Creative style is a distinct, particular way of doing something. The point of view is instantly clear. Style is consistency above all. The elements of a style are collected from other sources, contemporary and historical.
| archetypes | quotes | style families | |
| what | Representative example of a common group or type. | Copied transcription of something someone said or wrote. | Groups of things that share a common style. |
| where to find | people, places, animals, mythology, situations, objects | books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, tv shows, movies, interviews | genres: books, fashion, music, painting, sculpture, etc.
historical periods |
Probably the greatest writer’s crush I have ever had on anyone has been on Virginia Woolf. She combines a poetic sensibility with a modern point of view; she celebrates the small moments in life by painting with a very large brush. All of her novels are basically explorations of the same extended metaphor, the tide […]
Writer’s Crush: Virginia Woolf Read More »
“I suppose there’s a time in practically every young boy’s life when he’s affected by that wonderful disease of puppy love.” When I first encountered Where the Red Fern Grows, I didn’t know of that joy. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Beenck, read the story aloud to us, and I was captivated by it. We
I longed for a dog: Where the Red Fern Grows Read More »
As a New Year’s project, I decided to identify and reread the novels that have had the biggest influence on my life. I identified ten, and will be discussing them over the next few months. The first, Farmer Boy, is from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series of books. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy was
I wanted to be a Farmer Boy: first book love Read More »
Master Rules For All Projects 1. Be Yourself Don’t attempt to try to be someone or something you are not. Figure out who you are, who your brand is, who your company is, and then stay true to that. Having a firm sense of identity makes all the other decisions much easier. It also goes
Brian’s Basics: Master Rules for all Projects Read More »
“Dora Greenfield left her husband because she was afraid of him. She decided six months later to return to him for the same reason. The absent Paul, haunting her with letters and telephone bells and imagined footsteps on the stairs had begun to be the greater torment. Dora suffered from guilt, and with guilt came
Writer’s Crush: Iris Murdoch Read More »
Apuleius. Metamorphoses:The Transformations of Lucius, aka The Golden Ass. Robert Graves, trans. As the only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety, it merits study as a representation of a whole ancient culture that has profoundly inspired so many modern writers. It is especially compelling because the novel has its own quirky style, blending elements of what
Methamorphoses, The Golden Ass: transformations in second century fiction Read More »
Ann Radcliffe “Osbert, for greater security, was conveyed from the tower into a more centrical part of the castle, to an apartment spacious but gloomy, whose gothic windows partly excluding light, threw a solemnity around, which chilled the heart almost to horror. He heeded not this; his heart was occupied with horrors of its own.
Writer’s Crush: Ann Radcliffe Read More »
Petronius wrote The Satyricon in Latin during the first century A.D., and it is one of only two surviving examples of what literary scholars call the roman novel. This “roman novel” form is not exactly the same thing as a modern novel, as it combined both poetic and prose writing to tell a story. Continuity was not as important,
The Satyricon: first century Roman debauchery Read More »
Defoe, Daniel. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722). A novel disguised as an account of a public health scare that happened sixty years before the book was published. I would expect a book on this subject to be full of emotional appeals and specific fleshed- out characters suffering and being generally emotional. First, because we have gotten
Journal of the Plague Year Read More »
This past week the Scripps National Spelling Bee featured 275 spellers from age 8 to 15, spelling words most of us cannot even begin to imagine. The winner was Sukanya Roy of Scranton, PA who correctly spelled cymotrichous. The final nine words in the competition are listed below, with their meanings and correct spellings. (Even the
Champion Spelling Words: 2011 National Spelling Bee Read More »
