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Storytelling Tips From Anne Of Green Gables
Revisiting Anne Of Green Gables as an adult reader, several things stick out: Listen to Anne of Green Gables for free at Librivox THE INFLUENCE OF CINDERELLA In real life, the character of Anne Shirley would be a lifelong social workers’ project. Her parents died of ‘the fever’ when she was an infant and since […]
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Kiki’s Delivery Service Symbolism and Story Structure
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a Studio Ghibli film released in 1989. This film was always popular in Japan but — though it’s hard to remember now — Studio Ghibli films didn’t take off in the West until 1997 with the release of Princess Mononoke.
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Describing Emotions and Physiological Reactions In Fiction
I can do everything with my language, but not with my body. What I hide by my language, my body utters. I can deliberately mold my message, not my voice. […] My body is a stubborn child, my language is a very civilized adult. Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse Descriptions of physiological reactions are hard to […]
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Storytelling Notes On A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2017)
Daniel Handler wrote the teleplay (as well as the books) to the Netflix adaptation of A Series Of Unfortunate Events. The author’s voice and politics come through loud and clear.
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How to Create Conflict in Literature
Every interesting main character in every story needs a worthy opponent. The opponent makes the main character interesting. The main character learns through their opponent. The opponent attacks the main character’s great shortcoming. The main character deals with their own great shortcoming and grows as a result.
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The Amazing Bone by William Steig Analysis
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of William Steig’s The Amazing Bone. This is remarkable because it feels, in some ways, like a much more modern picture book than that. This is all to do with Steig’s voice. Pearl is at no point mortally afraid. We know and she knows that this is a storybook world in […]
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The Great Fusilli Courage The Cowardly Dog
STORY STRUCTURE OF THE GREAT FUSILLI The Great Fusilli is the last Courage story of season one and it is fitting that the creators have made a work of metafiction — in other words, the audience is reminded that they are watching a TV show. WEAKNESS/NEED Courage: That it’s up to him to save the […]
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Little Muriel Courage The Cowardly Dog
Often in stories with a very small character there is some metaphorical/thematic reason for it, but in this case Muriel’s regression to the body and mind of a 3 and a half year old is pure fun. In other words, this is a carnivalesque story.
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The Snowman Cometh Courage The Cowardly Dog
In The Snowman Cometh episode of Courage is interesting for the way in which the writers comically represent a part of science which is difficult to understand and even harder to portray on screen. SETTING Most of the Courage episodes are set in the Bagge family home in the middle of Nowhere but by this […]
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The Hunchback Of Nowhere Courage The Cowardly Dog
“The Hunchback of Nowhere” is an episode from the first season of Courage The Cowardly Dog. As ever, this modern re-visioning takes inspiration from a wide history of storytelling, including from The Bible. Any adult viewer will know immediately that this is inspired at least partly by The Hunchback of Notre Dame, though the writers can’t […]
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The Clutching Foot Courage The Cowardly Dog
This episode of Courage seems to be a parody of an episode of a TV serial from the 1930s based on a novel by Arthur Reeve. It is called “The Clutching Hand” and is about a detective named Craig Kennedy. This serialised original includes the following elements: A get rich quick scheme Assuming a false identity Criminals […]
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King Ramses’ Curse Courage The Cowardly Dog
In the “King Ramses’ Curse” episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog we have three plagues — since storytelling loves The Rule Of Three — and the plagues comprise a mixture of ancient and comically modern curses. This horror comedy for children takes inspiration from ancient holy texts such as found in the Bible and in the […]
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Shirley The Medium Courage The Cowardly Dog
“Shirley The Medium” is an original recomposition of elements from diverse sources: Pandora’s Box, the Ancient Greek Myth A Christmas Carol, Dickens Modern TV psychics STORY STRUCTURE OF SHIRLEY THE MEDIUM SHORTCOMING Courage is unable to tell Eustace not to open the box. He is a dog and can’t speak English. Besides that, the adults don’t […]
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Mother’s Day Courage The Cowardly Dog
“Mother’s Day” is an episode from season one of Courage The Cowardly Dog. This is where we get some of Eustace’s back story. Until this point in the series, Eustace Bagge has been a singularly unpleasant character. We haven’t see what made him the way he is. In this episode, for the first time, we […]
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Night Of The Weremole Courage The Cowardly Dog
The folklore of the werewolf is great fodder for a horror comedy and it was bound to be used sooner or later. Others have made new creatures out of the werewolf story — Wallace and Grommit have The Curse Of The Wererabbit, for instance, in which they take a cute, fluffy animal that can’t (directly) […]