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Life, Literature, and Film

Tag Archives: stories

Over Thinking Stories

02 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in Life, Literature, Writing

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God, Read, reading, stories, story, write, writer, writing

Has anyone ever thought about half-breeds in fantasy? Like half-elves? Half-vampires? How these people talk about feeling like they belong in neither world? Maybe it represents how we are not of this world but in the world. We are both soul and body. We talked about in my Global Perspectives class in college about being in a culture and how the most a person can be in two cultures is about 75% in each of the cultures. One can never really truly belong in one of those cultures. Maybe these stories are showing us how the feeling that we don’t belong is normal.

Or maybe I am just over thinking things.

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A Tutorial on Stories

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in Film/Movies, Literature, Television, Uncategorized

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Arabian Nights, Big Fish, Doctor Who, Secondhand Lions, stories, Storytellers, the Fall, The Princess Bride, writing

I have planned on making this list for a long time. I always hear about people making their favorite movies or favorite books lists. I have pondered a long time what movies I would recommend to aspiring storytellers. All five have affected how I set up stories and how I view stories.

5. Arabian Nights (ABC/Hallmark mini-series) – I was a young lass when I saw this mini-series. In fact, it was the first mini-series I ever saw. This is a fun way to introduce Arabian Nights to younger children (think PG audience). The series does not follow very closely to the frame story but I really doubt we would like the Sultan if he was a complete and total homicidal maniac. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot. But it is so much fun.

This series is really good if you want to understand how to hook someone into continuing to listen or read to a story.

4. The Fall – (Warning: This is a VERY, VERY dark film and is not at all appropriate for anyone under the age of 17. This is due to the themes and the occasional violence in the film.) This is one of the few R films that I could stomach watching let alone think was a good idea. I just like watching the beautiful filming. Unlike most films, the director had complete control over the project without interference from studio executives. It is the 1920’s in Hollywood and a stuntman is paralyzed from an accidental fall on the set of a movie. He befriends a young girl who broke her arm in a fall while working as a laborer in an orange field. The stuntman begins telling a story to the young girl to keep her entertained. The stuntman  becomes suicidal when he realizes that he will never walk again. He makes the little girl help him get the pills that will help him kill himself by telling her a story that is becoming more and more dark and terrifying as his mind falls apart.

The film is brilliant because it shows how the storyteller and the audience do not have the scaffolding (meaning background knowledge) to understand a story. It is a fantastic way to explain to people who you may try to tell a story one way but they take it as another. It is among the most beautiful films I have ever seen.

3. Secondhand Lions – This film is worth the price of admission simply for having Michael Cane and Robert Duvall in it… talking like my Grandfather. (Yes, that is what a Texan accent sounds like.) Two uncles take care of their nephew for the summer. The uncles are very rich and they could have only gotten their money in two ways: as bank robbers or by adventuring in Africa.

The “Becoming a Man” speech is a great way to describe fiction and storytelling. I loosely paraphrase what my friend told me one of the writers for Doctor Who said at TARDIS-CON. “Of course we lied to you. You expect us to lie. That is why you watch the show. YOU LIKE IT!”

2. Big Fish – Tim Burton directed and is his least appreciated movie. It is about a son who is trying to find out the truth behind his father’s stories before the father dies.

It is about how a man’s stories make him immortal. All writers feel that deep need to be remembered (as do all humans). The movie also shows how one’s stories can grow in the telling and how close truth and fiction really is.

What is shown is a fantastical story about how tall tales and legends are made.

Both my Grandfather (who, sadly, died several years before I was born) and Father told tall tales. “Yes, I walked with Moses. I was there when he parted the Red Sea.” “Yeah, me and Lincoln were best buds.” They were too ridiculous to be true, but I  loved being told those stories. This film is special because of that.

1. The Princess Bride – Yeah, do I really have to explain this movie? What can I say? Oh, yeah, WATCH IT!

I was about five when I first saw this movie. Every time I had a question about the movie, the Grandson asked that exact question I was thinking. It is a hard lesson to learn that “Life isn’t fair” but, the movie shows that you can still fight against it. The movie was perfect in keeping up with audience expectation. If you do not fulfill those expectations, your movie STINKS! (I will not name movies because that would be cruel and start a flame war. ) Also, probably the most quotable movie I have ever seen.

I hope all of you will watch these movies if you are interested in how stories are put together or just want to watch something new.

Until Our Next Meeting,

The Lost Writer of Rohan

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Short Story for my Fiction Class

05 Thursday May 2011

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in Writing

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Abraham Lincoln, dragon, dragons, Fairy Tales, Georgia, Grand Canyon, Hestia, John Wilkes Booth, North Carolina, stories, the Civil War, the South

I was requested to post this short story.  So, here it is.

Hestia

            “Hail Hestia, holy hell dragon!” exclaimed the boy. 

            Hestia opened one of her scale-covered eyes.  “What is it, boy?  What brings you to disturb my slumber?”

