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Which Fantasy my Genre? High Fantasy? Epic Fantasy?
Is it even fantasy at all? For me writing fantasy was by complete accident. Judging by what I read predominantly when I was growing up, I should be a science fiction writer. Especially the more speculative, contemporary sort of Science Fiction like Stargate and Jurassic Park. What happened instead was that I got into Terry […]
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Review of The Highly Sensitive Person – Get Ready to be Preached at
(This is a personal review of The Highly Sensitive Person in Love, by Elaine Aron PhD) A Mixed Bag The information in this book is no doubt correct. But along with the science we also get the author’s personal opinions and worldview. There is also a bit of pseudoscience mixed in with this science. So, […]
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Correspondences Across Personality Systems
This took a while and honestly I was expecting it to be a little more difficult than it was. In order to line each system up with the number five, all I did was include introversion and extroversion as independent factors for mbti, remove The Luminaries which are a little too broad anyway, and Big […]
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Recurrance in Storytelling
Here we go,From The Solune Prince, Draft 3. Chapter 1 Chloe jumped as the metal latch behind her clanged then stopped, dropping back into place. Whoever it was at the door paused and thought better than to walk in. Then a knock rang out through the heavy wood. “Speak,” She said, almost failing to hide […]
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Drafting: Attempting a New First Chapter of TSP
Recently, I began working more seriously with my novels. At present, I am revising and preparing The Solune Prince for indie publication. This is taking me a bit more work than I expected, and the reason is that the first draft of Book 1 of The Solune Prince had some issues. Don’t get me wrong, […]
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Musings on Crime and Punishment, an Unexpected Novel
I found some rather huge issues with the writing of Crime and Punishment, but once a reader wades through that (and through the very weak and tedious middle section), it’s a decent read. It’s clearly trying to do something great; its sights are set high. At the same time, the novel seems hesitant to clarify […]
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Seeding in Storytelling
The concept of “seeding” is fairly universal in narratives. Seeding is when an author inserts clear hints of something that will be coming. I’m not sure if this exact term is used outside of video games, but the relationship to foreshadowing is clear. In the game Arknights, for example, five portraits were given for upcoming […]
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Dr. Tarnas’s Intellectual Bag of Stars
2006, Richard Tarnas, PhD and professor of philosophy and psychology, releases a work that would have necessarily changed his career… This is to be a short article on my personal response to what I’ve read so far of Tarnas’s magnitudinous book, Cosmos and Psyche. And for those of you who are already familiar with it, […]
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Musings on “Character vs Plot” and Mark Hamill vs New Storylines
In any narrative be it movies, video games, or writing, there is often this question of, “is it plot driven, or character driven?” You can ask this regarding any story and find that the narrative tilts one way or the other. In this blog, I’m going to explore some of the tensions that can arise, […]
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Anne of Green Gables: What is Lost in Anne’s Coming of Age
A short paper I wrote on Anne of Green Gables. I’m not entirely sure of the quality, but you can be the judge. The changes in Anne illustrated in the chapter “Where the Brook and the River Meet,” makes her a less believable character. Anne has submitted to ethos and has been deprived of her […]
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Tree of Life: An Analytic Review
The Light is Fantastic! “Fortunate is the man who has found wisdom and a man who gives forth discernment[…], It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and those who draw near it are fortunate” (Mishlei/Proverbs 3:13, 18). The writing Tree of Life is an adventure in style as much as it […]
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The Solune Prince: [Workshop I]
A couple things before the piece starts. You can skip ahead if you just want to get to the narrative. First: This is a lightly edited sort of experiment. This piece projects itself into a much later chapter of The Solune Prince. Short background, the general concept is sort of a “coming of age” story […]
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A Mess of Words on Chloe Rhye
I’ve created a mass of characters, in a similar world building vein to Pratchett’s Discworld. But out of all of them, I think my current “favourites” are Alexandre Jutt (shadow), Yaska May Däwngale (who may be my anima) and Chloe Rhye. Chloe is essentially a genius, but also a complete ditz who stumbles over her […]
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Alice and Finch – Update 2
Happy too am I! Where are you, my love? Hello. I am Alexandre Dirge. And I dub Alice and Finch’s life to be an Archetypal Comedy, and therefore eternal. Now I digress from my memories of their love story to bring you evidence with the help of Northrop Frye. Elements of Archetypal Comedy These are […]
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An Argument for Symphonia and its theme.
This was a reply to a reddit post that essentially stated that Symphonia was a bad game. The poster argued his point by comparing it to other tales games, instead of judging it on its own terms. I enjoyed the critique, but found it deeply flawed. This argument contains some spoilers for the first third […]
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Life and Memory: An Overview of Programmatic Introductions and Mnemosyne
– The Most Artistic Detective Anime (That isn’t Really a Detective Fiction) From a programmatic perspective, the opening scene of this anime is perfect. Both scenes. The only thing I could think to change would be the placement of the opening (put it after the opening scene, not before it! It’s more dramatic that way.) Before I […]
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Alice and Finch: The Archetypal Recapitulation
In this article, I write about Northrop Frye’s theory of myths and archetypes, specifically comedy, using my manuscript of Alice and Finch as a comparison and example. It may contain spoilers, but nothing I thing would ruin the experience of reading the novel. Nine months ago, I powered through the first chapter of a three-part […]