According to PsychGuides.com Cell phone addiction, sometimes referred to as problematic mobile phone use, is a behavioral addiction thought to be similar to that of an Internet, gambling, shopping, or video game addiction and leads to severe impairment or distress in one’s life.
This is a story of a girl name Rhenesmae, 8 years of age and in Grade 3. One day when the pandemic hits her mother decided to give her a cellphone or mobile phone to be still connect with her friends. Rhenesmae was so happy
Rhenesmae always on the phone when awake up in the morning she will look for it, while eating or watching TV. Always on the phone!
And then her mother noticed that Rhenesmae was changing she doesn’t study her lesson, play with his brother and not paying attention her food.
Finally her mother talked to her daughter explained to her that sometimes too much used of cellphone is not good. Emphasized the importance of education and how lucky she have food to eat. Mentioned to her always spend time with her brother. Mother showed her some pictures of children who are in struggle of better education and food.
To continue the story please clicks on the following link:
So how do we make our stories interesting? Ever thought what keeps readers engaged to the very last word in your story? What can captivate readers and make them get lost into your world?
Here are 5 tips to get you going and not get lost yourself.
Let’s talk about the BASICS
Remember that you need to know your audience, or at least get a clear idea who you’re writing for. As writers we often see the angle of the story from an author’s angle. We tend to neglect to put ourselves in the shoes of the ones who will consume it or be consumed by it. You have to know what floats their boat, what evokes emotions and what moves readers to action. Ask yourself the What, Who and Why – What will you write about; who do you write for and why do you write?
Begin with the END in MIND and Make a Good Story Spine
To write a story with no clear end in mind can catapult your whole story to a mess. You have to ask yourself the defining question – what do you want your readers to feel or do after reading your story. The story must progress in a manner that is not cluttered with irrelevant scenes, parts or characters. A great story line only has significant elements and knows how to unravel gems of the story at the right time – not too soon and not too late. A well drafted and structured story spine can help us write better closing / ending to our stories too.
Let your story come alive!
The characters in your story will be what people would want to connect to. Hence, it’s imperative to think things through before you decide on your leads. Every human is an emotional being. If you can craft your story in a manner that invoke reactions from the audience, then your story is alive. Writing any story isn’t just ideas put into paper in a certain order or manner. A story must be written with a purpose, be it to inspire, encourage, or address any issue that which man is familiar with or generally concerned about. You need to see the story morphed into the individual lives of the readers/viewer
Empower your Story with the use of Multimedia
Visuals always help you capture the soul. If a picture can paint a thousand words, imagine what GIFs, images, infographics, videos can do to your story? How much more if you can make your story interactive by a montage of all this multimedia? Our generation has an entirely different behavior in information consumption. People in this age are easily distracted, hence if you can make your story appealing to the eye, and since the information is processed faster when visually presented compared to regular text, it allows the readers to capture the gist before their short span interest starts to dwindle.
Our brains value visuals over any other type of information.
90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual – (Source MIT)
The human brain can process an image in just 13 milliseconds – (Source: MIT)
50% of the brain is active in visual processing – (Source: Piktochart)
Human brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than they do text – (Source: University of Minnesota)
93% of communication is nonverbal – (Source: Ubiquity)
We are exposed to 5x more information today than we were in 1986 – (Source: Telegraph)
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” – John F. Kennedy
I have always wanted to capture moments that I believe deserve to be remembered. I thought it could help me hold on to those memories because we can’t stay in that moment as long as we want. Eternal bliss is not found in this world where everyone breathing will one day lay to rest.
The world we live in now is pretty much a chaos. From the rising of the sun to its setting down, we all have too many things to do and time is always not on our side. My twitter story is a short 10 tweet long about how my daily grind looks like. To some of you, it may be boring, some may find it interesting and to others, you find it resonates to yours. But whatever the case maybe, its my story.
My day starts with me waking up early, and preparing breakfast for us three. Followed by a tug-of-war with my kids over pillows and blankets when I try to wake them up and get them ready for school and day care. Oh, I’m not complaining, it’s something I look forward to! How can anyone not love these 2 angels? Even if I need to work harder than most people would to be a good provider, I would for these two. They are my source of strength and I love them to the moon and back.
As soon as these angels are out and about, it’s time for me to go to work. I love my job and all the people I work with. I am a professional bookkeeper and I work for Preferred Client Services. I am nothing but thankful to PCS for giving me the opportunity to belong in this family.
And of course, my day pretty much ends with me doing the household chores like preparing dinner for my angels and getting them ready for bed. Oh, by the way, I most often cook for them. Seldom order food because I only want what’s best and of course healthy for my kids. I make sure they know how Filipino food tastes like, too. Its their roots and I want them to know and love it.
