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Westerns, Anti-Westerns and Neo-Westerns
Western is a genre set primarily in the latter half of the 19th and early 20th century in the Western United States, the “Old West”. Before WW2, these stories were a celebration of American expansionism.
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Twist Endings, Reversals and Reveals In Storytelling
Reversals and reveals are vital for creating momentum and suspense in a story. Certain genres are required to be more page-turny than others, and all children’s literature must be page-turny. So you’ll find reversals and reveals everywhere in children’s literature.
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A Glossary of Genre and Story Types
The purpose of fiction genre is to help readers find the stories they want. For a full list of Fiction Genres you can’t go past the Wikipedia article. These are my own notes on genre, incomplete, but with a different spin.ga Children’s literature is broken down into genres, just as adults’ stories are. But critics […]
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Cowboys, Westerns and Lonesome Dove
Here’s the premise of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove: Two Texas Rangers decide to move cattle from the south to Montana running into many problems along the way. CONTROLLING IDEA Detail a legendary journey while including the harsh realities of Wild-Western life to show that the ‘legends’ of the Wild West were ordinary men working in […]
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Anthropomorphism vs. Personification
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human-like characteristics, feelings, and behaviours to non-human characters such as animals, Gods, and supernatural creatures. Anthropomorphism is a similar literary device to personification.
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What Is Magical Realism? Is It Fabulism?
Magical realism is when the world is about 95% normal, but 5% magical/mystical and that magic is a totally natural part of the world.
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Hygge is the word English needs to describe children’s literature
Danes are scratching their heads about why an everyday word they’ve been using privately for generations is suddenly taking the English-speaking world by storm.
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What Is Surrealism?
The word ‘surrealism’ has a different use in everyday English from its meaning in critical discourse. Surrealism in everyday English: I don’t understand it. Weird somehow. Creepy. Like a dream. Disparate things are together and don’t make sense. Surrealism in critical discourse: Over and above. Literally, super-real (from French). ‘Surreal’ is a modern word and does […]
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What Is A Goth?
The word ‘goth’ is used in various ways in various contexts. When applied to a person, what does it mean?
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The Three Main Types Of Modern Myth Stories
In everyday English, a myth is a story which is not true. In a myth, the surface level story is not true, but the symbols running through the story say something deeper about humankind. This is what makes it true.
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Camp vs Kitsch
What is the difference between ‘camp’ and ‘kitsch’? Camp is playful; kitsch is judgy. CAMP: A PREFERENCE FOR REVERSAL AND REJECTION OF SINCERITY I heard someone, can’t remember their name, I think it was on the NPR podcast Pop culture Happy Hour, call the Fast and the Furious franchise “straight camp.” It occurred to me, […]
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How To Write Powerful Metaphor
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge attended lectures on chemistry to expand his ‘stock of metaphors’. Quite Interesting Around 1 in 8 words (i.e., 12,6% of all words) across different genres is used metaphorically. Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John […]
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Psychological Novel And Children’s Literature
Modern young adult literature bears many similarities to what has previously been called ‘the psychological novel’. A psychological novel is a work of prose-fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterisation, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action. Wikipedia The psychological novel is also called “psychological realism”. A […]
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Picnics In Art and Storytelling
Picnics — literal picnics — play an important role in Western children’s literature. When discussing children’s literature, ‘picnic’ has a different, related meaning.
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Continuous Narrative Art In Picture Books
A continuous narrative is a type of visual story that illustrates multiple scenes of a narrative within a single frame. Multiple actions and scenes are portrayed in a single visual field without any dividers. The sequence of events within the narrative is defined through the reuse of the main character or characters. Continuous narrative emphasises the change […]
