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Loneliness in Art and Storytelling
Edward Hopper was a master at depicting loneliness with paint. The sense of isolation is achieved with colour and composition. Eyes don’t meet, or not at the same time. Body language is closed off. Figures are small inside vast spaces, their heads far from the top of the canvas. They gaze from windows as if…
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How To Write Like Alice Munro
**UPDATE LATE 2024** After Alice Munro died, we learned about the real ‘open secrets’ (not so open to those of us not in the loop) which dominated the author’s life. We must now find a way to live with the reality that Munro’s work reads very differently after knowing certain decisions she made when faced…
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Swamps, Marshes, Quicksand And Sinking In Storytelling
Here’s one little-known aspect of existing as a Gen X — the fear of sinking to death in sand. Perhaps you escaped this particular horror if your television exposure was moderated, but I’ve asked around, and I’m not the only child of the 80s to approach wet, sandy areas with extreme caution. Films and cartoons…
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Symbolism and The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst Short Story Analysis
What can I say about “The Scarlet Ibis” that isn’t on Wikipedia? This 1960 short story is loved by English teachers because of its clear literary symbols — a good introduction to symbolism, especially to colour symbolism. COLOUR SYMBOLISM Students can be highly suspicious of close reading when teachers talk about colours and their symbolism. Colours…
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Body Swap Stories
Body swap stories are as ancient as story itself. Take the British folk tale The Witch-hare of Cleveland. A local witch tells some farmers where to find a hare they can hunt, but warns them not to set a black dog on it. They set a black dog on it, of course. That’s how fairytales…
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Who’s-Dead McCarthy by Kevin Barry Analysis
In the short story “Who’s-Dead McCarthy“, Irish short story writer Kevin Barry takes someone’s darkly morbid fascination with death and exaggerates it in a story-length character sketch — a man who talks about death so incessantly that people cross the road to avoid him. It’s wonderful. I think humour only ever exists in something that…
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What Is Remembered by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“What Is Remembered” by Alice Munro appears in the print edition of the February 19, 2001, issue of The New Yorker. It was also published in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. Looking back as an old lady, this short story focuses on several days across one young woman’s life in which she hooks up…
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The Tiredness of Rosabel by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
Outside school magazines, “The Tiredness of Rosabel” was Katherine Mansfield’s first published story (1908, when Mansfield was 20 years old). Already we can see features the author became known for: WHAT HAPPENS IN “THE TIREDNESS OF ROSABEL” Rosabel takes a bus home after a tiring day working in a millinery shop. She thinks of a…
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How To Describe A Woman In Fiction
How to describe woman characters in fiction? There must be a handbook somewhere. The following tropes are so common they can be found throughout literature, including in stories for children. On the other hand, writers of children’s literature are also the most likely to invert established tropes.
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Story Structure: The Plan
In life we frequently fly by the seat of our pants. In fact, that may be the default. Plans are illusory. But precisely because life is so unstable and subject to change, characters in stories do need a plan. Even passive character types need to be actively passive. Initial plans will most likely change. There’s…
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Story Structure: Character Desire
Kurt Vonnegut famously advised writers: Characters must want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.
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Chicken Little, Cassandra and Modern Horror
Chicken Little (mostly America) is also known as Chicken Licken or Henny Penny (mostly Britain). I hope the current generation of children don’t grow up thinking the 2005 animated movie version of Chicken Little has much to do with earlier versions of this story. The movie log line sounds okay on paper: “After ruining his…
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My Summer Of Love Film Study
My Summer Of Love is a 2004 film based on a novel by Helen Cross set in 1984. If you’ve seen Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994), My Summer Of Love bears similarities: A relationship of romantic infatuation between two teenage girls from very different backgrounds. This film puts the relationship between the girls to the forefront,…
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The Magical Age of Twelve
Being alone is a newness to a twelve-year-old child. He is so used to people about. The only way he can be alone is in his mind. There are so many real people around, telling children what and how to do, that a boy has to run off down a beach, even if it’s only…
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What Is A “Coming-of-age” Story?
Coming-of-age is a type of story in which a young person becomes an adult, or heads in that direction. There are many children’s stories (or stories about children) about a child losing their innocence. When that character is a bit older (adolescent) then it’s called a coming-of-age story. Sometimes people think they know you. They know…