User:Clara/Thesis

Library of morals

The animals, objects and plants that teach us how to think…

Collection

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
• The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein
• If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura
• Mr.Men a collection by Roger Hargreaves
• Le lion abattu par l’homme by Jean de La Fontaine

Question

How can generated short story workshops be used as a method to express and deal with an issue?

Structure and Design

My idea is to structure the thesis in the same way I structure the books for generative story workshops. You will at first only read a short sentence that is supposed to state something about the chapter but all the content and context is hidden inside the pages, such as this. It's about slowly revealing the story and playing with the idea that little can say a lot and the hidden messages behind words.

So the chapters are based on the story structure of who, where, what, why and how. I want to be playful with the sentences that are shown before you rip the pages open and see their context. My idea is really to have this short story with a thesis hidden inside of it.

Prologue

500 words
~Context and introduction of how I came up with the generative workshops

The books of Mr. Men and Little Miss are the short stories that impacted my view of children’s books. I will always remember their simple square shape with a white glossy hard cover and a simple colourful drawing of the character and their name as the title. Mr. Happy, Little Miss Trouble, Little Miss Whoops, Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Clumsy… They stood out from other children’s books of my childhood. They were simple and clear. Other children’s book covers were filled with colour not allowing blank and unused space. They’re mixed in my memories and leave only the impression of colour as they overwhelmingly tried to get my attention and stand out in their similarities. Mr. Men and Little Miss however stay clear and I can always remember what the cover looked like and how the book felt in my hands. They were books with a specific character that had it’s own trait and would have a simple moral. Mr. Happy helped Mr. Miserable find happiness. Little Miss Trouble learns that the misery of others is no laughing matter. Small morals which are sometimes funny and sometimes meaningful.

That was where this started. And it only kept going from there. I started my own short one liner stories called “Tiny’s Adventures”, where Tiny a yellow heart character takes on daily life. At the time these came about I was struggling like many others with the restrictions of the pandemic. Being stuck inside and only seeing people digitally made my anxiety worse and I was looking for an output. So I gave life to Tiny. A character that brought me happiness and made me smile. Tiny would make everything sound light no matter how simple or heavy the topic was. Tiny was relatable. And so in a way Tiny was created to appease my anxiety. The inspiration behind Tiny was clear to me. I wanted to play with the construct of a children’s story book. From the simple white book with an illustration to the short moral. The important element in “Tiny’s adventure” is the simplicity. It was about having a one line story and one illustration, that’s it. It’s to the point one look and you’ve read it. It plays with short attention span because that’s something that everyone behind the screen struggled with these past years. I wanted to be able to give something quickly and allow for the rest of the story to be up to the reader. One line can say a lot. One illustration can say a lot. I felt that would be the strength of Tiny’s Adventures. I didn’t need nor want much to convey a lot.

As I grew older I also became more fascinated by fables that I had dismissed as a child. I remembered how the animals would talk and have problems like humans. I also found it interesting that they were written with complex language and yet addressed to children. The adult perspective and input really influenced the construct of fables. Adults knew talking animals would appeal to children. Thus by using something that children would be attracted to and listen to, adults aimed to share their perspective of how to behave in society. Children grow up listening to the way of life from adults. They are taught the reality of life through imaginary stories.

I often think about when a child’s imagination starts and when it stops. It most likely is determined by the age of the child. It could start before the child can even speak, it can spark from the environment the child is in. And it could possibly stop when a child reaches an age where it is no longer perceived as a child by society. This age is probably in the child’s teenage years. However I believe a child’s imagination is only buried inside us at a certain age so that we can be perceived as adults. We all had a child’s imagination at some point in our life. Some keep it visible longer than others. I believe there’s a child’s imagination in all of us that’s craving for attention. An imagination that won’t be stopped by overthinking and just wants to get out. That’s when some of the most beautiful stories come to life. Whether they make sense or not.

And from all these puzzle pieces my short story workshops emerged.

I have developed generative short story workshops as methods to "solve" problems. "Solve" in quotation because the aim of the workshops is not to realistically solve problems but rather to have a creative take on the problems. The idea is also to solve them by triggered children's imagination which gives shape to the unimaginable. The method aims to trigger quick responses trying to escape the adult way of overthinking and analyzing. And so this can let through the child imagination that is always in you. This method aims to be therapeutic. With a set topic and a set structure the participants are taken on a story making journey to solve and express the topic given to them. The workshop opens conversations as the participants are invited to discuss the story they created to solve their given problem. It aims to create a playful way to tackle serious topics. It also aims to opens minds and create a new perspective of problem solving.

