Sunday, March 4, 2012



WRITE & WIN


We Teach You How to Think    
We Teach You Style 
We Explore the Magic of Words
We Demystify Grammar
We Introduce the Genre 
We will Help You Write Your First Book


Can an apple change your destiny? It made Isaac Newton think; it made Isaac Newton discover. You must discover something before you write.  
And you must say it in style. Style is the rhythm of ideas and words, flowing into sentences. When your mind captures the rhythm of ideas and words, the world takes notice of you.  

Whether you write an answer in an exam hall, or you write an application for a job, you are the winner because you wrote in style. 
Critical thinking improves the quality of your thinking, which in turn improves the quality of your writing. Not just writing, but it improves the quality of your living. 

Grammar is glamour when you understand the basics; it is the symphony of words and the melody of the senses in sentences. And a good vocabulary boots your confidence level.  

Subjective writing and objective writing are poles apart. Your emotions and experiences are the driving force in subjective writing, while your reason and analysis play a crucial role in objective writing. Subjective writing leads to the Wonderland of Fiction, while objective writing, the Intellectual Ivory Tower.  
To be a successful writer, you must master the genres: narrative, descriptive, dialogue, exposition, analysis and reasoning.

Join Global Media School and be a winner by developing a style that instantly wins applause. We take you through 10 assignments, which will be critically evaluated and edited for improvement. The lessons you have learnt with us will stay all your life, correcting, guiding and inspiring. Come and enjoy the great leaning experience.   

Remember, you will be privileged to be personally guided by an author of seven books: WRITING TO WIN: STYLE & GRAMMAR; SEVENTH SENSE : A Reply To The Da Vinci Code; WRITING FOR THE MEDIA; TRUTH, IMAGES & DISTORTIONS: A View Of The Indian Press; WOMEN OF DESTINY; BEHOLD A SAINT; JIMMY CARTER: From Peanuts To Presidency.

And by someone whose former students are on Television galaxy: Rahul Kanwal, Executive Editor, Headlines Today; Sairah Jacob (New York) & Sweta Rajpal Kohli, NDTV; Rahul Shiv Shankar & Sanket Upadhyaya, Times Now; Gaurab Kalra, Sports Editor, & Mugdha Kalra, CNN-IBN. 

Don’t miss this opportunity!

How to enroll
THE Fee: Rs 10,000/
Payable by cheque/draft in favour of

SUNNY THOMAS 
Director
Global Media School
I - F DD  PLATINUM PLANET (TOWER I)
Behind Edessary Mansion
Thammanan-Pullepady Road 
Kaloor, Kochi 682017
Mobile: (0)9645692764/ (0)9818405880  
For electronic transmission: A/C 07171570001984/IFSC Code: HDFC 0000717 
Note: Mr Sunny Thomas has shifted his residence from New Delhi to Kochi.

Bonanza
On joining, a copy of Writing to Win: A Guide to Style & Grammar will be gifted to you. You will also be given notes, which you will study before doing the assignments. 

Quality control
You may need to rework each of the 10 assignments two or three times to make them worth publishing. And in your new-found confidence, you might even want to try a book. Onward young mind, onward to new frontiers!   


ASSIGNMENTS

Choose any 10 assignments from the list, preferably 2 each from each of the genre. 

Subjective writing

(1)        The story of my life (a story with a theme, characterization of family members and friends, anecdotes, quotes, suspense, humour and a drop of tear, optimism driving away cynicism, and a healthy philosophy of life)—600 to 800 words. 
(2)        A dream come true (Imagine that the dream of your life has come true, after years of toil. Recall how you achieved it all by sheer determination and a stroke of luck. Build up the transition from dream to reality, on a road paved with obstacles, conflicts and self-doubt. 
(3)        The sort of girl/boy you would like to marry (with word-pictures, anecdotes, conflicting values, parental influence, peer pressure, career and financial security concerns).  
(4)        The person you love to hate (a humorous portrayal of life and times, highlighting social foibles, jealousies, hatreds, rumours and rumour-mongers, and the confederacy of flops)  
(5)        The person you admire most (a sort of role-model characterization, with winning habits and exuding personal charm, citing anecdotes and quotable quotes that make him a different person).
(6)        The funniest man you have ever Met (a spectacle of contradictions, funny accent, uses bombastic words that often misfire, a favourite dialogue and punch line that’s the talk of the town).   
(7)        A riverside romance (an unexpected meeting at a time when the riverside was deserted, meeting someone you have long wished to meet, running a course that you most enjoyed but ended abruptly). 
(8)        A tale of two cities (describe the landmarks, lives and people of the two cities, with a nostalgia for one and a secret admiration for the prosperity of the other).   
(9)        A memorable day in your life (your birthday, a relative’s birthday, a wedding day, an eventful day, a day wisdom dawned on you because you read a book, or saw a movie that changed your vision, a day after your exam). 
(10)     Caught in a love triangle (we love to be loved but some times you are in a bind, loving more than one person, and not willing to let go the other person. Portray the inner conflict, balancing it with the external reality of relationship, and sketching the profiles of both the persons, their inner strengths and external charms). 

