Week 12 Storylab: Learn About Microfiction

 

Micro Photography. Source.

Tiny-Tales - 100 words or fewer stories based on myth or folklore. Collected into books and published on press books. Neat!

Tiny love stories - 100 words or fewer stories about loooovvveeee 😍😻 New York Times contest. Readers send in their stories to be published.

Hint Fiction - 25 words in length. Rely on readers to fill in the gaps since they're so short. Hence "hint"

Six word stories - Six words or less. Can You Tell Your Life Story In Exactly Six Words? That's very difficult. I'll try

I am tired all the time.

There's my life story ah ha

Two-Sentence Horror - Self explanatory. Two sentences. All the spooks. I'll try.

I crept through the house so as not to wake my hosts. When I opened the front door, I found them expectantly waiting for me.

BIG SPOOKS

I think these have such potential for great material. I would love to explore these more, and I'm disappointed that I didn't spend more time this semester doing so! I have three weeks to catch up on them lol I think I'll write some extra credit microfiction

Week 6: Storylab

 

slideshare

Creative Writing

 

10 Classic Fantasy Tropes and How to Enlighten Them 

I love reading about tropes — I think they're a great resource to either get creative ideas from or to avoid perpetuating cliches. This post is specifically related to the fantasy genre. Fantasy is full of tropes — to the point where if you've read one fantasy, you've probably read them all. Nothing wrong with that at all, fantasy is my favorite genre to read. In this list, there are ten tropes discussed:

The Hero

The Mentor

The Quest

The Allies

The New World

The Fantasy Peoples

The Legendary Weapon

The Monsters

The Liege (Princess)

The Dark One

In almost every fantasy book, film, tv show, there will be some mixture of these tropes. There's always a hero, allies, quest, adversary. 

 

 

The 4 Pillars Of Fantasy

Keeping in line with the topic of fantasy, this article by the same author discusses the pillars of fantasy. This includes:

World Building

1. Portal fantasy: There are two worlds—our world and the fantasy world. The hero starts in our world, enters the fantasy world, has adventures there, and returns to our world by story’s end. A classic example is C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.
2. High Fantasy: The story takes place exclusively in an original world—one where magic and supernatural creatures are real. Think J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
3. Low Fantasy: Magic and supernatural creatures crop up in our world where their existence is unknown, or they have such a localized impact people don’t notice or believe in them. The story revolves around these fantastic elements becoming known, and how society is affected as a result. Or–at the very least– the story revolves around these elements becoming known to the protagonist and how they deal with it. A brilliant example is Stephen King’s IT, which features both a supernatural creature and magic in the real world.

 

Magic (Hard and Soft Systems)

1. What means and circumstances are needed to perform magic?
2. What cost must be paid?
3. How does the magic functions and by what mechanisms? What can it do?
4. What are its limitations?
5. What are the potential consequences for using it?

In a Soft Magic system, it’s unclear how the magic functions and there are no known limits to what it can do.

 

Mythical/Supernatural/Creatures/Races

The Hero(ine)

 

 This article is great for beginners to fantasy — whether they're writing it or reading it. I don't think many people who haven't dipped their toes into the genre realizes that there are different sub-genres of the fantasy genre, and each has their own tropes. Many beginner readers may not like High Fantasy to start out with, and would do well with a Low Fantasy genre to kind of begin to understand the tropes and magic system, etc..

Storylab: Stories and Friends

 

Storytelling

(image source: towards data science)

The Danger of a Single Story

I've seen this TedTalk before, but I watched it again because it had been a few years, but it's also just an incredible speech. 

I watched this when I was 21 for an assignment in my Comp II class. After I had watched it, I realized the same thing Adichie had — all of my favorite authors were American or British white men. 

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it occurred to me that I had a very narrow world view, and after that discovery I purposefully started reading books by authors of different cultures and races. I discovered so many amazing books that way. 

A few of my favorites:

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise - a book of poetry. Absolutely fantastic.

Marlon James Black Leopard, Red Wolf - this book is based off of African myth and history. If you don't like grit and violence, definitely avoid. 

Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses - This book got Rushdie a fatwa placed upon him by Iran. Great read.

I think this speech is important for many reasons,  but especially for Americans to address their biases against other countries. I think as Americans, we tend to believe the world revolves around the USA — and it does. But that doesn't mean every country is the USA. There are so many amazing cultures in the world, and it's rather ignorant for us to believe that every country outside of North America and Europe are living is squalor. 

Adichie discusses this when she talks about her college roommate asking how she spoke English so well, and what her tribal music was. I think a lot of this way of thinking has to do with how these countries are presented by the media or in movies. 

I remember my friend from Mexico showing me her home city of Guadalajara on Google Maps, and I was so surprised there was an IHop. My understanding of Mexico was that it was incredibly dangerous 3rd world country run by drug cartels. This is true in some parts, but many places in Mexico are vibrant and beautiful, and not sepia toned like portrayed in movies.

 

I share that shame and surprise Adichie mentions she felt when she visited Guadalajara.

At 4:48 Adichie says:

"What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals."

This sums up my feelings rather well. Africa is the biggest continent on Earth, and the entirety of it is not child soldiers and epidemic. There are many countries, with many people who have different cultures other than what is shown on CNN. 

Imaginary Friends and Real World Consequences: Parasocial Relationships

I had never seen this TedTalk before, and I thought it was so interesting. It didn't have to call me out like that. I looked up Jennifer Barnes' book and definitely recognize them! We have some at the library I work at.

I think the idea of parasocial relationships is interesting. Many people my age and younger deal with this regarding internet personalities and celebrity culture. Some of my friends and I discuss YouTubers like they're part of our friend group.

Barnes discusses this by bringing up Taylor Swift's Twitter, and how her followers may feel like they know her simply by what she posts online. This one-sided relationship is kind of scary. While millions of people know her, and feel like she's their friend... she doesn't know any of them. 

There are many news stories regarding this relationship with celebrities. Many celebrities are stalked by followers who take the one-sided relationship to the next level. 

There's instances of K-Pop and J-Pop stars not being allowed to date or have intimate relationships because it would destroy the illusion for their fans. A Japanese singer was actually stabbed by a man who was upset by her "rejections." 

There was even a man in Florida who murdered his entire family so he could keep paying a Cam-Girl who lived in Bulgaria.

I went on a tangent here — but I find this subject so interesting, and dangerous. I think, more than ever, younger people are becoming more isolated. It's easier to create a relationship with someone who has no idea that you exist, rather than having to put in the effort to create real life bonds. I dunno, I'm not an expert.