The structure of generating a story was something that felt very important in order for these workshops to work. One cannot simply give a participant a blank page of paper and tell them to write a story and expect results. The structure had to invite the participant and make them feel like they had creative control but still felt guided. The balance between guiding and creative input was very important because if the viewer felt the story was already written for them they would feel the story was not theirs. And on the other hand if the structure was to empty the participant might feel more pressure to be creative. Thus the structure guided the participant with the inspiration from the six W’s which are commonly used in research such as journalism in order to get a full well rounded story. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws) The structure I developed is as follows:

STRUCTURE TO GENERATING A STORY

TITLE, Pick two characters
INTRO, How will your story start?
WHO, Who are the characters?
WHERE, Where are they?
WHAT, What objects do they have?
WHY, Why do they have this/Why are they here?
HOW, How do they feel?
END, How will it end?

And that’s the structure the stories are based on which will allow the participants to create their own unique generated story.

An example of what the blank story would be using this structure would be as follows:

A … and a …

On a …
Appeared a … and a …
They found themselves in a …
They brought with them a …
They were there to …
Hoping to …
And so …

The structure is filled in one line at a time not knowing what the next line will be until your turn your page (or slide). The idea is that what you are filling out in the story should not be picked by knowing the full structure as that would influence the outcome and randomness of the story. This randomness aims to portray the way a child comes up with a story. Another important point is that the participants are not given too much time to fill in the blanks. This is to allow for quick thinking. This quick thinking in my opinion stops the adult and teenage way of overthinking and allows for a more pure and child-like imagination. The whole structure and quick thinking also plays on the idea of thinking outside the box. If you just ask someone to think outside the box will they? Probably not. They’ll overthink the box and rarely escape it. But if you give them a set structure and give them 1 minute to think of for example two characters that come to their mind then, bam! Quick thoughts which could trigger a whole story that is completely outside the box.

My creative story-making method is adaptable to different audiences and in turn can help express and deal with relevant topics for these audiences. The development of this workshop is strongly inspired by the structure and methods used in children’s stories and fables to teach morals and ways of behaving, as well as social media platforms that try to quickly convey information concisely and in short amounts of time. It gives short sentences in combination with illustration space to speak and convey more than what is simply written. It thus also accommodates to visual thinkers and gives space for again more imagination. The method really aims to take steps in surprising the participant with their own triggered imagination. It is not the aim that the participant fully knows what they are writing in terms of structure and also that they will be illustrating. Of course some can assume but still the quick thinking moment where the imagination is triggered will not be lost.

What became also important after trying out the structure was how to incorporate topics that fit the target audience but also adapt a topic depending on the given audience. Incorporating a topic and allowing for the participant to solve it within such a short structure was complex. It was again about finding a balance between guiding the participant and their creative input. The topic of housing problems in the Netherlands was the first tackled. The workshop on this topic was set in Mediamatic as part of an exhibition organized by the Sandberg master students of Disarming Design. This project became a collaboration between Jara a close friend and me. Jara has a background in giving problem solving methods workshops to children and she was the best help to take my workshops further. She previously designed a workshop that was about How to cross the Palestinian Wall. The workshop focused on using random objects in innovative ways to cross the wall. It combined both text and illustration as a form to solve the problem.

We then combined both our creativity to come up with our workshop. We figured out early on that it would be about how to solve the housing system in the Netherlands because at the time there were ongoing protests. We then simply started by figuring out the variables for people to fill in:

Intro example: On a rainy day
Character example: International student
Type of housing: Room
Location example: Amsterdam
Problem example: Living cost
Objects example: toad, sunglasses

And created a random solution:

Turns out, toad has a talent for looking cool.
The International student goes out in the city and places the toad with his cool sunglasses next to the Dam square. The toad attracts people and so the student makes lots of money to afford renting a room.

We then tried out the story in a simple structure much like my previous workshop:

On a rainy day
An international student was searching for accommodation
The room had to be located in Amsterdam
The international student couldn’t afford the living costs
They find a toad and a pair of sunglasses on their way
The toad and the pair of sunglasses can help them afford a room
Turns out, toad has a talent for looking cool.
The International student goes out in the city and places the toad with his cool sunglasses next to the Dam square.
The toad attracts people and so the student makes lots of money to afford renting a room.

