I was getting dressed for work this morning and noticed the bowl that holds some of my more frequently worn or recently acquired jewelry, and I just really liked how the pieces were laying in there.
I don’t know if they translate into this post, but most of the more visible pieces have notes on them. Some were hand-crafted. Some I just keep for fun.
Last year, one of the io9 editors complained that the Hero’s Journey is male-specific, and no one ever approaches it with a female character.
But I’m currently reading Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters series, and while the books themselves aren’t impressing me, they’re making me think. Each novel retells a different fairy tale, presenting a different take on Beauty, Cinderella, and Briar Rose.
The retellings are interesting because they do show the core of each girl’s story, and in revisiting each girl in that different light Lackey actually shows how much the Hero’s Journey story structure affects fairy tale heroines. Each girl goes on a transformative journey where she loses something or someone important to her, meets someone (often supernatural) who wants to help guide her through her journey, meets a supernatural being who wants to stop her journey, experiences some form of death, and emerges changed and ready to take her place as the heroine she is.
So, the question isn’t, “Why don’t women have stories told in the Hero’s Journey format?” It’s “Why can’t we see the Hero’s Journey format for what it is, regardless of the gender of the character?”
It’s something to think about.
I grew up with fairy tales, and the princess was always in some big, frilly, pink, sparkly dress… or she was in a dress that called to mind Medieval Europe. Then, one day I watched a version of Cinderella where everyone was in period garb right up until the ball, and then the women were all in one of five different ballgown styles, any of which would have graced a contemporary prom.
The costume designer had clearly tried to make the gowns blend into the fairy tale castle and the provincial costumes favored by the men, but the disconnect was there. Given that fairy tales come from all over the world and all different time periods, it made me start wondering why interpretations are inevitably set in a Medieval or Renaissance setting, or refer to those time periods in some fashion.
I’m reading the Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey, and I find them interesting. Each one is a retelling (some more successfully than others) of a fairy tale, and they’re all set in Victorian England. Corsets knock the wind out of a Water Master. A medium is sent away to school in England while her parents do missionary work in Africa. They don’t break that setting, and it’s refreshing.
They’re considered historical fantasy, something I’ve thought about a hundred times since my days in a Renaissance LARP. I’ve tried to capture it in themed movie afternoons that provide the background to my work sometimes. It’s interesting because fairy tales in and of themselves are historical. They were a means of teaching, a means of entertaining, which makes them perfect to my work.
In writing, there is a type of story called the “Quest Narrative” where the main character faces and conquers obstacles that change her as she proceeds on a vague quest. The process of transformation becomes the story. It’s a fairly common story type, but I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit over the last few months.
I’ve been told, repeatedly, that I’d make a great fictional character. There’s an implication there that I’d worry about, except I’m usually never alone when things happen, and when I am, there’s a piece of tangible evidence to prove I haven’t lost my mind.
But recently, I admitted to a friend that I probably need to try to write out my story as a fictionalized tale as a form of therapy, and started writing down what I consider to be important events and details. Then, I went to organize my writing notes and drafts form old stories and made a horrible discovery: I have been trying to write my own story.
I’m not a fan of chick lit, but I noticed last year that I keep tying to write it, and I’ve been adding in moments from my life. It’s like I’ve been trying to turn myself into a Mary Sue without ever actually making my characters be a Mary Sue. I can’t decide if my subconscious has been trying to call for help through my fiction, or if I let things get to me so badly that it completely interfered with my ability to create the fiction I’d rather be writing. I’ve been wrestling with this for nearly a year, and still can’t find the answer.
Now that I am aware of it, though, I’m wondering what affect it’s going to have on my writing. Will my characters start expressing more of my past?
My parents and I read Dan Brown’s books together. They’d finish them and then pass them along to me. When I was handed Digital Fortress, I was given a summary that could easily have been mistaken for The Da Vinci Code (especially because my parents defined each character by their Da Vinci Code counterpart). While the plots are different, the characters are formulaic. I haven’t seen anything recently published by Brown, but I’m sure fans would recognize the character types in a heartbeat, and would beg for something we haven’t seen before.
We as consumers are an odd lot. We cry for something “new’, but when a creator gives us that something new, we complain about how they’ve forgotten what made their original work so beloved.
I haven’t seen much from Dan Brown in recent years, but I am an avid Joss Whedon fan. After being dragged into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I sat through Angel (which had spin-off pans), Firefly (which often serves as background noise while I’m working), and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Like many of Whedon’s fan, I’ve come to expect a certain style or tone from his shows.
And like many Whedon fans, I was dismayed to find that lacking from Dollhouse. In fact, up until I read about the seven pilots, I was struggling to make myself continue watching the series, joining others in agreeing that the series wasn’t his usual caliber.
Friday night, as I watched the episode take an unexpected and welcome twist, I realized that I was complaining about not having what I was used to. Dollhuse doesn’t feature the traits that have made Whedon’s other shows so engaging. It’s something different. It’s a chance for us to see what else he can do, to give him a chance to break his own formula.
I’m interested in seeing where Dollhouse goes. I miss the witty banter, but I can access that just about any time I want. Now it’s time to see what else he can do well.
