Category: Craft

Becoming the Storyteller

jordan bp fictionWe learn the art of storytelling as children. We embellish our experiences, come up with new ones, more interesting stories to tell. This is not to be confused with lying, a not entirely separate art we master in the same time frame. Lying and storytelling serve different purposes, the latter definitely a more celebrated craft, and more enjoyable to be ensnared in.

The beauty of a story is that there is no one way to tell it, and it does not have to be your own. In reading and writing, I prefer the story behind a poem to a narrative in fiction. Longer pieces have more room to develop setting, characters, and so on through scenes. That can be done beautifully and uniquely with perspective, narrative voice, dialogue. But in poetry, the detail in describing a moment can tell a story just as vividly in a few words. I feel like there is more room for interpretation, and just enough is given to you to make the experience resonant. There is the opportunity to decide on backstory, character motivations, etc in either genre, but I feel like poetry allows the reader to feel more connected to the story. The reader becomes the storyteller to fill in the missing pieces.

I love the escapist quality of reading fiction, which is not always attainable with poetry, when the described experience becomes your own. Writing fiction remains a challenge for me since I’m so used to seeing the story in a moment. It’s hard to step back and create something full in a less confined space.

-Jordan Jacob, Junior Editor-in-Chief

Why I Do NOT Love Valentine’s Day (An Almost Satire)

imagesLast year for Valentine’s Day I wore black to mourn the loss of the true meaning of love (and also to mourn my happiness since I was single). This year, I will be visiting my boyfriend’s house and eating popcorn while forcing him to spend hours watching Hallmark movies with me. However, even though I am in a relationship I have a special part in my heart where I harbor my detestation of the popular love holiday. So here are some things about Valentine’s Day that I do NOT love:

1. All that free chocolate makes everyone fat and then the next couple of weeks everyone will be complaining about how fat they are

2. We are forced to consider our own perpetual loneliness if we are not in a relationship

3. True love has become an over-sized, over-priced Walmart teddy bear

4. It is my father’s birthday but everyone who is not immediate family is too busing buying into consumer culture to care

5. Flowers die and make a big mess and use water that could go to kids in Africa

6. Hallmark movies are addicting and are the cause of many sad, lonely people who realize no one who loves them

7. You should love your significant other every day NOT once a year when you remember that your Facebook status says that you are “in a relationship”

8. Love is the essence of transcending the material world, so stop celebrating it with more credit card debt

9. Sexism

10. Saint Valentine was also the Saint of Plague and Disease (Food for thought).

So although the day now passed,  just remember Valentine’s is another day of the year and you have every other day of the year to love and be loved (or mourn your loneliness).

-Stephanie Thompson, Head of Marketing

On Paper, It’s Almost Perfect

downloadI don’t indulge much in relationships outside of my writing. Somehow, it’s easier for me to figure out how people relate to each other when they’re fictional. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I have control over those relationships, I can chose how those people meet and get to know each other. Real life is a lot less simple and rarely ever in my control.

I can think about a person’s significance in another’s life when I know there’s a set story to follow. Putting two characters into a specific environment and deciding on how they connect to it and each other comes in the larger scheme of things. With my personal life, I never know how it’s going to play out. I’m not sure if it is ever better for me to share something with another person or what will go wrong if I keep my mouth shut. It’s that uncertainty that keeps me from looking too far into actual human relationships.

Despite that, I can easily describe my relationship with certain things or ideas. I know that I’m fond of certain things and can’t stand the sight of others, and that I connect very strongly to certain perspectives on societal issues. But take that and apply it to another living, breathing person, and I’ll be too lost to function.

I’m not very good with people or the development of relationships. Most of the time it seems like both those things occur in my life by accident, while I’m kind of just dragged along for the ride. It works fine if I take myself out of the equation and throw a few characters in, make a story out of it. Then, I’m suddenly an expert in the realm of feelings and relationships and I can build them all up out of nothing. I suppose it all depends on the medium through which it happens. Real life, not so much. On paper, it’s almost perfect.

-Ruvi Gonzalez, Junior Fiction Editor