniel: Mishack, this is Belteshazzar, if you could contact me please that would be great. I’ve had a bit of an odd, er, experience I’d like to talk about with you. Shalom, Click
Phone Rings You have reached the extension of Meshack, Permanent Secretary for the office of Internal Affairs, Babylon. I’m afraid I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave a message and contact information, one of my scheduling staff will return your call. BEEP
Daniel: Oh for goodness sake Mishael - answer your blasted phone! It’s me again, Daniel. Look, the dreams have been getting stranger. I swear I’ve not touched a drop of the King’s wine. So there were these beasts, coming out of the sea, all mixed up - a leopard with four wings, a lion, a bear, hideous. This wasn’t some stupid nightmare. Nightmares are way more mundane.
I can remember so vividly, like I was actually there - I’m not going to tell you every detail now… it all ended, somehow with me seeing into the thoneroom in heaven itself! And there, a “son of man”, like, how you described the fourth man in the furnace? The same! And he shows up in the throneroom, and was greeted royally, and then gets made ruler of the whole planet! An eternal kingdom, full of every kind of people, diverse and spectacular, immense and unlike anything we’ve ever seen, Mishael.
So I went and asked one of the court guards what on earth was going on - and he told me it’s all about the future, the beasts are kings who are coming, and eventually the Most High will judge the last kingdom, destroy it, and hand it all over to an eternal kingdom of His people.
Look - I honestly don’t know what it all means, brother. Or why on earth I had this dream. I thought these dreams from the Lord were supposed to be meaningful? How can I make SMART goals or an Action Plan from something like this?!
It’s terrifying, seeing the horrors of so far in the future - I know the Lord will send this Son of Man in the end - but it’s such a long way off - why tell me now? I wrote it all down - maybe you could come by to read through it. Perhaps someone else will find it encouraging. Call me. Click
Daniel (Part 2)
Featuring the Prophet Daniel (played by me) and his Life Coach (played by Dan Potter).
So this is Part 3 of my seminar / workshop on Story Telling that I did with the Logos Hope On-Board events Team. Here’s Part 1, and Part 2.
There’s an interesting alternative theory called, “The Hero’s Journey” (or “Monomyth”). There’s books written about this, some really cool ideas. A very approachable version is by Dan Harmon, the creator of Community. Ant Webb was the guy who introduced me to both Community, and the Hero’s Journey. We’ve been discussing it and used it as part of Matt’s Blog.
The Hero’s Journey theory says good stories are circular. You end up back where you started. They’re a journey from home, from comfort, from the concious, down into the subconscious, uncomfortable far away place, and back eventually home again. Of course, changes happen along the way.
The full theory has all kinds of Freudian stuff to do with being forced out of the mothers arms by the call of the father, eventually defeating the father, and returning eventually as a mother or father all that… (Seriously, Freud had issues.) Also, there’s loads of details that are reasonably important, and do make the story more compelling, but also, with much added complexity. So lets go look at Dan Harmon’s Story Circle instead.
He takes the circle concept, and breaks it into 8 simple parts.
We start off at " You". This is where " you" the audience relate to the main character(s). Preferably, the character should be in a place of comfort, or at least, be connected to some kind of easy-to-relate-to “home” situation. This could be a sailor at sea on the bridge, or a little bear playing a balancing game, or Garion at Faldor’s farm, a new student enrolling at community college, etc. It’s a starting point that the audience can relate to, and feel comfortable understanding. They don’t have to dig deep emotionally to connect with the main character. It happens automatically. This is the concious, mental understanding area.
Next is the " need". Something isn’t right, or some how the stable situation will be pushed off-balance. This is pretty close to the “problem” concept from the 3-act play model. Note, we’re still basically in the stable conciousness.
