The Magical Mundane in My Neighbor Totoro12/14/2021 On this blog, I frequently write about the importance of focusing and enjoying the little details in our everyday lives. Incorporating it into our writing can broaden our horizons in ways we never realize. I’ve finally found an example that captures the heart of this idea: Studio Ghibli’s 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro.
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A Deep Dive into Christmas-Themed Stories12/14/2021 The ever-changing world of Hollywood sees trends come and disappear in the blink of an eye, but there is one trend that has managed to stay relevant even after many decades -- Christmas-themed stories. At the end of every year, you can put your faith in Netflix to churn out the same cliched Christmas movies. All the sitcoms also always have holiday specials. And all the people during December religiously go on a holiday movie binge marathon.
All this leads to a vital question -- what actually makes these Christmas stories so popular? For the Indecisive Reader12/14/2021 You may be stressed out by the stack of books you didn’t get to this year, or the reading goal you set for yourself. But figuring out what to read, if you desire to do so, should not be difficult. At the end of the year it’s important to take a pause for yourself and stress out as little as possible. If books are where you turn when you need to unwind, hopefully this article can give you a nudge in the right direction. Read on for a winter reading guide featuring six genres for the indecisive reader.
Storytelling in The Magnus Archives12/10/2021 The Magnus Archives is a cosmic horror podcast told in an epistolary style. An epistolary story is told in a “found” format, through letters, journal entries, logs, recordings, and much more. This means that the written or recorded material of the story also exists in the universe in which it is being told. If a story is simply narrated to us, the story exists in our world, but not in that of the characters. An epistolary story means that another character in the world could ostensibly fall upon the material and find themselves in the story as well.
I Can't Finish Novels!12/8/2021 I am a writer. I don't think I've ever completed a novel.
A long time ago I finished the first draft of a novel that may have just barely had 50k, but I abandoned it after the second draft. Well, to be honest I plan to go back to it one day, but that was around 6 or 7 years ago, so who knows? Smell: The Forgotten Sense12/7/2021 This past year, I wrote a short story that involved a room full of people watching a person die. I sent it to a friend of mine to get some feedback, and he pointed out a very important detail I forgot that would’ve helped with the visceral effect of the story. He said, “Don’t forget about your sense of smell”.
TW: Mentions of gore and suicide.
Read the first part of this series here. Mistakes. There is no plot without them, right? When writing, I used to think it was a simple cause and consequence process, but the Ancient Greeks seem to differ. Once again, they explained literature through a three-part sequence full of elegant words that sound more complex than they are. In contrast to the Mirroring Process, the Mistake Process does not happen to the reader. Instead, it shapes the character, and it is important to consider it when writing character arcs. Take any hero in literature, and they likely went through it too. The Modern Day Witch: Witchcraft Part 212/6/2021 There are crones in the woods tonight, slipping frog legs into their chapped lips, cursing the villages that raised them, and cackling so loud children cry at the echoes.
That’s how witches are seen, right? Or are we missing something? Are we missing a gaping perspective from Africa and Asia, where witches are something entirely different? Where witchcraft is defined as something else? That brings us to the matter today: defining the modern, Western witch. Why do we see her the way we do, and who are these mysterious witches? And why aren’t we writing about them? Fiction as Container, not Conflict12/4/2021 Reflections on The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction opens with anthropological accounts of the times of early man. She describes how the majority of food was gathered, and that hunting meat was primarily done in cold climates or in more dire times. She describes how the average prehistoric worker likely had an approximately fifteen hour work week, and in the time left over, people had the time to make art and tell stories. The main attraction in a story came from danger and conflict, from tales of brave hunts and near-death experiences. Can’t think of anything wintery to put your characters through? If the winter months in your book are missing that holiday cheer, here are twelve holi-dates that remind us of winter and the holidays (and sometimes Christmas).
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