Urban Legends
The purpose of this task is to produce a story based on an urban legend. These are common stories that might have had some elements of truth, but are mostly exaggerated(과장된) and told over and over. Every time they are told, they get more intricate(뒤얽힌).
Task
Select on the myths (or create your own) and develop it into a story of 1000+ words (3-4 pages). You have the plot (줄거리). All you need to do is work on how it is written.
You will need to think about:
- The pace of the story
- The length of action sentences
- The use of punctuation
- Use of tension.
Creating descriptive sentences
- The words you choose.
- The way you write (use third person voice)
- The effects created.
How to fill the story out
You will have the bare minimum of a plot-so you don’t need to think about what you are writing, only how you write it.
Setting
Firstly, you will set the scene.
- You will typically need a dark, stormy, or isolated place. You need to go into lots of detail about the setting-really build up the description of it with lots of adjectives, similes, and personification (의인).
- Start with a scene that people will recognize as a stereotype of a mystery thriller. This will give your story an impact.
- Perhaps start with an initial moment of action or mentioning the legend. For those revolving around a news report, you might want to use that first to add to the impact.
- You could also use the flashback technique to start off dramatically.
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Characterization
Secondly, you need to build up the characters.
- Typically, the stories involve someone innocent and naïve(소박한)going up against a villain.
- Build up the description of the characters, what they look like, what they say, how they spoke and acted.
- Use LOTS of adverbs and adjectives to develop the characters fully. The reader should really visualize the characters.
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Style
Thirdly, you will need to make the action scenes as dramatic (극적인) as possible.
- You will need to use hasty conversations and short sentences.
- You could also use silence to add to the tension.
- You will need to think about the length of the sentences and paragraphs. You could also use lots of dramatic punctuation to add to the atmosphere.
Make sure to:
- Use periods when ending a sentence
- Use capital letters when starting a new sentence
- Make sure your story is in the proper tense
- USE spell check!
- Add paragraphs
- You add commas, question marks, and exclamation marks (when needed).
- You add descriptive vocabulary
- You use some short sentences to build up the dramatic tension
- You include lots of description of the setting, character, and mood.
Famous Urban Legends
Hook
Two teenagers were parked up at a local hangout spot when the music they were listening to was interrupted by a radio broadcast. A dangerous lunatic had escaped from the local mental institute. He could be identified by the hook he had instead of a hand. The girl became really worried and insisted she be taken home. When they arrived back at her house, the angry boyfriend marched round to let her out of the car, only to find the hook hanging from the door handle.
The killer in the backseat!
A woman was driving in a deserted area late at night. A radio bulletin announcing that a lunatic had escaped from the secure wing of his prison unit interrupted the music she was listening to. She began to have car problems, so she pulled over at a secluded garage. The attendant came out and began to fix the car. He stared at her and tried to pull her out of the car. She began to get worried by his behavior and appearance, and his severe stutter, so she drove off. As she did so, the attendant finally spoke the words he’d been trying to say: “There’s someone in the back seat!”
The graveyard bet
A group of young girls were having a sleepover one night and began to exchange ghost stories. One girl claimed that an old man who had been buried previously in the week in the graveyard down the road, had actually been buried alive. She said that if you tried, you could hear him scratching at the lid of his coffin. The other girls called her bluff and told her that she was afraid to go there that night. She eventually accepted the challenge, but took a stake of wood with her to drive into the ground to prove she’d been there. She headed off right away and never returned. The others assumed she’d chickened out and went home ashamed. The next morning, as they passed the graveyard, they saw her there at the old man’s grave. She had accidentally staked her nightgown to the floor and died of fright, presumably thinking that the old man had reached out of his grave and grabbed at her.
The clown statue
A few years ago a mother and a father decided they needed a break, so they wanted to head out for a night on the town. So they called their most trusted babysitter. When the babysitter arrived the two children were already fast asleep in bed. So the babysitter just got to sit around and make sure everything was okay with the children.Later in the night, the babysitter got bored and so she wanted to watch TV but she couldn’t watch it downstairs because they didn’t have cable downstairs (the parents didn’t want their children watching too much garbage) so she called them and asked them if she could watch cable TV in the parents room. Of course the parents said it was ok, but the babysitter had one final request. She asked if she could cover up the large clown statue in their bedroom with a blanket or cloth, because it made her nervous. The phone line was silent for a moment, and the father (who was talking to the babysitter at the time) said..... Take the children and get out of the house..... We’ll call the police... we don’t have a clown statue..... The children and the babysitter got murdered by the clown. It turned out 2 be that the clown was a killer that escaped from jail.
Bloody Mary
When I was about 9 years old, I went to a friend's for a birthday/slumber party. There were about 10 other girls there. About midnight, we decided to play Bloody Mary. Some of us had never heard of this so one of the girls told the story.Mary Worth lived a long time ago. She was a very beautiful young girl. One day she had a terrible accident that left her face so disfigured that nobody would look at her. She had not been allowed to see her own reflection after this accident for fear that she would lose her mind. Before this, she had spent long hours admiring her beauty in her bedroom mirror.One night, after everyone had gone to bed, unable to fight the curiosity any longer, she crept into a room that had a mirror. As soon as she saw her face, she broke down into terrible screams and sobs. It was at this moment that she was so heartbroken and wanted her old reflection back that she walked into the mirror to find it, vowing to disfigure anybody that came looking for her in the mirror.After hearing this story, which was told very scarily, we decided to turn out all of the lights and try it. We all huddled around the mirror and starting repeating "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, I believe in Bloody Mary". About the seventh time we said it one of the girls that was in front of the mirror started screaming and trying to push her way back away from the mirror. She was screaming so loud that my friend’s mom came running into the room. She quickly turned on the lights and found this girl huddled in the corner screaming. She turned her around to see what the problem and saw these long fingernail scratches running down her right cheek. I will never forget her face as long as I live!
Don’t turn on the lights!
I heard about a girl who went back to her dorm room late one night to get her books before heading to her boyfriend's room for the night. She entered but did not turn on the light, knowing that her roommate was sleeping. She stumbled around the room in the dark for several minutes, gathering books, clothes, toothbrush, etc. before finally leaving.
The next day, she came back to her room to find it surrounded by police. They asked if she lived there and she said yes. They took her into her room, and there, written in blood on the wall, were the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?" Her roommate was being murdered while she was getting her things.
The Fatal Hairdo
Something terrible happened to a 10 yr. old girl who had braids. The little girl had been wearing her braids in a ponytail for the longest and apparently the braids were old, at least 2 to 3 months old, and the mother never took them down to wash them or let them air out or anything.
Anyway, the girl had been complaining about having a headache for approximately two weeks to her mother who just brushed it off, assuming that she had hit her head against the wall or something. Well one morning the child again complained to her mother about having a headache while getting ready for school. Again the mother brushed her off. When the child got to school, she told her teacher that her head was hurting. The teacher assumed that the braids were too tight in the child's hair and attempted to let the ponytail down. When she removed the hair piece and let the braids loose, there was a spider in the child’s hair.
The spider had laid eggs in the child’s hair and the spiders were eating her scalp. The child was rushed to the hospital where she later died.