fiction Archives - Page 4 of 47 - Home For Fiction

fiction

Shape-shifting in Nimona: Metaphor and the Subconscious

February 12, 2024

creativity, criticism, fiction, imagination, LGBT, social masses, society, symbolism, writing

Nimona is an animated film based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson. It features “a girl” (more of this in a while) who can shape-shift into any form, from whales to gorillas and from little boys to emulating other people. As I explore in this post, shape-shifting in Nimona is a metaphor that reveals something about the role of the subconscious in the creative process.

You see, there are some metadata you need to know – if you aren’t familiar with ND Stevenson already: The first one is that he identifies as transmasculine/bigender. The second, that Stevenson was apparently unaware about his gender identity before Nimona:

There are times in my life where I feel like everybody knew what my deal was before I did, and this is one of them. But it would be years before I started to see that in myself. I guess I planted the seeds without realizing.
Time

Is that really possible? Can an author create such strong symbolism – as shape-shifting is for gender identity – without consciously realizing it? We know that books often write themselves, but as we’ll see in this post, symbolism is even more powerful, its focus more sharp, when it comes to subconscious meanings.

(more…)

Dealing with Lack of Skills in Writing: a Misleading Premise

January 22, 2024

Writing

art, artist, book, creativity, fiction, literature, writing

Writing, drawing, composing music, and basically every form of art consists of two components: the artistic one and the technical one. That is, to express ourselves artistically we must first and foremost have something to say, but it’s not quite enough. We must also have the skills to do that. So, what happens when we lack the skills?

We’ll talk about all this in more detail – and we’ll have to start with understanding that the term “lack of skills” is somewhat misleading – but first a couple of examples, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

As a sculptor, I have a great artistic side. I can visualize forms, shapes, flows, colors and textures, and I can see my artistic ideas in material form. Piece of cake.

The thing is, I have precisely zero technical skills when it comes to sculpture.

I don’t even know how to hold a chisel (is that what it’s called?) let alone use it. So, practically, I am not really a sculptor.

On the other hand, though I lack the skills to play guitar like Slash, I’m “good enough” to be able to compose the music I want to compose – the art I want to express. I suppose you can call me a musician.

Writing, however, is a bit different. And this leads to certain misunderstandings and issues, as I’ll show you.

painting of a man; lack of skills — I only started painting very recently, since I always considered myself unable to hold a brush. Maybe I still am, but thank goodness for digital tools…

(more…)

Writing Flash Fiction on the Fly

January 1, 2024

Fiction

creativity, fiction, imagination, writing

Today’s post is the result of a challenge I decided to give myself: What would happen if I gave myself a writing prompt and 15 minutes’ time to produce something? The task is even more challenging considering writing flash fiction is something I discovered relatively recently.

I’ve of course written tons of text in general – including short stories and even a similar kind of challenge – but this is a rather unique situation. As I said, writing flash fiction is something I’ve done less – and certainly not under pressure. But it’s important to get out of our comfort zone and try new things.

Here’s the methodology I decided to follow for this flash fiction challenge:

Prepare the post structure and metadata (headings, post category, etc.)
Write the introduction to this post (what you’re reading right now).
Use my Storytelling Dice to give myself a writing prompt. Note: At first I thought I’d just use the first generated image, but I then decided to generate a few, until I’d get something intriguing.
Start the clock, and start writing a flash fiction story!
Check for/correct minor typos.
Add a concluding section with the “how it felt” part.

I’m about to start “rolling the dice” and then I’ll start writing. The story begins under the image below – which is the writing prompt I got from the storytelling dice (I plan to add it after I finish writing). Let’s see how this goes!

writing flash fiction — If you want to try Storytelling Dice yourself, feel free

(more…)