Reasoning

(11)     Virtual reality is destroying family life!
(12)     Democracy is the art of creating chaos 
(13)     Higher education is producing mass irrelevance   
(14)     It is America’s right to intervene in the affairs of other nations   
(15)     Man never landed on the moon!  
(16)     Historians distort history all the time
(17)     President Obama, or Prime Minister Manmohan Sigh: who’s doing a better job?  
(18)     Globalization is the ugly face of civilization 
(19)     Innovative nations prosper while lazy nations languish
(20)     Humanity is on the verge of a nuclear holocaust 
 
Exposition

(21)     Truth is the greatest religion 
(22)     Sex is not for sale 
(23)     Education must transform
(24)     Poverty is an affront to civilization
(25)     Exploitation is a crime against humanity
(26)     Morality is not for preaching  
(27)     You can achieve almost anything, if you are willing to work for it   
(28)     Greatness lies in winning hearts, not in the acquisition of wealth  
(29)     God’s mill grinds slow but sure  
(30)     There is a tide in the affairs of men  
  
Analysis

(31)     Is Pakistan a failed state?
(32)     Is Indian democracy caste & creed-driven?
(33)     Is America the best model for other democracies to follow?
(34)     Could the euro crisis have been averted?  
(35)     Can India be an economic super-power?
(36)     Are Indian BPOs snatching away the bread of middle-class Americans?  
(37)     How advanced is india’s space programme?
(38)     Is human cloning ethical?
(39)     Is a 1.2 billion population a blessing or a curse for a country?
(40)     Tea Party or Occupy the Wall Street Movement – whom will the world follow?

Narrative

(41)     Recount the events of the Arab Spring
(42)     How they occupied the Wall Street
(43)     The death of Osama bin-Laden
(44)     Oprah Winfrey’s recent visit to India
(45)     The story of Romeo and Juliet 
(46)     The tragedy of Hamlet  
(47)     One of the episodes of Harry Potter Series 
(48)     A day in the life of Barak Obama   
(49)     A day in the life of a chef in a 5-Star hotel/pilot/air-hostess/beautician 
(50)     The story of Helen Keller/ Florence Nightingale/ Christopher Reeve     

Descriptive

(51)     Describe a person of stunning beauty (eyes, nose, cheeks, forehead, ears, chin, neck, the body, the body language, gait, mood, manner of speaking, personal magnetism)
(52)     Capture a busy scene at an international airport (describing passengers, their anxiety, their mood, the operating system, the smart flying crew descending from a flight, the thriving shopping malls, arrival and departure announcements, the deluxe buses ferrying the passengers)    
(53)     Illustrate a Catch-22 situation (where if you say no to a wealthy family proposal, you miss the opportunity of life to become rich, and if you say yes, you will be a cog in the wheel of a mighty and powerful family clan)
(54)     The most enchanting place you have ever visited (a hill station, a beach, a small town, a hamlet, a riverside, a quaint cave. Immortalize the place with word-pictures, capturing sights, smell, breeze, ethereal ambience)  
(55)     Describe the most blissful moment of your life (a blooming romance, winning an award, chosen for the nation cricket team, elected president of your college
(56)     Give a blow-by-blow account of an accident you have witnessed (in sequence or in flashback, beginning with the most dramatic moment, and shedding rare insights)   
(57)     Recreate a miraculous escape you had on road, rail or air (building up the tensed moments and the providential escape)
(58)     Recapitulate the most excruciating moments of your life (a close relative in the operation and an hour of agonizing wait, imaginary fears getting the better of you, haunting moments, tension building up every minute till the door of the operation theatre opens and the surgeon in appears. In the fraction of a second, you live the tension of a million years! Then come the anti-climax: ‘Congratulations!’  says the doctor, and your spirit soars high, so high that you almost thought you are a ghost!) 
(59)     Sketch a haunted house near a country graveyard (eerie silence, broken by the cry of an owl, pitch dark with bursting flames at random, giving rise to speculations of ghosts, witnessed by many superstitious villagers, the hearsay of a young woman, believed to be dead, appearing and instantly disappearing before passers-by) 
(60)     Sketch a sleepy village (where almost nothing happens day after day, month after month, and year after year, where a city-bird gets trapped living in incredible dismay, recalling life in his metro and the absolute emptiness of this place)

