Category: Story Courses

Captain America and Responsibility

This is actually part 3 in a series; a long running discussion with one of my best friends not about Captain America and Responsibility but where Captain America continues to end up right in the middle of what we’re talking about. So, this week is a series in reverse. Part 3 We begin with Captain […]

May 9, 2016 | Posted in Story Courses
Why everyone needs to see The Huntsman: Winter’s War

I had planned to do the first of my DIY Publishing posts today but then I saw The Huntsman: Winter’s War and kept thinking about it and decided I wanted to talk about this instead. Everyone needs to see The Huntsman: Winter’s War for one simple reason: so they make more. Those who know me […]

April 25, 2016 | Posted in Life, Story Courses
The confluence of YA and comic books

I was catching up on Variety articles this week and read a commentary about the latest installment of Divergent. “Allegiant’s” performance has some on Wall Street doubting that Lionsgate has figured out a formula for young adult films — something it seemed to have discovered in the wake of “The Hunger Games” and “Twilight,” its […]

March 28, 2016 | Posted in Story Courses
the peril of proper names

It all started with pimchie flowers. The Blue Sword is one of my favorite books and a few years ago I finally got it into my bookclub for everyone to read the wonder that is Robin McKinley. And for about 20 minutes at the beginning of our discussion, all they could talk about was pimchie […]

February 22, 2016 | Posted in Enchanted Storms, Story Courses, Tattered Heart
myth vs fairy tale

For several years I’ve thought about the distinction between myth and fairy tale. It’s an interesting conversation and this is just a blog post on what could probably be an entire college course. In some ways the two might seem unrelated. Especially since we exist in a culture that recognizes the stories that are myths […]

February 15, 2016 | Posted in Story Courses
Fairy Tale Legacy: Enchanted

I know it’s not a proper fairy tale but Enchanted was really the first movie that set me down the path of understanding the fairy tale legacy. I know a lot of people love this movie, and this post isn’t meant to diminish that in any way because it is a fun, sweet movie. The […]

December 21, 2015 | Posted in Story Courses
Fairy Tale Legacy: The Snow Queen

We have this false idea that fairy tales are about weak and passive heroines, damsels in distress. So we are always fighting against a fairy tale legacy that doesn’t exist. The interesting thing about The Snow Queen is that most retellings center their story around the villain rather than the heroine. Hans Christian Anderson’s story […]

December 7, 2015 | Posted in Story Courses
Sci-fi and fairy tale legacies

I really wanted to pull off a sci-fi fairy tale legacy. How cool would that be to look at a sci-fi story that’s really a fairy tale and explore how it fits into or defies the fairy tale legacy? But I couldn’t find one. Mostly I looked at tv shows because that’s my favorite sci-fi […]

November 2, 2015 | Posted in Story Courses
the 80 percent rule

I have an 80% rule when writing. It is the supporting caveat to all my other writing rules. You could say, though I call them all rules, that it turns them more into guidelines. Because the 80% rule is that I only follow all my other rules 80% of the time.The thing is, writing is […]

October 22, 2015 | Posted in Craft, Story Courses, Tattered Heart
Girl Meets World

I’d watched a few episodes of Girl Meets World with my nieces and nephews. Mostly out of curiosity because I loved Boy Meets World so much as a kid. I noticed it was on Netflix the other weekend and since I had unpacking and cooking and things to do around the house, I thought it […]

September 21, 2015 | Posted in 5 lessons, Life