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Zombie Terminology
Why all the zombies in stories? Zombies have unlimited potential as metaphor. Historically, storytellers have used zombies to explore tensions between conservative and progressive values. The zombies themselves represent widespread cultural anxieties of their era. Some storytellers use zombie stories to reinforce the status quo while progressive storytellers use zombies to critique it. Watching the […]
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What is narrated monologue?
There are many, many words and phrases used by different commentators to catalogue the many ways of narrating fiction. The terms overlap. Some have called the writing style of modernists such as Mansfield, Lawrence and Woolf ‘narrated monologue’. What is that, exactly? And what does it look like on the page? Narrated monologue presents the […]
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How to identify an inciting incident?
The term ‘inciting incident’ is one of those writing words which means different things to different people. Some writers don’t think in terms of inciting incident. To others it is key to a good story beginning. Some authors have easily identifiable inciting incidents, and one big event to set off a chain of events seems […]
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The Three Types of Symbolism
Ah, symbolism. A key to understanding texts. Also immensely irritating, and an excellent way to alienate keen readers from the close reading of texts.
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The Thrill of the Chase in Storytelling
In the spoof Thriller Concept Generator below, cartoonist Tom Gauld captures the centrality of the chase sequence in the thriller genre.
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Satire, Parody, Pastiche and Farce
What’s the difference between satire, parody and farce? What about the difference between satire and irony? I frequently conflate these terms, so I looked up some definitions and examples. SATIRE Satire that lacks a clarity of target/intent is just support, whether that’s intended or not. – Real satire punches up. – The US dealt with […]
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Talking About Story Pacing
Narratologists have come up with a variety of ways of talking about the pacing of a story.
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The Symbolic Paradox In Storytelling
By ‘symbolic paradox’ I mean the symbolic equivalent of a contranym. A contranym is a word with two directly opposite meanings. For example, ‘cleave’ means to separate or cut with a tool, but also means to be in close contact with. To separate and to join, at once.
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The Electric Grandmother and Resonant Imagery
The Electric Grandmother is basically a Twilight Zone episode for kids. The teleplay (and a short story adaptation of “I Sing The Body Electric”) was written by Ray Bradbury, and was later remade by the Disney Channel as a full-length Made for TV movie called “The Electric Grandmother”. TV Tropes The Twilight Zone for a contemporary […]
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A Dictionary of Witch Words
The definition of witch changes over time. The word witch dates from around 800 AD. It originally referred to men who practise witchcraft but 200 years later referred to female magicians and sorceresses. Later it meant women who were meant to cooperate with the devil or other evil spirits.
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Parts of Prose
There are various ways of thinking about prose. Paragraphs, sentences, words, letters, morphemes. Useful in linguistics; not especially helpful when editing fiction. Acts, scenes, beats. Useful for screenwriters, maybe. (Not everyone thinks in terms of acts, ie. three act structure. Every screenwriting guru carves universal structure differently, usually between 5 and 8 compulsory steps.) What […]
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What is a fractured fairytale?
A fractured fairy tale is a story which makes use of a traditional fairy tale but restructures and reimagines.
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What is the meaning of Save the Cat in storytelling?
Save The Cat was Blake Snyder’s term for screenwriters, though it’s used a lot by novelists, too. Snyder had the following advice when setting up a main character: Heroes should be introduced by a selflessly heroic moment in which they ‘save a cat’ or similar, to show they’re a good person. Blake Snyder The opening […]
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Masks In Storytelling
We love stories about tricksters who get away with stuff. But we don’t want them to get away with stuff forever. We want them to be found out. For instance, when Emerson Moser retired from Crayola and revealed that he is colour blind, he made sure that this one little detail of his career would […]
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Narration and Storytelling: Focalisation vs Head Hopping
Every narratologist has their own set of terminology. It gets a bit overwhelming. Pick and choose the terms that are useful; discard the rest. Here’s one way of looking at narration in stories. Focalisation comes courtesy of French narrative theorist, Gérard Genette. When thinking about focalisation, we consider the following: Writers tend to think in […]
