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The Sexism Behind Top Ten Lists
Stephen King’s list of top ten ALL TIME favourite books is doing the rounds, because anything Stephen King has ever said regularly does the rounds. That’s why I’m going to focus on Stephen King as just one example of a wider trend: Men don’t count women among their favourites. STEPHEN KING’S DECLARED FAVOURITE BOOKS 1. The […]
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Stephen King’s IT Storytelling Techniques
IT is a 1986 horror novel by Stephen King, first adapted for screen in 1990, and most recently in 2017. This blog post is about the storytelling of the 2017 film. After filming ‘IT’ (2007) Bill Skarsgård had daily nightmares of Pennywise. In these nightmares, he would battle Pennywise just as the characters in the […]
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What does Gothic mean in literature?
The Gothic is notoriously difficult to define. This is a type of story in constant flux. Each new literary period adds is own spin. “Gothic” is more like a skin layered upon other genres, most often: horror, romance, science fiction and fantasy. Where does one genre end and the gothic element begin?
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Twist Endings, Reversals and Reveals In Storytelling
Reversals and reveals are vital for creating momentum and suspense in a story. Certain genres are required to be more page-turny than others, and all children’s literature must be page-turny. So you’ll find reversals and reveals everywhere in children’s literature.
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Carrie by Stephen King Film Study
I want to talk about the 1976 movie based on Stephen King’s 1974 (breakout) novel, Carrie. Critics don’t like the new one much. The criticism is mostly that the remake was unnecessary because the first adaptation was so good. The original has a slower, more sinister pace and the main thing the reboot did was […]
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TV Study: Stranger Things (2016)
Stranger Things is a Netflix series created by the brilliantly named ‘Duffer Brothers’, out this year but set in 1983. Though I suspect strong ‘recency bias’, season one scores a very high 9.2 on IMDb. **CONTAINS ALL THE SPOILERS** The show feels like a mixture of Twin Peaks (with the missing kids and small community), Freaks […]
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Menstruation In Fiction
Menstruation is depicted rarely in fiction. Perhaps you are rattling off half a dozen stories which feature menstruation right now, hoping to prove me wrong. But when you consider the impact of menstruation on lives, and how frequently it occurs, menstruation is heavily underrepresented across storytelling. We need more of it. People going through female […]
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The Magical Life Of Mr Renny by Leo Timmers Picture Book Analysis
The Magical Life of Mr Renny by Leo Timmers is a modern Magic Paintbrush story in which a central dog character can paint anything he likes. Timmers adds a romantic subplot. PLOT OF THE MAGICAL LIFE OF MR RENNY A ‘starving artist’ (represented by a dog called Renny) can’t sell any paintings at the market. […]
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Children’s Literature: How scary is TOO scary?
Writing scary tales for children is difficult, because it has to be interesting without being too scary. How is it done? Where’s the line?