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Freaks and Geeks Storytelling Tips
Freaks and Geeks is a coming-of-age drama made in the late 1990s, set in 1980. Though it was cancelled after one season, that’s not because it wasn’t good. Perhaps the audience assumed this was yet another high school drama done badly. This show did a lot of stuff you’ll have seen before, but did it […]
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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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Wolf Children Japanese Anime Film Study
The Japanese anime Wolf Children is an inspiring and engaging film for miniature nature lovers. I have recommended this film to people completely forgetting that it is basically a very sad story though, so consider yourself warned! I wonder if the author of Wolf Children was inspired by the story of Amala and Kamala, two […]
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Ponyo by Miyazaki Symbolism and Structure
Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo is a feature-length anime which makes heavy use of myth and symbolism but is aimed squarely at a young child audience.
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Female Beauty In Young Adult Literature
There is a rule in literature that good women are good looking. Though many have tried, it’s actually really hard to subvert this ideology. Many have tried and failed, because the tropes associated with beauty are so damn appealing.
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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Time travel! Romance! Japan! If you love the films out of Studio Ghibli you’ll love The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, too. ARC PHRASE An arc word/phrase is also known as a ‘leitwort’, which literally means ‘lead word’. In order to be an arc phrase and not just a catch phrase the phrase must help […]
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Thelma And Louise Story Structure
Thelma and Louise is an iconic 1991 film, hailed at the time as feminist. I don’t fall into the camp who consider this a feminist film, but it is still one of my all time favourites. I know Thelma and Louise so well it makes an excellent case study in storytelling technique. While I was […]
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The Female Maturity Formula Of Modern Storytelling
When it comes to modern storytelling in Hollywood animated films for children, Pixar is at the top of the field. In fact, The Good Dinosaur, released late 2015, might have been their very first lemon, depending on what you’re looking for in a film for children.
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Storytelling Tips From Juno (2007)
I’m no great fan of many traditional rom-coms, but I do love this off-beat romantic comedy drama blend precisely because it takes the regular, conservative storyline of: mother almost loses her baby and then reunites (to live happily ever after), and the usual movie tropes (geek = Bleeker, but he’s also an athlete, stepmother is not […]
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School In Children’s Literature
SCHOOL AS THE WILD WEST School itself must be so different these days than it was when you were in school. Certainly, having kids helps, but is that ever an issue for you when you’re writing? I was reading about this phenomenon in television and film writing, which is that the references to school are […]
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Shapes of Plots In Storytelling
The success of a novel is only five percent about the structure and ninety-five percent about the quality of the writing. Elizabeth Lyons, Manuscript Makeover Younger writers should be experimenting with form as well as material, like a water-seeker with a divining rod. We are “haunted” by experiences, images, people, acts of our own or […]
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Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
As an adolescent I was keen to get my hands on the complete works of Judy Blume, but unfortunately only a select few were available to me. I’ve only just read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Margaret Simon, almost twelve, likes long hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain, and things that are […]
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Little Red Riding Hood Fairytale History
“Little Red Riding Hood” is one of the best-known fairy tales. Depending on who tells it, this is a feminist story, or a patriarchal one. Little Red Riding Hood is told to children, but probably features often as a sexual fantasy. Elle avait vu le loup – “She’d seen the wolf” in French means she’s lost her virginity. There are also…
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Sex In Stories For Teenagers
In October 2023 a study came out called Teens and Screams. It garnered much attention. The prevalence of ‘sl*ts’ and ‘wh*res’ in young adult literature and schoolyard banter is enough to make a feminist mother weep. Our daughters learn early the same sexually oppressive messages that we learnt: that female sexuality is a prize to […]
