Introduction

In the narrative project, we first read “Parable of the Sower” which depicted a dystopian world where the story unfolded. Then we tapped into the author’s brain by watching an interview with Octavia Butler. Now equipped with an amazing example of a world coming together, we got into a group and brainstormed our own fictional world. By creating a narrative treatment of the world we created, we were able to weave together the characters, the storyline, and the world into a compelling movie idea. We made a pitch of our movie treatment to the class, which required collaboration. 

World Building Presentation

Once we finalized our story, we learned how to do independent research of a topic to explore the details of our world further. Mine was on private prison systems and recidivism because our fictional world was a futuristic world where there weren’t enough prisons to house the ever increasing number of prisoners, and therefore, had to erase the memories of the prisoners and let them free. After the research paper, we started building our world.

Worldbuilding Treatment

The logline of the treatment that my group wrote is:

A 30-year-old man discovers that he is the murderer of a well-known scientist and must unlock the secrets of his past life to survive the revenge of the scientist’s younger brother.

Here are some AI generated images of the setting and some of the characters from the story:

This is a visual representation of the main character’s identity split in the story. The bottom half represents his old identity as an assassin and the top half represents his transformed and improved identity as a kind-hearted man.

Reflection

Reading the “Parable of the Sower” was quite an experience for me because of the way the details of the world came alive. I appreciated the author’s creativity and attention to details. I believed that such a world could really exist. Brainstorming our own world was quite challenging because trying to put together an entire world into a coherent and intriguing and yet logical world that fits into the storyline required many revisions. Finally, doing the research on the private prison system was very interesting. The more I delved into it, the more I discovered the intriguing history behind the prison system and how it evolved into the mess we have today.