Passion Project: March 16

During this class of RLA, I planned and wrote the questions for my interview. The three questions were: "What is your opinion on science fiction in general?"; "What is your opinion on western fiction in general?"; and "What is your opinion on science fiction and western fiction being combined to make a story?". I wanted to know what other people thought about the two genres and how well they would fit together. Unfortunately, I did not have time to ask anyone in class because there was not enough time. My next steps are to interview someone once I get home.

Passion Project: March 13

During this class of RLA, I created my characters' personality. The main character, a former crew member of bounty hunters and interplanetary smugglers, will be a middle aged male, somewhere in his thirties or forties. He will have a serious, bleak outlook on life, which portrays the illusion of him being a strong person, but inside, he holds many regrets from the time he was a bounty hunter and a smuggler. It is kind of cliche, so I will tweak it over the weekend. His partner will be a young female, maybe in her twenties, who was abandoned while she was a teen and had to live in the streets of a city until the main character meets her (I have not figured out how yet). Because of her tendency to run into things head on, she usually gets her and the main character in trouble during illegal jobs. The reason I wanted the partner to be female was because I wanted the characters to have a father/daughter relationship, and because her personality would counter with the main character's personality.

Passion Project: March 12

During this class of RLA, I have decided to go with my second idea. However, I am not sure if I should give the main character a partner at the start of the story or if the main character will meet the partner during the middle of the beginning part. The reason I want the main character to have a parter is because it would provide more internal and external conflicts, so the main character cannot make choices based on only his wants and needs. Frankly, I am leaning towards giving him a partner at the start of the story because that would give me opportunities to write flashbacks that would give more depth to the character.

Passion Project: March 11

During this class of RLA, I brain stormed some new and improved ideas based on the information that I found while researching space western fiction. One of my ideas was a crew of outlaws on a space ship that flew around looking for jobs, which were mostly smuggling and bounty hunting. During one of their jobs, they would be asked to smuggle something very important, or kidnap someone very important. However, something would go wrong (i.e. space police, space pirates, etc.), and the crew would be conflicted, only to be reunited at the end to get through the whole adventure. My other idea is about an ex smuggler or bounty hunter, possibly a former member of the crew in my first idea. He would travel the planets, interfering when he sees the need to follow his code of honour. However, he would come to a scenario when his code of honour would interfere with him doing the right thing.

Passion Project: March 10

During this class of RLA, I researched a bit more on science fiction and western mash ups, or space western. Since space western uses amounts of both science fiction and western, I decided to do research on both of them. Science fiction is basically fiction that should be scientifically accurate and possible, whereas a Western fiction story "...centres on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter." (Wikiwand - Western [Genre]). Using this information, I am going to slightly or drastically change the main idea of my space western fiction story. After that, I will begin planning, outlining, and writing.

Passion Project: March 9

During this class of RLA, I have watched episodes 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. I will not be watching episode 11 because it is about studying linguistics and creating an alien language, which is something that I will not do because it is not needed in my science fiction story. The episodes I watched are about the structure of the story, the outlining, the protagonist and antagonist, originality, and researching. Since I have just recently finished watching the first and only season of Firefly, I am very familiar with the theme of science fiction and western being mashed together.

Passion Project: March 6

During this class of RLA, I have watched episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Frank R. Haugen's "How to Write Science Fiction" Youtube video series. They talked mostly about rules that could be applied to any kind of fiction, like how to come up with an idea, the different types of genres, the conflict needed for a good fiction story, the character stereotypes, and the character's or characters' motivations. I have also decided that my science fiction story will be a science fiction and western mash up, and it will be heavily influenced from the TV show Firefly.

E-Column Video

Passion Project: March 5

During this class of RLA, I continued my research on how to write science fiction. I found this site, and it went into a lot of detail on what science fiction is and is not. Star Wars, for example, is usually mistaken for a science fiction movie. However, it is actually a movie about a (Jedi) knight (Luke) going to save a princess (Princess Leia), who is trapped in a castle. (Death Star). The site also went into detail on the 3 main rules of writing science fiction: Know your thesis, do your research, and don't be afraid of the new.

Passion Project: March 4

During this class of RLA, I went to the library to look at the blurbs of some science fiction books to get some inspiration for my story idea. A lot of them were about dystopian futures, but I want to test myself and try something unique. One idea I came up with was a story on a crew on a spaceship in the future smuggling things from planet to planet, like the cancelled TV show Firefly. I also found another article on what I should and should not do in science fiction. It was mostly about how I should not use cliché. Tomorrow I will aim to finalise what my ideas are before writing either over the weekend or next week.

Passion Project Progress: March 3

During this class of RLA, I researched a bit more on the basics and techniques of science fiction. I found this site explaining how to write a science fiction novel or short story in seven steps. The site talked more about the actual structure of the story, as opposed to coming up with an original idea. I also came up with some ideas to write about. For example, 'What if the world's resources ran out and we had to go back in time to get more, but that would disrupt the space/time continuum?' or 'What if humanity started trading with other civilisations, but we were so desperate to have their resources that so much mass is taken off Earth and the pull of gravity lessened?'

Science Field Trip: Dairy Farm

This is an example of a decomposer, fungi, breaking down a dead log. Eventually, the log will fully decompose.













This is an example of commensalism where the tree is not being harmed or benefited, and the fern is being helped. The fern grows on and receives nutrients from the tree while the tree is not strangled or deprived of anything.










This is example of a plant with a disease, where the leaf has a yellow-green tone and some brown spots. The plant might not be receiving enough nutrients or sunlight, or parasites might be killing it.

Passion Project Progress

March 2nd

Today we were given twenty minutes to research our project. My project is about how I can improve my creative writing. I started by reviewing writing techniques Ms. Bucknall taught us. I then decided that I would write a science fiction story for my project, so I searched up some articles and got one on how to write science fiction. I started brainstorming some ideas on what my story could be about. Tomorrow I will research other techniques on the internet.