Merriam A. Grain

Categoría: How to write fiction

  • Again, the truth

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very…

  • Fiction and debt

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    The writer of any book inevitably accrues debts, and when its theme is as interdisciplinary as this one those debts are particularly keenly felt. During the near-decade that it has taken to complete this work, I have received generous help from a wide range of people. I am conscious of the inadequacy of any acknowledgment…

  • HEROPHOBIC CULTURES

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    Here and there in my travels I learned that some cultures are not entirely comfortable with the term «hero» to begin with. Australia and Germany are two cultures that seem slightly «herophobic.» THE WRITER’S JOURNEY ~ THIRD EDITION. Christopher Vogler. Published by Michael Wiese Productions More than societies being herophobic, I’d like to point out they…

  • The big questions

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    Where do stories come from? How do they work? What do they tell us about ourselves? What do they mean? Why do we need them? How can we use them to improve the world? Above all, how do storytellers manage to make the story mean something? Good stories make you feel you’ve been through a…

  • The easy way

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    “One thing I’ve learned, Calvin: people will always yearn for a simple solution to their complicated problems. It’s a lot easier to have faith in something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t explain, and can’t change, rather than to have faith in something you actually can.” She sighed. “One’s self, I mean.” She tensed her…

  • Prosody

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    All poets use rhythm and all readers of poetry hear rhythm, whether or not they are conscious of doing so, but prosody, the description and analysis of poetic rhythms, can be as complicated as musical notation, and different languages require different sorts of prosody. In the classical languages prosody was quantitative, based on vowel length…

  • The ouroborus

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    As you can tell from a glance at the Contents, An Introduction to Literature includes practical advice about reading and responding to literature and writing analytical papers, advice that comes directly from our experience not only as readers and writers but also as teachers. This experience derives from classrooms, from conferences with students, and from…

  • The magic kingdom of Storytelling

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled. Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, ‘Careful! A lion!’ Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired…

  • Tales about tales

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    Most likely, both the gossip theory and the there-is-a-lion-near-the-river theory are valid. Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. Sapiens. Nuval Yoah Harari

  • Conviction, utility and stupidity

    —

    por

    Merriam A. Grain
    en

    […] the pre-eminent French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, considered ‘the weakness and stupidity of the sheep’ to be so extreme that ‘without the assistance of man, the sheep could never have sub-sisted, or continued its species in a wild state.’ Fortunately, it so happens that ‘this animal, so contemptible in itself, and so…