            “I found a knight…and a princess…sort of,” the boy said.

            “Two in one morning Brenton?” asked Hestia, “And what do you mean by ‘sort of’?  One does not ‘sort of’ find someone.  Are they dead?”

            “Well, the princess is dressed like a knight, but she isn’t exactly either since both are rather rare nowadays…particularly in this monarch-less land,” Brenton said.

            The dragon opened her eyes completely and understood what Brenton was talking about.  It was a girl carrying a broadsword.  She wore a gold circlet around her forehead, dingy as it might be.  Normally, Brenton would have disarmed the girl, but it was obvious this girl was too scared of Brenton’s rifle to do anything with the sword.

            “What is your name, girl?” Hestia asked.

            “Annie Maud Smith ma’am,” the girl said, in the slow drawl of the natives of the strange land Hestia and Brenton had landed in a few years before.

            “What brings you to trifle with a dragon?” Brenton asked.

            “Silence, boy,” Hestia said, “I will ask the questions.  What brings you to my humble cave?”

            “Well, ma’am, we’ve heard down the mountains that you live in these lands,” Annie said, “My family is from England, back before these lands even were thinking about separating from the mother country.  (We were debtors down in Georgia, but we moved up to North Carolina.)  Anyway, there are stories that if a fire dragon’s scale from a certain dragon is put into a cold river, it can stop wars.”

            Hestia sat up at this and paid attention to the girl’s tale.

            “Well, ma’am, we been at war for about four years now.  It is tiring and so many of our boys have died.  My papa died long ago and I don’t have no brothers, so it ain’t my immediate family I’m worried about.  It is about my cousins.  I have about a dozen, and seven of them are dead already.  The other five are itching to get into a fight.  I don’t want no more blood spilt anymore.  That cursed Sherman has already marched on through and ruined everything. 

            We were hungry before, but now we’re starving.  We have lost so much and I don’t think our Confederate pride will let us surrender.  That’s why I came, with this old sword and crown my grandpa bought in England back when he was a merchant and before he had money for the plantation.  The crown was to bribe the dragon and the sword was to kill the dragon if that dragon wasn’t too keen to help out.  There have been rumors that a dragon has settled in these here parts.  So, I thought I might as well see if you be the dragon of tales.”

            Hestia thumped her tail in amusement.  “Well, you Southerners have always had amusing tales.  Why did you believe that there would be a dragon in the area?  We usually live in Europe and the Far East.  I know of no other dragons in this strange new world of yours.”

            “Well, like you said, we have amusing tales.  Nevertheless, sometimes tales are true.  I just pay attention to them more than most.  People say smoke and fire are in the mountains that comes from no human hand.  Animals are getting eaten left and right that ain’t by no human or animal that we know of.  Then, of course, there are the tales of a huge beast like a dragon flying around.”

            Hestia put her long face up the young girl’s.  “Now, about that certain dragon.  How can you be sure I am that dragon?”

            “I wasn’t sure, ma’am,” Annie Maud said, “Not until I got here and Mr. Brenton here said you were called Hestia.  In Greek Mythology, Hestia was the goddess of the hearth.  Now, dragons being called after fire related things ain’t that unusual, but the hearth is the center of the home and peace.  In the tales, it is the dragon of the hearth whose scales can stop wars.”

            Hestia threw back her head and laughed.  “Aye, aren’t you a clever, stupid, brave girl.  Annie Maud Smith, I will take your crown and give you a scale of mine in exchange.  I must warn you though; some good men will die who would not have because you will try to speed up the wars of men.  The numbers of the war will be less, but the loss will not.  My skills are not natural.  Do you accept that burden for the ending of this war?”

            “Yes ma’am,” Annie Maud said, suddenly bursting into tears.  “You won’t eat me, will ya ma’am?”

            “Of course not!” Brenton suddenly exclaimed, “Hestia the holy hell dragon would never stoop so low to eat humans!”

            “You have such a fiery temperament, Brenton,” Hestia said, “a perfect companion for me, but you need to be gentle to the girl.  All the myths are true, they are just not all accurate, Annie Maud Smith.  Some of my kind has eaten humans, but they were very bad dragons.  One of my cousins, I think his name was Campbell, tried to eat a princess once.  Now, he met a bad end by some young knight named George.  No girl, I will not eat you.  I can still fly out and get non-human food easily.”

            Hestia then removed a scale from her arm that was about to fall off.  “Here you go, Annie Maud Smith.  The circlet?”

            Annie Maud quickly gave the circlet to Hestia and clutched the scale to her bosom.  “Thank you, ma’am.”  She curtsied.

            “I have two requests, Annie Maud Smith,” Hestia said.

            “Of course ma’am,” Annie Maud said, too eager to leave the cave.

            “The first is that you bring Brenton with you to your home.  That boy is in need of human company again.  A dragon is only good for some things, but he needs to return to his people. 

            I release you from my service, Brenton.  I am sorry that I cannot pay you for your services.  After all the dragons were removed from England, we left in too much of a hurry to bring anything but food and clothes for you.”