So, since there’s a need, I guess we’d better " Go" do something about it. This is where the Hero decides to actually leave their safe familiar environment, and go out into the world to solve the problem. We finally dep art the concious, and head into the scary subconscious / unconscious. The go ing can often be the most emotional part of the story. Or at least, the most emotionally motivated or driven part. Once the Hero is actually off fighting dragons and saving maidens, they’re too busy actually doing stuff to be all soppy and emotional.
Now that we’ve actually left, comes the big difficult part of the story, the Seek ing, or Search ing. We may not exactly know what it is we’re looking for yet - but we’ll find out. Many different avenues can be explored, different people met, etc. This can be long, arduous, and challenging. The main character should be growing and changing here.
This is the second part of a 3 part series, transcribing / “article-ifying” a training seminar I ran with the on-board events team on the Logos Hope. Here’s a link to the first part.
Aristotle and a suuuper simple model
Waaay back in 350 or so BC, a clever Greek dude (Aristotle) said that he reckoned a good story (or theatrical performance) had 3 parts to it:
Beginning
Middle
End
Yep. It’s what you’re taught in primary school creative writing. Expanding those a bit:
Beginning: Introduction to the main characters, and “The Problem”
Middle: The struggle or conflict, where the main characters confront “The Problem”
End: Where either the main characters or “The Problem” win, and everything resolves.
In some ways, the most important thing from this is that without a problem, there is no story. There has to be “something rotten in the state of Denmark”. Or else what keeps your audience more interested in the programme, than in what’s on their phones?
“3 act plays”
Taking this concept a bit further, is the traditional “3 act play”. Often our events aren’t done in acts, but the concepts are useful for thinking, “Where should I put the refreshment breaks?” and thinking how the story energy levels should map out best. Whether or not you actually use this model, it’s still an interesting one to look at, and see if it helps you.
The 3 acts are pretty close to the “beginning, middle, end” concepts from before, but expanded.
Confusingly, sometime the 3-act-play can be broken down in to 4 parts:
which progresses through the main character (and audiences’) perception of ‘The Problem’.
There’s “potential” for an interesting story - you set up the main character(s), and the problem. But they’re not actually in conflict yet (at least, as far as this specific narrative goes.) There’s resistance to the conflict - things get in the way, the problem isn’t fully understood yet, etc. Finally the conflict itself, actually doing something, rather than just trying to understand the problem, and finally the outcome, and cleaning up.
I mentioned that the Main Character and the Problem may not be in actual conflict yet. Just to note here, this is for the purposes of this narrative. For instance, in David and Goliath, Israel and Phillistia are at war at the beginning of the story. However, the Main Character, David, isn’t actually in personal conflict with Goliath, until much later.
So how do these 4 parts map onto a “3 act play”?
Act 1.
Starting off the play, you need some kind of event which introduces the reason for the story.
The children of Israel are at war with the Philistines. Jeff Winger starts at his new Community College; Darth Vader boards Princess Leia’s diplomatic space ship and takes her prisoner; The orb of Aldur is stolen; Little Bear is playing, and it’s getting late. Sometimes, this is called the ‘inciting incident’.
One thing to note is that this might not involve the main character. It’s setting the scene for the whole rest of the story, and may in fact be the cause for many different stories to happen. A murder has happened, but at least so far, the main character may not yet have been put on the case.
Recently I had the opportunity to do a workshop / seminar with the Logos Hope Events team about Theatre & Storytelling. I love theatre, and am very passionate about making (especially Childrens’) events into engaging stories, rather than just variety shows with a 5 minute message tacked on the end.
This is kind of a summary of what I covered, with some of the slides I made. There’s quite a lot of content, so I’m splitting it up into 3 posts.
Storytime!
To start off, we looked at 3 of David’s books, which I brought along.
Mealtime
Peekaboo Forest
Good Night, Little Bear
Mealtime is basically just a list of items you might find at mealtimes:
Spoon and Fork,
Brocolli,
Sippy cup,
Strawberry...
and so on. Not staggeringly inspiring. Often, however, events are organised in a similar manner. Get a list of things we want to put in (Introduction video, Korean fan dance, Refreshments, Sermon, Singing), have an MC or host link them all together (“Wow, that was amazing. Next we have…”) and suddenly you’ve got a programme.