Dialogue

(61)     A dialogue between a fisherman and a fish caught in his net (the fish pleading to spare his life as it is his daughter’s second birthday)   
(62)     The lion and the fox had a date in the jungle. Create an interesting dialogue.
(63)     Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Iraqi President Ahmadinejad had a face-to-face.  
(64)     A tennis star and a fan 
(65)     A Hollywood actress and a fan  
(66)     A forest guard and a poacher  
(67)     A policeman with a human heart and a thief   
(68)     A psychiatrist and a mental patient     
(69)     A winning conversation between a boy of wit and a reluctant girl   
(70)     A philosopher and a disciple     


Friday, March 20, 2009

GLOBAL MEDIA SCHOOL

GLOBAL MEDIA SCHOOL
For Future Leaders

Global Media School promotes leadership by sharpening your perception, widening your knowledge base and offering the vision to change the world. To meet the challenges of our time, we have designed three courses that could help you take off into the orbit of the media cosmos:
· Own Your Own Newspaper
· Writing to Win &
· Bestseller Writing
Leadership is all about change, replacing old ideas with innovative ones, and replacing old guards with men and women of intelligence and integrity. If you are unhappy with the political system and want to invite young people into politics, then E-newspaper is your platform. If you feel strongly about hooliganism that is rampant across the country, then E-newspaper is your platform. To be a campus leader, or a professional of global reach, or an effective educationalist or social worker, you need a platform. So Own Your Own Newspaper is tailor-made for you.
If you are cracking CAT, GMAT, TOFFLE, or Civil Service, you need the writing power to win. Even at college, you need to write well to make it to higher grade. So Writing to Win is your choice.
If you constantly dream of writing a book, then Bestseller Writing is the course recommended to you. Your book will be printed and delivered at your doorstep! Now what are you waiting for? Just read the details and script your success story.



OWN YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER
OR MAGAZINE


· Design & Layout
· Reporting
· Editing
· Views & Comments
Before you become the proud media baron, you need to understand the concept of design and layout. What is not visually appealing will not sell in a competitive market. So develop an eye for beauty right from the beginning. Perfect your design by constant practice, and only a perfect product you should introduce to the market. The Design and Layout Manuel given at the end of this lesson should help you.


Reporting


Reporting is representing reality in words. The world around us fascinates us and, at times, shocks us but holds curiosity and educational value. Reporters play by the rule of relevance and order in gathering news. News is what is relevant to the reader, perceived and structured in his order of interest. And there are three types of reporting:
Objective Reporting
Interpretative Reporting
Investigative Reporting
Objective Reporting aims at faithful reproduction of reality. Reality as faithfully perceived and reproduced. But human perception has its limits and communication (translation of perception into words), too, has its limits. Even the best of reporters cannot perceive and recreate reality per se, but he can recreate the nearest picture of reality. This is what the Professional Reporter (Reporter of high integrity) does and strives to do.
Comment is free but facts are sacred, said C P Scot, the former editor of Manchester Guardian. The human mind is seldom free from bias and prejudice. Knowing and containing one’s own prejudices is the formidable challenge every Professional Reporter faces. But the havoc that propagandists in the garment of reporters do to the profession is no less devastating than tsunami that rips the coastal regions.
Interpretative Reporting
It tells you the significance of what you see and hear. If there is a mutiny in Bangladesh, it will tell you what to expect – political instability, rise of fundamentalism, and even a military coup. And if Islamabad speaks in discordant voice, it will tell you Islamabad’s double-speak signals elusive peace. It is reporting tomorrow today with extraordinary insights and analytical skills. An instinctive futuristic perception is the quintessential tool of this genre of reporting.
Investigative Reporting
It exposes corruption in high places so that the society becomes more transparent and healthier to live in. Paupers who enter politics turn millionaires overnight, criminals-turned-politicians escape conviction, some bureaucrats live like czars and czarinas with their own brand of Rasputin, all before our very eyes because the Press is free only in name. Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty, and when the Press fail in its duty, democracy fails. The manifestations of a manipulated democracy – the democracy of the crooks, by the crooks, for the crooks – are visible in every nook and cranny of the country. Your newspaper could fight corruption and be globally known.


Editing


Editing is inducting style, sparkle and focus into a copy (report). A good style promotes instant understanding, built on the magic of simplicity. And the genius of an editor lies in transforming the incomprehensible into the comprehensible, the unintelligiible into the intelligible, the cacophonous into the symphonious, and the wordy jungle into a rose garden. Sparkle is the dazzling brilliance of ideas; and focus, the sharpness of presentation.
Views & Comments
Every thinking person has a viewpoint but not a comment. Comment is a viewpoint expressed succinctly, tersely, brilliantly. A viewpoint is based on the position where a person stands ideologically, culturally or emotionally. Views are seldom balanced unless the rational mind applies logic, weighs evidence and respects truth. Views could be abandoned, modified or shot to collide. Mature societies evolve a consensus but fundamentalist societies destroy not only counter-viewpoints but people who hold them. Viewpoints are the heartbeat of the media, without which they would become lifeless. The dominant viewpoint that a newspaper promotes is called its editorial policy.


