Thinking through hero’s journey and story archetypes (newbie here!) and was watching the recent Pixar movie Moana. My question is, what do you see as the function of or reason for a story to choose a relatively inanimate/neutral sidekick like Heihei (Moana’s chicken, that, though providing some minor key plot points, does not have a perspective, personality, “stake in the game,” etc.) or Wilson (the volleyball) from Castaway?
These are both ocean-journey stories, where the hero(ine) needs uninterrupted deep personal reflection. Maybe that’s enough of a reason? It seems unusual, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Magic is cool, and weapons are cool, so you know what would be the coolest? Magic weapons, which is what we’re talking about this week. Despite being nearly ubiquitous across all genres of speculative fiction, magic weapons can be tricky to work with. What are … read more »
The more characters in a story, the greater burden it is under. Ideally, each character’s narrative will weave together into the throughline, but that doesn’t always happen. Instead, stories often fracture under the pressure of an oversize cast, splitting off into unrelated plots. In the most … read more »
When new players are introduced to roleplaying games, they are usually encouraged to do whatever their characters would do in the narrative. If only it were that simple. While getting into character is a great thing, the best roleplayers balance it against what their group expects … read more »
In the beginning, a human told a story, and another human said it was not good. Thus was born the tradition of literary criticism, which is what we’re talking about today. We’ll discuss the different schools of criticism, whether reviews are a type of criticism, … read more »
The Lessons From Bad Writing series has long been one of our most popular segments here at Mythcreants, and for good reason. Authors learn a lot from seeing a popular book’s early chapters broken down and analyzed, and spec fic fans enjoy our snarky comments. But … read more »
Known by different names, teleportation is the ability to instantly transport oneself from one location to another. Through the years and across mediums, characters have wielded this magnificent power and filled us with envy at the convenience it provides. In particular, it makes for a … read more »
So, this is from roleplaying games, but I feel it is relevant to wider fiction. I was looking through a bunch of small roleplaying games I got cheap, and found one whose reveal was that the fairly generic demons who were the main antagonists were … read more »
Have you heard of this thing called literary fiction? We have, but we’re not quite certain what it is or why it matters. And we’re not the only ones who are confused. This week we get deep into what “literary” means, and how much writers … read more »