In terms of energy levels of the audience, it looks something like this: Each individual item may be all right, but they’re not really connected, and nothing really keeps the attention. And it doesn’t get more exciting, and … well. I forgot what I was … er, better check facebook.
Peekaboo Forest is quite a bit better. Each page asks a question:
‘Who is hiding behind the spruce?’
there’s then a nice crinkly page to turn over:
Peek-a-boo! It’s the Moose!
So each page has quite a nice “energy” flow:
with good anticipation, etc. But in terms of overall story-arc, it’s very dull.
It really doesn’t go anywhere, and often programmes are like that too. Each individual item may be great, but you don’t lead the audience anywhere, and don’t have everything tied together.
Good Night, Little Bear is much more interesting. We read this to David almost every night, and even though it doesn’t have crinkly pages, he still seems to really enjoy it. The story is (essentially) little bear not wanting to go to bed, instead he goes off to play, until eventually he watches the sunset, it gets dark, and he realises he should have listened to Mama bear, and in fact he’s lost now and can’t find his way home. But then Mama bear, assisted by Little Bear’s friends, Mouse and Squirrel, come to find Little Bear. He hears them calling him, and runs to Mama Bear’s arms. He’s now feeling tired, and goes to bed. It’s really well told, with lovely pictures, and so on.
A much more complex rough energy flow chart.
So that’s the “energy flow” concept. Reasonably simple to grasp. If we are making an event which is a variety show / sandwhich programme, or a concert, then it’s worth thinking about this stuff, and saying “How do we want to start? Something big and fun to grab the attention, and then we can settle down a bit, work our way up to a climax, and then slowly bring it to a close…”.
Today was the captains dinner, like a special programme for high up local port officers, VIPs and so on, and I was asked to play background music while they were eating for 20 mins or so. There is someone I have played with before a few times, doing guitar/voice/ clarinet French songs, which seems to work really well. So we were going to play, but then today at about 4.30 I found a note in my workshop saying “Sorry, I can’t play tonight, but this STEPper will…” I’d never heard the guy play before, except once when he came around playing Christmas Carols with a few others (who couldn’t sing…). So I was moderately terrified. I’d rather not play at all than play badly. Not everyone else feels that way, alas.
To continue, I went for the sound-check at 5.15, and he said he could play classical guitar, and went and found one, and played a few classical pieces (I’m sure he could be good, but I think is very out of practice…), stopping and starting all the time, and I improvised around him. Also a few old hymns and stuff (Greensleeves…). Then tonight we went and performed, and it in fact was not so bad at all. Nothing too amazing, but they were all eating anyway, and so it doesn’t matter too much the few mistakes there were… we kept going and it sounded kind of OK though our monitor, anyway.
Tomorrow I will be MC for a programme in the morning, for 200 or so 12 to 20 year olds. Then in the afternoon/evening it’s I-night again, and I’ll be playing a small part in a drama. It’s possible that I may be in the Irish cultural dance as well. I went to the practice today, just to watch them prepare for tomorrow, but one of the guys didn’t show up, and they muttered a bit about if he didn’t turn up tomorrow… I’ve only been to 3 practices now for that! And it’s really quite complicated! Anyway. I don’t think so tomorrow.
My official and rather boring report of the A-team:
Our A-team was sent to Melacca to work with the Calvary (AOG) Church there.
We were involved in teaching 2 drama and 2 dance workshops, running a mini i-night / cultural evening with the other Melacca A-team, a school visit, children’s home visit, a programme about unity at a pastors’ fellowship breakfast, a bunch of church services, 2 Sunday school meetings, practical chores in the church building, one epic adventure across the city in search of pizza, and lots of eating.
The church looked after us very well, providing a beautiful “condo” for us to stay in (with a swimming pool downstairs!), plenteous food, bottled water, transport, and schedule.
