Last week’s look at the unique virtues of story covered its ability to invest the world with meaning and its power to teach what I termed an ‘aesthetic conscience’, an instinct towards beauty in all parts of life. Today we’ll
Where does story excel not-story? Why should you read a story instead of a work of philosophy or science or theology? Fun is an answer, but not a complete one. We still want a better reason, something we can tell
As the premier Author of all reality, we should expect God to excel at the craft. Scripture, in other words, should be a work of art, viewed as literature. Due to its history, context, and purpose, though, Scripture looks very,
In Part One, we considered the two layers of interpretation (intention and results), their facets, their two modes of interaction (including meta-intent), and the two purist interpretations- to see only the results (death of the author) and to see only
I addressed ‘death of the author’ quite early on in this blog’s career, and frankly, when I reviewed that article a half a year later, I was unimpressed. Thus, today I’ll be returning to the topic, giving what I believe
G.K. Chesterton, as I have already noted, could write some odd stories. In that, he is far from exceptional. What makes Chesterton so intriguing is his mastery in writing those odd stories, that he could take a premise as outrageous
Story ideas are a dime a dozen, but story ideas that actually get written, in my experience, are one in a hundred. Now, logically you’d think that means a usable story idea costs a bit more than eight dollars, but
Nowadays, lamenting that everybody else seems to live in a separate reality is a not unknown pastime of the sane (assuming I do not presume too much by lumping myself into that sum). Whoever you are, you’ve probably run across
As last week laid out, Henty has a standard protagonist, and that standard protagonist seems a bit Mary-Sue-ish. He’s not got much vice, he’s really good at what he does, and he sits at the right hand of so many
Fantasy and sci-fi are legendary for exposition dumps. See, worldbuilding and its ilk is often quite important to the story, even to the point of being a part of the pitch to get the reader interested, but too often it