I have no artistic ability.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I can actually do a number of arts in a competent manner, but drawing has eluded me most of my life. I had brief flashes of drawing ability my freshman year of high school and my freshman year of college (odd coincidence). I can get the image of what I want to draw firmly fixed in my mind, but there’s a severe disconnect between my head and my hand. Now that I’ve developed a strong interest in blended storytelling and am trying to figure out how to apply that to Dead Bunny, it’s really annoying me.
Last summer, I started drawing stick figures for a fellow teaches. Initially, they just decorated notes I was leaving her, but they quickly became something else and they started gathering a fan base among the other teachers. My horrible little drawings were coming alive and telling their own stories.
The stories focus on this one little stick figure family- Mom, Dad, and Little One, a precious preschooler who loves to read. The family celebrates holidays and spend time together doing fairly typical family activities. Side stories away from the family have been reactions to various things going on. They’re starting to become my teaching assistants. I’ve even turned myself into a stick figure (although I don’t think I have that one).
I don’t have as much time to spend on them anymore, but they still dot my design notebook. If you want to check them out, they have their own section in my deviantArt gallery. But look quickly. My artist roommate is eying one of the larger stories for one of her future projects.
Happy Easter! Happy Spring!
Spring is supposed to be a time for rebirth, new beginnings, cleaning up. Well, let’s see if I can be reborn as someone who actually pays attention to her blog. (You guys can always poke me if I start slipping. Contact info’s under the contact tab.)
As you can see, the website has a new look. I’m not quite done with it yet (and I am aware of the problem with MyTwitter), but I think it’s coming along nicely. I’m hearing rumors that IE isn’t displaying the site correctly, so if you’re on IE and the site looks funny, let me know (or send me a screencap). I’m experimenting with a little visual branding, so the pattern in the header and footer is now the same as the backgrounds on my MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. I have yet to run into another “kirylin” online, but if it happens, I have a look to distinguish myself from them! I’m actually a bit excited about this. (See- a new beginning!)
I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping Reader under control, so there’s not much to share this week. (Yes, this would be the clean-up.)
This week’s quote is a great one…something I think we all lose sight of:
I think I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to tell a story in words. I’m not sure it’s been an entirely successful venture, but I keep trying.
It’s kind of funny, too. I love reading books. There’s a thrill in letting the words play in your mind to create a picture, a movie of the book.
But I’ve realized as I’ve read more and more manga (Japanese graphic novels) over the past couple of years that I enjoy the effect of words and pictures together. I still enjoy exercising my imagination with a textual book, but I’m just as likely to reach for a manga as a novel. My feed aggregator is slowly filling with more and more webcomics for this same reason. And I reach for the manga, the webcomics, and the novels that are able to fully utilize their media to draw me in to a sustained story.
As a child, I studied ballet. I can remember rehearsals as a young adult where the artistic director and the choreographer continually nagged us to tell the story. The story of the ballet, the story of the individual dance we were doing. If our movements weren’t contributing to building the story, then we weren’t doing it correctly. And this applied to dances that weren’t part of a story ballet, too. Our recital pieces were mini-stories, danced by each class.
This comes back to me every time I watch figure skating competitions. I’ve noticed the more successful skaters find the story in their music and bring it out in their choreography. Amazingly, these tend to be the skaters who turn professional and take over my weekend afternoons as their exhibitions are run over and over again on the television.
Even my favorite musicians are the ones who can consistently provide a story in their work. In their lyrics. In the music if there are no lyrics. I love the story. My favorite band at the moment is my favorite band, simply because their lyricist is a fantastic storyteller.
Thinking about it, I’ve come to realize that the medium has little to do with a good story. The story is the story on its own merit, and the medium is the vehicle delivering the story. I don’t know if that will help me at all, but someone else might find it interesting.
First, I have to apologize you to you guys about Friday. I have no idea why I didn’t blog, except that dealing with Real Life has been something akin to wrestling a dragon. This actually has a lot to do with why the Sunday Link Dump is coming to you on Monday instead of Sunday. The past few days have been a bit rough.
(I normally sort out Reader on Saturday nights, but that just wasn’t possible, so I’m trying to get everything sorted to its rightful spot and only share with you the leftovers, because otherwise this would be a really long post of links to things I only wanted to quickly check out but didn’t have time for.)
I’m really starting to think about story and how it plays into my teaching, so I’m reading and re-reading this post on seven types of stories. Really fascinating, actually. It gives me a lot to think about.
Naturally, I’m holding onto the link to one of the torrents for last weekend’s GX episode.
This is a pretty cool little animation set to jazz. I found it in a list of other animations. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love both Fantasia movies?)
I have been recognized as a Blogger with Integrity. It’s for another of my blogs, but it’s all kind of the same. Now, I just have to find other people to bestow this on…in my spare time.
There are also a pair of Change This manifestos that I’m sure will be read at the end of November or beginning of December when I have free time again.
I also have this very true quote:
“The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”- C.S. Lewis (Source)
I really feel this post on cartooning says it all, but honestly when you combine images and words, you are tapping into two learning modalities. You’re engaging the reader’s mind on two levels. That’s twice the opportunity to have your message sink in.
Something to keep in mind when developing products designed to make a point…
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