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Notes On A Quiet Place Film
A Quiet Place is a suspenseful 2018 film directed by John Krasinski, also starring John Krasinski. John Kransinski shares a writing credit with two other guys. A Quiet Place is one of those films where if you see the trailer, you’ve seen the whole film. So don’t watch the trailer if you intend to see…
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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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Fairytales and Modern Storytelling
This is my collection of fairytale links. I’m interested in fairytales from a writing perspective. How do fairytales help us to create contemporary stories?
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Goldilocks and The Three Bears Fairy Tale Analysis
This month I wrote a post on Teaching Kids How To Structure A Story. Today I continue with a selection of mentor texts to help kids see how it works. Let’s look closely at a classic fairytale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Years later, at Goldilocks’ house. pic.twitter.com/PEa3WhhYZm — Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) July 19, 2020 snow white broke…
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Tips For Writing Melodrama
melodrama is a widely misunderstood term but has its place in good storytelling. What is melodrama, and how do we write it? Melodrama In Everyday Usage In everyday English, if we describe a person as ‘melodramatic’ we are probably describing a high drama individual. We’re probably talking about what we consider ‘too much emotion’. When…
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Unreliable Narration In Storytelling
This post more than any other contains spoilers. Sometimes it’s a spoiler just to know that you’re dealing with an unreliable narrator. Unreliable narration is a storytelling technique which requires some work on the part of the reader, trying to work out how much of the story is true and how much is subjective, or…
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Fabulism In Children’s Literature
FABULISM: WHAT IS IT? In fabulism, fantastical elements are placed in an everyday setting. It’s called ‘fabulism’ because authors are playing with realism by making use of elements of fable. For the definition of a fable, see here. COMMON FEATURES OF FABULIST FICTION The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter is a collection…
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The Pied Piper of Hamelin: Legend Or Fairytale? Analysis
The Pied Piper is not technically a fairytale. It is at least part legend. Hamelin was a real place, and it is believed that once, in this German town, all of the children really did disappear in a short space of time.
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The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan Analysis
The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan is an example of a modern environmental picture book, which critiques the historical environmental disaster which was the introduction of rabbits into Australia. Much has already been said about that. John Marsden has done a couple of interesting things with the traditional story structure, especially in the…
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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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Fog Symbolism
In stories and in art, fog and mist symbolises a variety of related things: obfuscation, mystery, dreams, confusion and a blurring between reality and unreality. First, a description of fog from classic literature: Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled…
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The Dark by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen Analysis
The Dark is a picture book written by Daniel Handler, illustrated by Jon Klassen. A boy faces his fear of the dark in an archetypal dream house. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DARK? Shortcoming/Need Psychological Shortcoming: “Laszlo was afraid of the dark.” In children’s books, characters don’t need a moral shortcoming. (In other words, a child character…
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Blackdog by Levi Pinfold Analysis
Anyone who has ever seen a huge unfriendly dog standing right outside their glass door will know how frightening it can be. Pinfold takes that fear and now we have Blackdog.
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The Tale Of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter Analysis
As Marjery Hourihan points out in Deconstructing the Hero, Peter Rabbit is basically an Odyssean story. A male hero goes out, has an adventure, faces death and then arrives home, changed. Beatrix Potter was following a long tradition of storytelling when she wrote this one.
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What is a parable?
A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. Fables are different. Fables feature animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters.