English in Narrative 2 was pretty much just the worldbuilding unit. To sum up the worldbuilding unit, we built a story, and respected world, from scratch and presented this to the rest of the class. It was split into 3 phases: Narrative Treatment, Research essay, and Pitch Presentation. A lot of people had come into this project with something already in mind or with something that they have been working on for a long time and want to show off, but I came in with a clean slate. I wanted something flexible and fun. Here is the fruits of my labor.
Formulating
The name of my project is called, “Bone Vultures”. I developed it alone because while I was developing it, I had started to get pretty attached and I was worried that if I had teammates I wouldn’t be able to be a proper leader. Bone Vultures was a hit the nail on the head type thing, it was the first concept that I landed on and I kinda stayed there. Bone Vultures was built around the basic idea of “What if people used bones for currency?” From there I started to come up with why people would find them valuable and what would make bones so important. I started to set it up as a future that countered the future that we imagined for ourselves in media. I rejected the neon, hologram, spaceship type future for a more eco centered one.
At first I thought the story would be centered around a scientist, trying to make some kind of advancement for mankind. It would be more centered around that ecological, “We could make the world better, why focus on technology” aspect. However, I didn’t know exactly what kind of conflict that would happen that would interest me or hasn’t been done before. I then started to think about bone deuteriation, if humanity had slowly had less developed skeletons. Originally, I had though of this as a problem for this scientist to overcome but I started to think about what else it would effect.
This is where Bone Vultures really manifests. I started to circle back to currency, trading bones and people having excessive and elaborate skeletons. I also explored the grittier parts of it, several people with missing limbs and stealing bones from the dead. That’s Bone Vultures. Of course I added polish and made the soon to be C.N.S.S a bit more reputable. I really loved the new grit and slight angst of it. The thing was, with this major switch, it cant really work in it’s current theme. I then had it focused more on “the job” rather that the world itself. I still think it’s still somewhat hopeful, but I’m kinda sad that I couldn’t salvage much of that focus on environmentally conscious message.
Presenting
Presenting is always stressful. Even before standing in front of that stage, I was freaking out about getting my presentation in order. I think at the beginning of the presentation I was like kinda jittery and freaked out, but as it went along, I really got into the flow.
Down here is the presentation, with all of the pictures of all of the characters that I planned. It’s separated into the different acts. I decided to leave act 3 out because it’s both short and it’s probably better to leave it in some kind of mystery.
Here is a section of the outline of the treatment to get a basic vibe of “Bone Vultures”:
In the world of “Bone Vultures” the bone deterioration is caused by the cybernetic craze that took place hundreds of years ago. This cybernetic craze would be our stereotypical vision of the future, placing Bone Vultures in the further future. So we would see it be more focused on advancement in organic sciences, which leave cybernetic sciences as more of a taboo area to touch (At least publicly). We focus on a city setting, where trees and fauna seem to be embedded into the architecture. Instead of the neon colors or dark gray that we usually associate with the future, it settles for a murky dark green. The city is also visually and physically more crowded, having the buildings huddled together forcing narrower streets.
In a narrative sense, Bone Vultures would be an anthology. Having our 3 main characters permanently every episode and introducing a new employee making it a cast of 4. The first act and the first half of the second act will focus on this structure. Using this structure, it will set up worldbuilding and character motivations. A larger narrative starts at the midpoint, where they watch someone get killed in their own home. They spend the rest of act 2 attempting to uncover the secret of who is hiring to clean up the crime scene. It reaches its peak as they stand outside of the house of the wealthy Boone.