Have you ever thought about writing a story, telling a tale. Maybe a made up one, maybe a true one from life. Something that happened, or something that we wish had happened. This last week I bought a package of various widths and sizes of paint brushes at the supply store. They aren't fancy; really, they are meant for kids. I thought if I brought them home for myself, maybe they'd get me started painting again, journaling in a notebook or something similar.
The term "journaling" makes it seem more formal and technical than it should be. I want to mess with color on paper, and maybe on cloth, and make fun images. Not knowing ahead of time what they will be, just splashes of color that begin to tell some kind of fun or sad or silly story.
I was thinking about the idea of the blog. If you were to write a story in a blog, would you have to write it in reverse? Because when you read a blog, you see the most recent thing first, and then go back in time. Backwards reading. From the present to the past to the deep long ago time.
So if you wanted to write a story in a blog, would you have to put the ending, and then the chapter before the ending, and so on, until the last thing you wrote was the beginning? So that when it was read in the blog, it would read in the right order? For some reason I've been thinking about this for days, trying to figure out how you could put a storytelling adventure into a blog, and have it read in the correct sequence when you were done.
If I was clever, I'd try to figure out a story that could be read in any order, sort of like pulling playing cards out of a deck, and have it still make sense. But depending on the order you read the cards, the story might come out with a different ending.Or if the story's pages had holes for putting into a 3-ring binder, the story could be changed, rearranged and added to all the time. Sort of like life feels like, sometimes.
Maybe the problem is words. If the story was told in images, in pictures, would it matter the same way what order you looked at them? If I'm honest, does it really matter what order things appear in, as long as we truly see them, and make the images part of our story ... ?
6 comments:
I read a story backwards once--from the last chapter to the first. I liked it so much I immediately read it again front to back. It was Call of the Wild. Awesome in either direction! I think a story in reverse can be very intriguing! The movie Memento was presented the same way--it was riveting!! Stories published in serial editions (like you would do on a blog) were common during Victorian times--Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories for example were published that way in a periodical called The Strand. Dickens' Pickwick Papers story was first published that way too. You would be following a long and revered tradition! At the beginning of every "episode," you could provide a brief synopsis of the story--the opening part of many TV shows do this, like Burn Notice, Beverly Hillbillies (haha)--with links back to the first episode for any new readers who wanted to read in chronological order. I think this could be wildly popular!
That sounds like the Choose Your Own Adventure books from the 80s. Those were fun. But I always cheated. I think that telling stories in different modes is fun. That would make for a great round robin collaborative blog wouldn't it? I just heard about a book that I desperately want that just came out. It is called Lunatics by Dave Barry and another guy. They had never met but emailed each other and thought they could write a story with each chapter from the point of view of a different character and then in their chapter they would throw things out that the other had to work in. Sounds like my kind of fun! But I bet you could do that in a blog as well.
Enjoy the day!
Erin
Sometimes I have a problem with too many words, I can't think about things too much, it is too emotional for me, if that makes any sense.
I can't stop looking at your piece in the picture you posted today....just sooo gorgeous Llynn!
Sharon, thanks for the compliment - that was a piece I created for the article in Belle Armoire about faux amber - I have all those pieces tucked away in a box. I should get them out and wear them sometimes.
I understand what you mean about words. I often wonder if short blog posts are best - but there are blogs I follow by other people that are just words, no pictures. LIke reading a memoir.
Erin, you always have such creative ideas! I wonder how hard it would be to get a bunch of artistic types to participate in a round robin blog? And I love Dave Barry's humor!
It's been a long time since I read Call of the Wild, but now I'm intrigued.
And you're right about Conan Doyle and Dickens serializing their stories in the Strand magazine, but they came out in order. I have to give this some more thought. Do you think it would be confusing for people trying to read it?
Of course, in a blog, you can have it set where all the posts show on the first page, you'd just have to scroll-scroll-scroll to get to the end - or would it be the beginning?
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