They briefed us well when we arrived, giving us times we would be picked up and dropped every day, information about each programme, and so on. We then followed the schedule almost exactly for the whole week (I believe this is a first in Doulos history.)
One of the main highlights of the week was the cultural evening on Wednesday. We joined with the other Melacca a-team to provide a whole range of cultural items including dances, drama, videos, songs (in 3 or 4 languages), and much more. The students from the dance and drama workshops were able to perform two dramas, which was amazing after the short time we could spend with them, and we hope and pray that they will be able to continue to work and use their many gifts in the future. All in all the cultural evening was a great success with many compliments and expressions of thanks afterwards.
We were able to spend quite a bit of time just talking with the people of the church at meals, before and after programmes, and at our condo after hours. One girl sent in the first application to join the ship while we were there! Another guy was very interested and spent a few hours one evening with us, asking questions and telling us about his life, with all of us sharing with him our own testimonies, and of how we were able to join the ship.
I’m going on A-team next port!! Yes! Another Doulish word with an unintelligible prefixial letter. In this case “A” stands for “Action”. Which gives absolutely no help in understanding what an “A-team” actually is. What is an A-team?
*Open “Unauthorised Revised Doulos Dictionary.” *
A-team - Noun. Abr. “Action Team”. C 1980-1990AD (Origin unknown). A short (1 to 3 weeks) land based team, leaving from the ship for however long to be involved in any number of different projects. Some do building work for a local charity or children’s home, some travel a lot, visiting a different village every night putting on a short programme, possibly taking a video projector along. Some run a youthgroup’s summer camp, and so on. Most Douloi guys go on 2 or 3 “A- teams” during their 2 years on board. Most Douloi girls go on 2 “A- teams”, and during the two dry-docks go on “Land Teams” which are basically the same as an “A-team”, but only girls, and during dry- dock. Some people go on up to 5 “A-teams” during 2 years.
So. Cool, eh? My a-team is comprised of all drama-ish creative people, and we are going to be mostly doing drama/dance/creative workshops for a local church/youthgroup. I will probably be speaking at one or two church services. So all in all quite interesting.
OK. “Quite interesting” is a bit of an understatement.
YEAHOO!!!!!
Very exciting!!
So if you want to pray for me (us!) until about the 15th or so of August it would be really nice. One or two very strong willed (lovely!) people on the team. And a LOT of time together, so pray that we will be able to work together, and help the people we meet.
So yeah. By the way, my “boss” the senior waterman just told me yesterday while we were chatting about books how he hates “chatty” books that are written in spoken English style (many modern books), rather than written English (like C.S. Lewis). It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t read this blog. I think he may find it too much spoken English.
We did our crane training yesterday. Which pretty much completes the basic deck training. Now only advanced lifeboat/firefighting/etc training to go (I think). We do training so sporadically though for these sorts of things. Drills every week though. I think I must be OK with the crane, as the teacher (my ex-teamleader) told me I was pretty good and she may even change my mooring station to the “standby” team (who start the unloading first), presumably as they need a crane driver. Pretty cool! Then again, standby team is quite boring most of the time. I’m currently in the forward mooring party, which is the nicest, I think so far. It’s a big open deck, with lots of space, and you get to watch the port and everything really easily.
That’s about it so far! Watermanning is going well. I haven’t flooded anything else yet. I greased the crane though. Tomorrow probably I’ll grease the main windlass. Huge, ugly, with about 100 points to find and squirt grease. And the grease gun is about empty, so I’ll have to fill it again, which is quite complicated and very very messy.
GREAT day 2 days ago… Plan was for morning planning/preparing, afternoon teaching drama and creative stuff to teenagers, a kids’ programme after, and then a café on board in the evening where we would be waitering and stuff.
The drama was really really good. I got to basically run the whole thing, teaching drama, basics, games, etc. Kids loved it, really joined in, did so well. I hadn’t realised how much I miss drama/theatre work though until then. I miss it a lot! Teaching drama is so wonderful.
