Don’t Be Afraid

Halloween Story Assignment

Radford doesn’t have the biggest Halloween celebration in the country, but we can fix that…. By taking the Internet time machine to be spectators at one of the biggest -- a Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in New York City, in the middle of a neighborhood known for its universities, arts scene and alternative-lifestyle traditions (from Bohemian in the early 1900s to beatnik in the 1950s, and on to hippie, gay, punk and who knows what's there now).

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1399051/4822547 Parade video

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_oct_31/  (duplicate of the one above, in case you have Internet trouble; note that rocketboom has links under the player to download higher-resolution versions)

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_oct_31/comments/

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_nov_03/ Project Bueller parade float scene.

The next year, Rocketboom interviewed a costume prize winner, so -- to have a few quotes in the story -- you can pretend you were the one who did the interview and that both were done this year. Use any of her interview as a paragraph or two of your story, but don't make her the whole story -- that should be your own observations and descriptions.

http://www.rocketboom.com/the-claw/

For purposes of your story, both videos are what you saw in person at “last night’s” parade, and you are writing the story for the morning-after newspaper.

WRITE THE STORY:

• After your first viewing of the video in class or online, look again... check your notes... And bring the start of a first draft to the Friday class. Make a good effort at a lead and at a few descriptive paragraphs.
• Write the story as a third-person news report. Don't put yourself in the story with a “The craziest thing I saw was…” first-person experience account,and don't write an opinion piece (arts review, editorial, column, sermon) saying what you thought of the people you saw.)
• You can use any of the Rocketboom viewers' comments (the third link) or the interviews in the Ferris Bueller and "The Claw" interviews as though they are comments from people YOU talked to. If a comment does not give a person's real name, you may make up a name or other identifying information for the purpose of this exercise. (For example, "... a teenager in the crowd of spectators said." or "... a woman dressed as a zombie said.") Don't make up any additional quotes or costumes you did not see.
• “Show, don’t tell.” That is, don’t tell people a costume was brilliant or funny or disgusting, or name a character and assume readers all know whether Scooby Doo is a human or a dog. Try to describe things with enough color, life and detail to let your reader reach his or her own conclusions. Describe with objective facts: sizes, shapes, colors, numbers.
• "Show" with specific verbs, too: How did the zombies move? The silver people? The glowstick people?
• Supplement: This slide show of still images captured from the video may help you write your descriptions. (folder view has large copies of the captured screen images, plus a couple of Google map views locating the parade area by searching for businesses seen in the video)
• Length: About two double-spaced pages. No more than three.
• Deadline: notes and draft lead by Friday's class; full story by Monday. Details and some supplementary interviews in class on Friday.
• Assume you are writing for a general-readership news Web site.
• See my additional notes connecting this assignment to skills and techniques mentioned in Harrower's Chapter 4.
• Have fun!