Reflections
Coraline: Book Intro vs Movie Intro
The book and the movie introduced us to the characters using different methods. The first thing I noticed after reading the book's intro is that the whole introduction of is a sandwich. the very first line is "Coraline discovered the door a little while after moving into the house" The door isn't mentioned again for several pages where it was mentioned to be bricked over. Finally, the chapter closes with the mention of the door. Even though the door hasn't done anything interesting yet, the reader is already pretty sure that door has a pretty big role to play.
The movie, on the other hand, focuses much more on introducing and developing the characters. The door isn't mentioned until much later. In the movie, I feel like I am much more familiar with the characters even Coraline herself. In the movie, I get a feel for her attitude and her desire for attention. In the book, I feel like I pretty much just know that she doesn't like to be called Caroline
In applying this to my book my take away is that either of these introductions is appropriate, it just depends on how I want to direct my audience. If I want to create suspense and a focus on the events of the story I will use the book's method. If I want to have the focus be on the interaction between characters I will use the movie's approach.
Tarot
Tarot is a fascinating use of archetypes to aid us in turning any mundane event in our life into a cohesive narrative. We perceive our world through narrative. It helps us to understand how to interact with the forces we encounter on a daily basis.
This was my second experience with Tarot. The first was watching my cousin get a reading using the same Celtic cross technique. He is a film major who also deals a lot with narratives and the use of archetypes fascinated him. When Doing my own reading I purposely chose a question that would be somewhat difficult to fit under traditional narrative so that I could experiment with how far the archetypes could be pushed. The question I asked was how is the state of my health and where is it going. What was created was a beautiful narrative of conflict between myself and Hammond Commons. Ultimately ending in my own death (eventually) under the card of the hanged man.
One of the other students in my group was struggling with their own reading so I helped her and did a quick reading in the style I had seen it done a year before. It is fascinating doing the reading from the other perspective because I have no idea what narrative is forming in their head. That, however, is what made it so interesting. As I explained each card and presented the possible meanings I could see when a certain interpretation clicked in their mind and began to understand just a bit of the story they brought with them
In conclusion thinking in archetypes is critical for a writer it is also a great way to get inspiration. If you can find inspiration for your story's in the mundane stories in your daily life then, you can transform the mundane into archetypes and replace the archetypes with different characters creating an entirely new story.
Living the Magical Life
Living the magical life was an interesting read. One of the positives that I took away was her descriptions of situations. She describes the scenes using all the senses. She is very good at putting the audience in her shoes. Even though her views and characteristics are not the same as mine there is no denying the quality of her writing. Her writing evokes emotion, bad writing leads to indifference. Indifference could not be further from my mind.
Her book also made me think about my own perspective on spirituality. My view is very different than hers. Coming from a Christian background, my understanding of a higher power is very different from hers. It is hard for me to picture approaching spirituality in any other way. The similarities that I found between us were that our understanding of who God is is fluid. While I worship a God that is unchanging I am always learning new things about who he is and how he loves. One thing that I feel sorry for her for is that she has no anchor in guiding her through her spirituality. Our souls are fragile things, if left to chase the winds they are just as likely (if not more) to end up in a dark place than a place of joy. As a Christian, we have a Bible that is God-breathed. We have an anchor for our souls as we strive to discover, not what God can do for us but, how we can pursue a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.
Sorry for the Tangent, back to how this applies to me and what I write. I don't know that this will apply directly to what I am writing now but I definitely see how this applies to character development for future reference. Not everyone has an anchor for their souls. The lost soul is a character archetype in itself. And the story of the lost being saved is one of the most beautiful stories of all.
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's Sandman series does a fantastic job of building an original world that is both unique in its own sense while staying relevant to the world we live in. He invents characters that are if not likable at least interesting to the readers. His pairing of art and writing is beautiful.
After reading some of his work I have been wondering how I can apply some of this to my own work. I am beginning to realize that there is a lot of ambiguity as to my story’s target audience. Its content is more towards children but its writing style might be more engaging to adults. I would love to pair this book with illustrations. I don’t think I would go towards full graphic novel but more towards a picture per page of text style.
I have also been looking at ways to expand upon the lore of the book. In the most recent chapters I have begun hiding mysteries beneath the city in a network of caves but I’m not entirely sure where I am going with it yet. I tend to enjoy not knowing. If it doesn’t surprise me how is it supposed to surprise the reader.
One thing that Neil Gaiman does that I don’t want to do is that his characters burn up the world. Maybe not literally although I haven’t read the whole series so who am I to know. There is nothing wrong with powerful characters but there is a big difference between characters that live in a world and a world that revolves around characters. I prefer the first. It allows for mayhem and unexpected things to happen without the author having to explain why. When you live in a crazy world stuff just kind of happens.