And finally we had the final structure with blanks to be filled in by the participants:

a (thing) and a (thing) saved the day

On a (intro)
Appeared a (character) who was searching for an accommodation.
The (housing) had to be located in (city)
They had brought with them a (thing) and a (thing)
But the (character) couldn't (variable situation)
The (thing) and (thing) could help the (character)
It turns out the (thing) could (do something)
So the (character) used that to (do something)
The (character) could then (solve the variable)
And so (ending)

variable situations: couldn't afford rent, found GIRLS only, found DUTCH only, found ages 23+ only

So as you can see the workshops use a varied format adapting to the situation with a set story structure that contains elements to be filled in by the participants. For each workshop the fill in story is changed to adapt to the topic of the workshop. The workshop given to younger participants will change and adapt to the age. After the story is filled in the participants are asked to illustrate their stories.

Intro

1000 words
~Setting a historical overview (Fable — Wikipédia, 2021), (Besson, n.d.)
~An intro in types of short stories, from fables to children’s books to social media one liners (instagram, news headline, clickbait)

Who

1000 words
~The characters, shapes and objects of my childhood
~Talking animals, plants and shapes that educate (Brinkman, 2020)
~Them shaping our morals and ways of behaving within society (Brinkman, 2020)
~who is the audience

Where

1000 words
~From classrooms to reading to children at bedtime to social media(where the imagination is)
~Where we learn imagination (Lucas, Bridgers, Griffiths and Gopnik, 2014), (Inovation Hub, 2015)
~the short attention span generation
~setting of the workshop: taking people back to the where (to trigger children's imagination taking us back to the classroom and bedtime stories)

What

1000 words
~types of workshops that have been done i.e, Serious Play(Wheeler, Passmore and Gold, 2020)
~about my workshop
~the method

Why

1000 words
~Why do we relate to them (characters and objects)
~The psychology behind us feeling empathy for imaginary characters (researching resources)
~why do we bring things that don't talk to life
~why these workshops can be a form of therapy

How

1000 words
~How little can say a lot
~the hidden messages (Farokhi and Hashemi, 2011)
~Children's drawing psychology (Quaglia, 2015)

Ending

500 words
~how these workshop can help with triggering creativity and new ways of thinking (Surrealist automatism - Wikipedia, 2021), (Wheeler, Passmore and Gold, 2020)

Bibliography

1.Besson, A., n.d. De l’aristocratie aux cours d’école, une brève histoire du conte | Fantasy - BnF. [online] Fantasy.bnf.fr. Available at: <https://fantasy.bnf.fr/fr/comprendre/de-laristocratie-aux-cours-decole-une-breve-histoire-du-conte/> [Accessed 21 November 2021].
(Besson, n.d.)
2. Blair, S., Rillo, M. and Dröge, J., 2020. Serious Work How to facilitate meetings and workshops using the LEGO® Serious Play® method. 3rd ed.
(Blair, Rillo and Dröge, 2020)
3. Brinkman, G., 2020. TOTO TO TOTORO Can talking animals save the world?. Masters. The Royal Academy of Arts The Hague.
(Brinkman, 2020)
4. Di Leo, J., 2013. Interpreting Children's Drawings. Routledge.
(Di Leo, 2013)
5.Fr.wikipedia.org. 2021. Fable — Wikipédia. [online] Available at: <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable> [Accessed 17 November 2021].
(Fable — Wikipédia, 2021)
6. Farokhi, M. and Hashemi, M., 2011. The Analysis of Children's Drawings: Social, Emotional, Physical, and Psychological aspects. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, pp.2219-2224.
(Farokhi and Hashemi, 2011)
7. Inovation Hub, 2015. Kids say the smartest things. [podcast] Available at: <https://soundcloud.com/innovationhub/kids-say-the-smartest-things> [Accessed 12 November 2021].
(Inovation Hub, 2015)
8. Lucas, C., Bridgers, S., Griffiths, T. and Gopnik, A., 2014. When children are better (or at least more open-minded) learners than adults: Developmental differences in learning the forms of causal relationships. Cognition, 131(2), pp.284-299.
(Lucas, Bridgers, Griffiths and Gopnik, 2014)
9. Quaglia, R., 2015. THE USE OF DRAWING IN PSYCHOTHERAPY. International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology, 1(1), pp.465-472.
(Quaglia, 2015)
10. En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Surrealist automatism - Wikipedia. [Accessed 17 November 2021].
(Surrealist automatism - Wikipedia, 2021)
11. Wheeler, S., Passmore, J. and Gold, R., 2020. All to play for: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and its impact on team cohesion, collaboration and psychological safety in organisational settings using a coaching approach. Journal of Work-Applied Management, 12(2), pp.141-157.
(Wheeler, Passmore and Gold, 2020)