Important Factors:
- Deploy multimodality
- Speak loud and clear with comfortable body language
- Interact with the audience
- Demonstrate the scale of your research
- Answer questions with confidence
Questions:
- What is your project?
- How is it going?
- What surprised you?
- What challenged you?
- How do the facts of your research shape the world of your project?
Talking Points:
Flash Fiction
For my project, I wrote a piece of flash fiction about James Bulger, a major crime boss in South Boston in the 1980s.
Inspiration
I love storytelling, especially movies. In particular, I enjoy watching movies with well-thought-out, complex plots, so I thought it would be fun to create my own fictional world. Major inspirations for me include The Departed, The Godfather, and Goodfellas, which are some of my favorite movies. Thus, my fascination with gangsters caused me to stumble upon James Bulger in my research.
Research
- James Bulger
- South Boston
- Flash fiction
James Bulger
- Led the Winter Hill Gang based in South Boston
- Most prominent in the 1980s
- FBI informant
- Convinced by agent John Connolly to become an informant
- The two grew up in the same housing project
- Bulger used the FBI to eliminate his rivals, creating a vacuum in the underworld that Bulger filled, triggering the most drastic crime spree in South Boston history
- Bulger’s closest associate, Stephen Flemmi, was also an informant
South Boston
- Divided between the rich and the poor
- The poor lived in the Lower End
- Housing projects
- High unemployment
- Underfunded school system
Flash Fiction
- 1,000 words or less
- The most meaning in the fewest words
- Show, don’t tell
- Use dialogue that advances the plot
- Be specific
- e.g., Tucked away from the raging storm outside, James Bulger, a major Southie crime boss, sat by a crackling fire, the only source of light in the dimly lit room, with his closest associate, nicknamed SF. Seated in leather lounge chairs, the two men sipped on whiskey from diamond cut glasses, discussing the Winter Hill Gang’s recent tragedy.
- Enigmatic
- Non-linear timeline (similar to how Christopher Nolan structures the plot in many of his movies)
- Don’t include too many characters
- Pick the title carefully (it should add meaning to the story)
- Make the ending complex
- I included a plot twist
Plot
Indeed, my story is fiction, but it has some historically accurate elements. The point of researching Bulger and South Boston was to ensure my story was somewhat realistic, which, in my opinion, allows my story to be more relatable to readers.
Progress
I have completed a rough draft of my story. I want to continue to make the story as specific as possible by giving a plethora of details. Additionally, I want to embed more facts from my research throughout my story. As of now, I haven’t included enough information that gives the reader insights about Bulger’s personality and motives.
Challenges
- First time writing fiction
- Struggled coming up with a comprehensive plot that would be engaging to readers
- Eliminating plot holes
This outline helped tremendously. Creating a presentation about a semester’s worth of work and research is not a simple task; in fact, it’s quite intimidating. This outline centralized all the information I want to use in my presentation, and it organizes the information in the order in which I want to display it to the class. Additionally, by creating this outline, I have a rough idea of the script of my presentation. Of course, I will not say explicitly what is mentioned in this outline; that would make me sound like a robot with zero speaking skills. Instead, this outline provides some talking points to spark ideas in my head about what to elaborate on while I’m presenting.