The book and the movie introduced us to the characters using different methods. The first thing I noticed after reading the book's intro is that the whole introduction of is a sandwich. the very first line is "Coraline discovered the door a little while after moving into the house" The door isn't mentioned again for several pages where it was mentioned to be bricked over. Finally, the chapter closes with the mention of the door. Even though the door hasn't done anything interesting yet, the reader is already pretty sure that door has a pretty big role to play.
The movie, on the other hand, focuses much more on introducing and developing the characters. The door isn't mentioned until much later. In the movie, I feel like I am much more familiar with the characters even Coraline herself. In the movie, I get a feel for her attitude and her desire for attention. In the book, I feel like I pretty much just know that she doesn't like to be called Caroline
In applying this to my book my take away is that either of these introductions is appropriate, it just depends on how I want to direct my audience. If I want to create suspense and a focus on the events of the story I will use the book's method. If I want to have the focus be on the interaction between characters I will use the movie's approach.
Tarot
Tarot is a fascinating use of archetypes to aid us in turning any mundane event in our life into a cohesive narrative. We perceive our world through narrative. It helps us to understand how to interact with the forces we encounter on a daily basis.
This was my second experience with Tarot. The first was watching my cousin get a reading using the same Celtic cross technique. He is a film major who also deals a lot with narratives and the use of archetypes fascinated him. When Doing my own reading I purposely chose a question that would be somewhat difficult to fit under traditional narrative so that I could experiment with how far the archetypes could be pushed. The question I asked was how is the state of my health and where is it going. What was created was a beautiful narrative of conflict between myself and Hammond Commons. Ultimately ending in my own death (eventually) under the card of the hanged man.
One of the other students in my group was struggling with their own reading so I helped her and did a quick reading in the style I had seen it done a year before. It is fascinating doing the reading from the other perspective because I have no idea what narrative is forming in their head. That, however, is what made it so interesting. As I explained each card and presented the possible meanings I could see when a certain interpretation clicked in their mind and began to understand just a bit of the story they brought with them
In conclusion thinking in archetypes is critical for a writer it is also a great way to get inspiration. If you can find inspiration for your story's in the mundane stories in your daily life then, you can transform the mundane into archetypes and replace the archetypes with different characters creating an entirely new story.
Living the Magical Life
Living the magical life was an interesting read. One of the positives that I took away was her descriptions of situations. She describes the scenes using all the senses. She is very good at putting the audience in her shoes. Even though her views and characteristics are not the same as mine there is no denying the quality of her writing. Her writing evokes emotion, bad writing leads to indifference. Indifference could not be further from my mind.
Her book also made me think about my own perspective on spirituality. My view is very different than hers. Coming from a Christian background, my understanding of a higher power is very different from hers. It is hard for me to picture approaching spirituality in any other way. The similarities that I found between us were that our understanding of who God is is fluid. While I worship a God that is unchanging I am always learning new things about who he is and how he loves. One thing that I feel sorry for her for is that she has no anchor in guiding her through her spirituality. Our souls are fragile things, if left to chase the winds they are just as likely (if not more) to end up in a dark place than a place of joy. As a Christian, we have a Bible that is God-breathed. We have an anchor for our souls as we strive to discover, not what God can do for us but, how we can pursue a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.
Sorry for the Tangent, back to how this applies to me and what I write. I don't know that this will apply directly to what I am writing now but I definitely see how this applies to character development for future reference. Not everyone has an anchor for their souls. The lost soul is a character archetype in itself. And the story of the lost being saved is one of the most beautiful stories of all.
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman's Sandman series does a fantastic job of building an original world that is both unique in its own sense while staying relevant to the world we live in. He invents characters that are if not likable at least interesting to the readers. His pairing of art and writing is beautiful.
After reading some of his work I have been wondering how I can apply some of this to my own work. I am beginning to realize that there is a lot of ambiguity as to my story’s target audience. Its content is more towards children but its writing style might be more engaging to adults. I would love to pair this book with illustrations. I don’t think I would go towards full graphic novel but more towards a picture per page of text style.
I have also been looking at ways to expand upon the lore of the book. In the most recent chapters I have begun hiding mysteries beneath the city in a network of caves but I’m not entirely sure where I am going with it yet. I tend to enjoy not knowing. If it doesn’t surprise me how is it supposed to surprise the reader.
One thing that Neil Gaiman does that I don’t want to do is that his characters burn up the world. Maybe not literally although I haven’t read the whole series so who am I to know. There is nothing wrong with powerful characters but there is a big difference between characters that live in a world and a world that revolves around characters. I prefer the first. It allows for mayhem and unexpected things to happen without the author having to explain why. When you live in a crazy world stuff just kind of happens.
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