One of my friends got tangled in an argument on Twitter last week about why fiction even matters in the first place. Conveniently, I actually addressed that in one of my recent non-fiction books, so I thought I’d repost here tagged accordingly. This is in two parts – part two will post tomorrow. Storytelling […]
Five Reasons Why Fiction Is Critically Important In Human Culture (pt 1) Read More »
Sticking to my commitment here of getting back to week-daily blogging. Ermagersh. Today has been a slog of marking, marking, and just for a change, some more marking. But the lovely twinny one has been keeping me sane: we did a voice-only Skype chat to keep each other company, and she set 10-minutely timers. I
Things and Elephants and Stuff and Apparently Another Cover Reveal Because Why Not? Read More »
Conclusion Theme. Hopefully, now that you’ve read this book, it’s no longer the scary or confusing word it once was. You know what a theme is (the point that a story is making about how we should live our lives), you know where and how to find it (at the end of the story and
How To Theme: Conclusion Read More »
Chapter Twelve: Empathy Strangely, though, what it seems that stories most have the power to do is make us better people. It’s true that stories, particularly group narratives, can have tremendously negative impacts (consider the stories told by racist hate groups, for example), but stories also have the power to shape society for the better.
How To Theme: Chapter Twelve – Why Stories? Empathy Read More »
Chapter Eleven: Social/Power Structures In all of this, there may be some interesting things going on with our background psychology. Some monkey scientists (as in scientists who study monkeys, not, you know, unusually inquiring and intellectual monkeys) have suggested that when monkeys groom each other, it’s not actually primarily about hygiene and keeping parasites/pests down
How To Theme: Chapter Eleven – Why Stories? Power Structures Read More »
Chapter Ten: Social Cooperation Which segues nicely into our third point: that stories foster social cooperation. The act of telling a story implies an audience, someone to have the story told to, especially in the case of oral storytelling. And there’s a reason that parents are encouraged to read to their children: the act of
How To Theme: Chapter Ten – Why Stories? Social Co-operation Read More »
Welcome to #MadeItMonday, where I post something I’ve made in the previous week, and where you can join in and post something you made too! The rules are easy: post a pic somewhere of something you’ve made in the last week (ish; let’s say in the last month as the hard-and-fast) and tag it. Sit
Made It Monday: Bread (Includes Recipe!) Read More »
Chapter Nine: Memory Aids This idea of matching our observations to patterns we already know is actually a very important part of learning; in teacher training, for example, we’re constantly reminded to link new content with something that students already know, to ‘give them a hook to hang it on’ or to contextualise it, so
How To Theme: Chapter Nine – Why Stories? Memory Aids Read More »
PART TWO Okay, so now you know how to find the theme of any story, and you’re hopefully not quite so terrified of all this theme bizzo. There’s still one thing I might need to convince you of though: Why does this actually matter? Who, apart from English teachers, actually cares about the theme of
How To Theme: Chapter Eight – Why Stories? Recognising Patterns Read More »
CHAPTER SEVEN PART TWO FOR THE PANSTERS* * So called because pantsers write ‘by the seat of their pants’, making it up as they go along, without an outline or a specific plan. Pansters, exploratory writers, writers-into-the-dark: whichever name you call it by, for you, it’s all about journeying into the unknown, letting your subconscious
How To Theme: Chapter 7 – Theme + You Part 2 Read More »