            Brenton fell to his knees and begged not to leave Hestia’s service, but she would have none of it.  She finally convinced him it was better for him to go then to stay.  “I will have to leave here soon, after the war is over.  I will go out west, into the desert, a place you cannot survive.”

            Brenton kissed one of her claws.  “Yes, my good lady.”

            “My final request, Annie Maud Smith, is that you only speak of this meeting like a fanciful story.  I do not want my existence to be too well known.  The knowledge of dragons is what happened in England, now I am the last from that island.  Soon, we will all die out.  I want my name to live on, but I do not want bullets in my body.”

            “Yes ma’am.  I swear to do such.”

            Hestia waved her claw.  “Now go, let me return to my nap.  Can’t an old dragon get some peace around here?”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

            On April 9, 1865, the Confederacy surrendered to the Union.  Five days later, Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth.

            Annie Maud Smith’s plantation was burned to the ground by carpetbaggers.  She moved to Texas with her mother, sisters, five remaining cousins, and a family friend, Brenton Jones.  Brenton Jones and Annie Maud Smith married and had several children.

            Hestia was not officially heard from again.  However, there are tales of a dragon living in the Grand Canyon up until World War I.  After that, the stories stopped.  However, sometimes visitors there (including Brenton and Annie Maud’s descendents) see smoke coming from certain caves in the cliffs.

The End

Until Our Next Meeting,

The Lost Writer of Rohan

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Why Stories Are Important

16 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in History, Life, Writing

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Bible, Communism, Community, Fairy Tales, Folklore, Individual, Jesus Christ, Legends, Mythology, Nets, Nothingness, Objectivism, Ropes, stories, Tales, Threads, Truth

I have pondered lately about various things: Communism, Objectivism, the individual, God, stories, folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends.  Here is something I thought up while I let my dog out tonight.

A person needs to tell their individual story.  Eventually, that story does not belong to just the person telling the story, but to that person’s friends and family.  The story becomes a part of them and that thread of a story is bound with other threads.  Eventually, friends and family stories become the communities stories.  It becomes a strong rope.  Other communities’ ropes become tied with that rope creating a great net.  It is truth.  The net catches us from falling into nothingness.  If we do not have thread (the individual) we do not have rope.  If we only have string wafting into the wind by itself, we have no purpose.

I think that all societies fall into one of two traps: only the individual matters or only the community matters.  Both are wrong but both have some truth in it.  Without community we die.  Without the self, we die.  Everything Jesus Christ taught, everything the Bible taught in fact, creates the beautiful balance of the two.  Do I know how that works?  Not at all.  Do I want to understand?  Yes.

Does that all make sense?  No.  I had to write it down or lose it for forever.

Until Our Next Meeting.

The Lost Writer of Rohan.

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Alone

06 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in Film/Movies, Life, Literature, Television, Writing

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A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, alone, Charlton Heston, Donald Miller, extrovert, fears, God, introvert, life, people, purpose, screaming, Soylet Green, stories, Twilight Zone, Yosemite Park

I was reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years which is when Miller discusses how life is a story and how good stories have a purpose.  He was talking about overcoming fears.  I thought about my fears and how some of them wouldn’t be as heavy if I just stood on top of a giant rock/mountain in Yosemite Park and screamed about my fears.  I then thought about how big of an idiot I would be because there would be tons of people in the park who would all hear me.  Plus, they would probably laugh at me, along with the man-eating bears. 

That is when I realized that truly being alone out in the world doesn’t really exist anymore due to how many people are out in the world.  We are all becoming more and more smushed together.  As someone who spends most of her time around people 24/7 and is an introvert, it is draining.  My dog is even an extrovert!

I’m getting off track.  No, I do not thick overpopulation is going to be how the world ends.  (At least, not until it reaches Soylet Green levels.  Hehehe…Charlton Heston: Soylet Green is people!  Okay.  Need to stop geeking out.)  I just think society makes it so we cannot be alone without going to Twilight Zone lengths. 

I already wrote a post on how being alone isn’t a good thing.  That is still true.  However, I meant that as in by ourselves.  Alone time with God is a good thing.  If we don’t do that, we forget who God is and our story doesn’t have a purpose anymore.

Until Our Next Meeting.

The Lost Writer of Rohan

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Why I Do This

24 Thursday Jun 2010

Posted by The Lost Writer of Rohan in Uncategorized

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blog, history, knowledge, literature, lost, movies, music, oddities, Rohan, stories, television, why, writer, writer's block, writing

Why did I decide to write this blog?  I wanted to get my knowledge out unto the world.  Make the world a better place.  Okay, I have writer’s block.  I am writing three different stories now and I am stuck on all of them how to continue.  So, I will try to keep a semi-updated blog on my views of the world.  In particular, literature, history, movies, television, music, and oddities in life.

Until Our Next Meeting.

The Lost Writer of Rohan

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