Then the kids programme after that was v. disorganised, on a street corner. ok. kids enjoyed it, I think. Did the usual dramas, silly songs, etc.
Then as we got back to the ship to prepare for the café, (which I was not looking forward to. Normally I end up sitting at a table with two people who dont speak English, I don’t understand their names, music is too loud for me to concentrate or understand anyway, and when after half an hour or so we begin to get a conversation going, before I can say anything they both leave. I dont enjoy…) one of the line-up people said to me,
“Are you free to come out? I need musicians!”
I said I was in the cafe, he said no problem, went and got me out of the café, and told me to get my clarinet. So I did, and we went to a café run by some local people. They are trying to make a new safe cafe/restaurant, where it isn’t all cabaret and sex and stuff, but friendly, good music, and so on.
So we set up music stuff, and played for 2 or 3 hours. The other musicians were amazing too. One of them was a bassist who went to music college to study bass. Between sets, he started playing
“Amazing grace” … he’s THAT good! We did a bunch of Christian songs, English, French, etc. Then after that the bassist brought out “The jazz real book” and we played a few songs from that: Georgia on my mind, Moonriver, etc.
Lovely, lovely. Clarinet and bass go well togeather, I think. He said he may be able to teach me some jazz theory before he leaves (2 or 3 months!!), whcih would be really good. and also maybe I
should teach a standard music theory course, as many musicians on board have no theory at ALL.
So that was a really really really good day.
Two days ago we got the new deck schedule for this month. no news about jobs or anything, BUT, I found I had an extra 2 days of 12-4 gangway watch this week, as some people are on re-entry training. That’s not good news. So I did 12-4 today. I’m SO tired. I wasnt ready and so didnt get enough sleep or anything, and I still have tomorrow to do.
BUT the good news: one of the other blokes wandered into my cabin just now, we were chatting, and he said, “just 2 days of 12-4? That would totally wreck your whole sleeping pattern. 1 day is fine though. How about we swap tomorrow? I’ll do your 12-4 tonight and tomorrow afternoon, and you can do my cleaning team.” He just phoned to say he confirmed it with the bo’sun. COOL!!!!!
He said he quite likes gangway. So many people tell me that. I just dont get it.
Re-entry training is brief 2 day training about getting ready for going back home. We have about 8 or 9 deckies leaving in the next few months, so it may be quite unlikely that I leave deck any time soon. I hope I’ll get the lifeboat job and that it works out as well as I hope.
I spoke with the bosun, and he knows that Im quite practical and good with my hands and stuff, and so he would quite like me in lifeboats, but the watermen want me to join them too (specifically asked for me). And he knows I’d quite like the lifeboat job. I told him that I am interested in moving from deck into creative ministies or AV or videographer job in the future, so if it is better for the deck to get someone who doesn’t want to leave deck ever (which would be good if there was someone to do lifeboats for 1 and half years! very good for the department), then maybe is better I stay in normal deck work. He was happy I told him. unhappy that I may not stay a deckie, but he really appreciates openness.
Watermen job is (in my opinion) not fun. Others think it sounds great. Basically no hard physical work at all; they are in charge of the ship’s drinking water, so when trucks come, they have to come and get it attached and coming to the right tanks, moving water from one tank to another so the ship doesn’t get lopsided, checking the water making sure it’s OK, testing the depths of each tank. There’s also a bunch of other random jobs (like looking after the baggage locker, making the new keys for the ship, repairing shoes, etc) mostly it doesn’t require too much work, but not exciting.
AND… many times they end up being “on call” all evening, and having to rush off to do water trucks at all hours, which would be really really is bad for me, as I’d almost never be able to totally confirm with a programme organiser, “yes I can be in a programme to do a drama” so they would not want me in dramas at all, as I might have to keep rushing off. So you can see how some people like the job. No hard physical work.
