Wesley The Owl

New DIY MFA Article on Man and the Natural World, Plus Other Updates

/ saraletourneau / 23 Comments

DiyMFA

(NOTE: Due to this week’s DIY MFA post, the weekly blog post will go live on Thursday, January 26th.)

Nature can play a pivotal role in a story, from thrusting obstacles into the protagonist’s path to dazzling with its majesty beauty. This complicated relationship between the natural world and mankind can lead to incredible stories in real life as well as in literature. So, in today’s edition of Theme: A Story’s Soul at DIY MFA, I explore how this idea is conveyed as a theme in Rae Carson’s Walk On Earth a Stranger and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. It turns out that wagon train journeys and survival on the high seas have more in common than we might think.

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New DIY MFA Article on Friendship as a Literary Theme, Plus #WesleyWednesday on Twitter

/ saraletourneau / 9 Comments

DiyMFA

(NOTE: Due to this week’s DIY MFA post, the weekly blog post will go live on Thursday, November 3rd.)

I’ve been meaning to write a case study on friendship for my DIY MFA column for a while. And why not? Friendship has the power to change people’s lives in amazing ways – in real life, and in the stories we read. In fact, literature has shown us not only the ups and downs of these relationships, but also how they often defy boundaries such as age, race, and gender. And I couldn’t think of two better books to use as examples than Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, because both explore this theme masterfully.

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Writing Spaces, Rituals, and Other Habits

/ saraletourneau / 40 Comments

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Ahhhh… Isn’t that a lovely view? Sometimes I think the beach would be my writing space paradise. Other times, I know I’d be so distracted by its beauty that I’d be better off indoors. But one can always dream, right?

Today I’m sharing tidbits about my real writing space, from my current “Draft #3 Central” to rituals and other habits when working on my WIP. This topic was inspired by recent posts by Jessica Matteliano and Rae Oestreich. In fact, I’m sort of copying Jessica’s format, which was based on questions from a recent #Storycrafter Twitter chat led by Faye Kirwin of Writerology. (Hope you don’t mind, Jessica. *winks*)

Curiousity piqued? Then let’s dive in!

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