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Pink Gothic: The Cathartic Aesthetics of The Owl House

December 5, 2022

Academic knowledge that doesn’t attempt to create something new isn’t worth a damn. So, to put my own academic expertise to good use, I coin the term Pink Gothic to refer to the aesthetics of The Owl House – particularly, how “Gothic pinkness” assigns a cathartic quality to these aesthetics.

If you already feel a bit overwhelmed – “too many unknown words!” – worry not. I plan to make this post accessible and interesting. So here’s a simpler way of expressing the same thing as above:

I decided to write a post where, inventing the term “Pink Gothic”, I explore how colors and other visual elements in a narrative are associated with the resolution of fears and anxieties – typically brought to the surface by the very same narrative. In this exploration, I use the animated fantasy series The Owl House as an example.

Indeed, it was the aesthetics of The Owl House that inspired me to reflect on this matter. It’s likely (if not highly likely for my usual readers) that you’re not familiar with The Owl House. Again, worry not. I will offer plenty of examples along the way.

aesthetics of the owl house pink gothic
Pink Gothic is all about juxtaposition; combining visually – and ultimately affectively – incongruent elements. When it comes to the aesthetics of The Owl House, in particular, their cathartic quality is a direct result of intelligent use of color, depth, and space
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Fiction Sentiment Analysis: Examples and Methods

September 19, 2022

The term “sentiment analysis” in the contexts of texts refers to a program (to put it simply) that detects emotions in a text. A typical application is for detecting whether clients are happy or angry, but large-scale analysis – for instance, analyzing tweets – can also give a sense of public opinion on a matter. I’m not interested in any of that. Instead, I wanted to experiment with fiction sentiment analysis.

What kind of applications could it have? How difficult is it to implement?

That’s what we’ll be looking at in this post. Though I’ll offer you details and links along the way, I’ll also keep it accessible to a lay audience. Whether you’re a beginner/intermediate programmer looking for ideas, or simply someone interested in seeing the possibilities, there’s something here that will interest you.

Sneak preview: I’ll also share with you a link to my program, so that you can perform a fiction sentiment analysis on your novel or short story!

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Multiple Endings: a How-to Guide

April 18, 2022

Remember my post on narrative endings? I there argued that narrative endings and physical endings are not necessarily one and the same. In reality, there are more than one ways to end a novel. And having multiple endings is a great way to increase the affective impact of your narrative.

So, what do we I mean by “multiple endings”? Let’s start by what I don’t mean: A Clue-like style set of actual different endings (in the form of, say, different chapters). I’m not interested in that, and though I wouldn’t want to deter anyone from trying different things, I’m not entirely sure whether it’d work.

What I mean by multiple endings in a narrative is the presence of interpretatively more than one alternatives; open-endedness; allowing the possibility that things aren’t quite what they seem. Think of the ending of Inception, with the spinning top, and you’d have a simple, masterful example of how a single, mundane object can throw the entire narrative in disarray.

So let’s take a look at multiple endings: what’s their effect, how to gauge whether you need them, and how it all comes together.

Multiple Endings
A narrative ending needs to be neither definitive nor evident. The presence of multiple endings adds depth as well as relatability to a narrative
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