When I look at the details of my daily in and out, its less on me and more on my kids. For many, they would probably tell me “give yourself a break!” “Go out, have fun, party!”
Boring, right?
But when I read the whole twitter story thread that I posted, I found myself smiling and felt a surge of happiness and thankfulness in my heart. I realized that the mundane routine I do day in and day out are the very details of my life where I am blessed.
I started my live Twitter story-telling from the moment I woke up at 5:30 AM of a Wednesday morning and each tweet is a highlight of the day. The story comes to full circle with a picture of my family before I tuck my kids to bed.
To all busy working moms who can barely find time to breath, Twitter is a platform for you to tell the world your story. Your story matters!
The movie adaptation of the book “The Honest Courtesan” by Margaret Rosenthal.
“Marco Venier: Do you not like my kiss? Veronica Franco: I wish it were not a sin to have liked it so. Marco Venier: God made sin, though we might know his mercy.”
This movie is NO ordinary love story, It’s more than just that. It regales of one woman’s fight for her life, her identity and her freedom in a world where beauty is skin-deep and meant nothing more than a dime.
The movie’s story spine would look like this:
Once upon a time, there was this beautiful woman living a commoner’s life.
Every day, she would read a poem or finish a book and goes on to see the world in different perspectives.
But one day, she fell in love with a man, named Marco, who cannot marry her and must marry someone else for duty’s sake.
Because of that, her longing for her lover’s touch made her to step into a life of a courtesan – A life that gave her access to education and opportunity to be with her lover.
Because of her wittiness and boldness to speak, she has become the most coveted courtesan during her time, a published poet that even the King of France succumbed to her beauty and brain, and promised aid to Venice in fourth Ottoman-Venetian war.
Because of the outbreak of a plague, all courtesans became the target of the Inquisition, and she was summoned for heresy and witchcraft.
Until finally, the inquisitor, perplexed by the city’s notoriety in adulterous acts, dropped all the charges against her.
And ever since then, she opened her doors to all the courtesans who were summoned and punished whilst she and Marco remained in love.
My personal take on the movie – since it was based on a non-fiction book, it was more intriguing, but more so because it’s a real – life story of a coveted courtesan and a published poet rolled into one. It also depicted Venice centuries ago. The way Venetian women were viewed and treated in the society. Showed us that political alliance through marriage is a common scene from then and reflects even till now. The way the story transitioned from one scene to another was spot on. The director surely knew exactly how to balance each scene that makes viewers want more. He doesn’t clutter each scene with unnecessary characters. He made sure that viewers will have someone to root for. The characters were given their voice.
The main characters – Veronica and Marco played their parts very well, to the point where I could imagine and actually feel the roller coaster of emotions throughout the film. From serene and blissful innocent love to unfathomable sadness and unquenchable longing. I can feel the disgusted look thrown at Veronica by the women whose husbands found refuge in her bosom, as If I was her.
I was angry at the inquisitor when in their pursuit of holiness, they forgot that Venice left Veronica no option to survive. I was stoked when all the men who broke their marital vows stood up for Veronica and fought for her acquittal, more so because they stood up at the expense of everything, everything they hold dear. I said finally – they became men!
Because it’s an old movie (shown in 1998) that featured Venice in 1583, the movie was created in those days where the technological advancements in the movie industry is far from what it is now. Nonetheless, this story stripped of all modern time movie effects is still a movie that is worth every second of my time.
This movie was engaging, intriguing, and resonates to women in any part of the world, that women were created far more than just for man’s pleasure. That no matter how hard-pressed we are – we have a story to tell and our story can also alter man’s history!
The part that I love the most was towards the end of the film, during the inquisition of Veronica and she said these words:
“I will confess, Your Grace. I confess that as a young girl, I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowery. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life, one I resisted at first, but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan. Traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a whore’s freedom over a wife’s obedience… Your Grace, what am I to do? I need to confess my evil as the church instructs, these are my sins… I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion IS prayer. I confess… I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover’s lips, his hands upon me, his arms enfolding me. Such surrender has been mine. I confess I hunger still to be filled and enflamed, to melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves, to know that always, always this is mine. If this had not been mine, if I had lived another way, a child to a husband’s whim, my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love, I confess such endless days and nights would be punishment far greater than any you could meter out. You, all of you, you who hunger so for what I give, but cannot bear to see such power in a woman. You call God’s greatest gift – ourselves, our yearning, our need for love – you call it filth, and sin, and heresy. I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life.”
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 