Naming Your Publication


The name should stand for the personality of your publication. TIME, The Times, Fortune, The Economist and USA Today instantly communicates a message that woos the reader. Microsoft, Goggles Coke and Kingfisher are brands that appeal. Your publication, too, should have a charming name, simple, elegant and meaningful. By any stretch of imagination, a title like Graveyard, the Crook or Potbelly is unlikely to be a hit.
Design & Layout
(Text to come)

Fee Rs 10 000


WRITING TO WIN



Writing wins instant admiration and esteem; it empowers you to mega success. So congratulations for choosing a course that is going to change your destiny.
Nothing like doing-it-yourself for mastering the craft of writing. Through 12 assignments, we will teach you the different genre of writing, including script writing, travelogue, features and news reports.
You may have heard of Subjective Writing and Objective Writing. Subjective Writing leads to short stories, novels, plays and poems. The inner realm of impressions and emotions controls this writing. In contrast, Objective Writing lies outside of the inner realm, consisting mostly of analysis, exposition, reasoning and narration.
Analysis is breaking up and looking for the kernel, or the hidden truth. Exposition is explaining and explaining, through illustrations or examples, till it leaves not a shadow of doubt in the mind of the reader or the listener. Reasoning is the art of arguing and establishing the truth. Narration is curiosity telling, or raising the curiosity through a story, which is the art of the storyteller. Newspaper reporters often use this technique to perfection. Description is creating word pictures before the reader’s eye, while juxtaposing is placing two objects face to face to compare and contrast.



Assignments


Subjective Writing
(1) Map your future (500 words)
Define your dreams, see them happening before your eyes, and describing them happening in 10 years or so. Success being a mind game must first occur in your mind and then replicated in the outside world.
(2) The story of your life (500 words)
If you cannot tell the story of your life, possibly you cannot tell anything else. Catch the drama of your life, especially your entry into this world, characterize the people you have known, tersely describe the principal events of your life, confess your love affairs, narrate the phases of your life, analyse your failures and successes, and enunciate your philosophy of life.

Objective Writing
Analysis
(3) Indian democracy and accountability: In the realm of politics, business, judiciary, policing, sports, how accountable are we? Use case studies in your analysis.
(4) Global warming: who is to be blamed? The rich countries, the poor countries, the policy planners, politicians, industry, lifestyle.
Exposition
(5) Happy families resemble one another, unhappy families are unhappy in their own way: Explain through illustrations (examples).
(6) Human cloning could create a Frankenstein’s monster: Phantasize a scenario where giants stalk the earth and human beings held hostage.
Reasoning
(7) Is genetically modified food harmful for the human body?
(8) Is India’s moon expedition (Chandrayaan) a monumental folly for a country which has thousands of villages without drinking water, schools or hospitals?
Narration
(9) Give an eye-witness account of two events that could be reported for a newspaper.
Description
(10) Describe a city, its landscape, people, shopping malls, entertainment spots, eateries. Or bring to life a tourist spot you have visited recently.
Script writing
(11) Script a dialogue between a boy and a girl madly in love with each other in Scene I; and a suspicious mother and a daughter trying to hide the truth in Scene II; and a happy ending where the parents give permission to the couple after much persuasion in Scene III.
(12) Script a modern version of Hamlet/ Romeo and Juliet.

Fee: Rs 10,000


BESTSELLER WRITING



Everyone is the author of one book, says a famous writer. If you have a story in you, we will teach you how to write it in style and arrange a publisher for you. The ideal candidate we are looking for is someone who enjoys writing and is willing to develop an innovative style to hit the international bestseller list.
To begin with, you send us an abstract in 300 words of the book, highlighting the USP and listing the chapters. In turn, we will suggest a strategy for the book, and offer critical comments on each chapter. Once you are through, we will edit your script and send it to the publisher who turns your dream into reality.
Make sure your abstract has the 4 points:
A unique idea
Innovative presentation
Value for readers’ time
A great reading experience
A unique idea: The first test of an author is the power of his idea that can create an intellectual, professional or literary impact.
Innovative presentation: The world is looking for novelty and if your book is strikingly different, the chances of your success are much higher.
Value for readers’ time: Enrich your readers with knowledge, experiences, new ideas, a different way of looking at things, or a life-changing philosophy, and you will rise in their esteem.
A great reading experience: Your style must stimulate, grip and entertain so that at the very mention of your name, the faces of your readers are aglow.

Fee: Rs 40 000 payable in two easy installments.

At the end of the course, you will walk away with your own book! But should it exceed a hundred pages, you will bear the extra cost.


Note: Enroll now